## Preface

I was born on the run (but I'll die holding your hand)
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at https://archiveofourown.org/works/49252144.

Rating:
  Explicit
Archive Warning:
  Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category:
  F/M
Fandom:
  Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Relationship:
  Jason "J. D." Dean/Veronica Sawyer
Characters:
  Veronica Sawyer, Jason "J. D." Dean
Additional Tags:
  Smut, Shameless Smut, Fluff and Smut, Porn with Feelings, Song: Dead Girl Walking, Making Out, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Enthusiastic Consent, Safe Sane and Consensual, Safe Sex is Sexy, I'm not tagging this as underage because they're over the age of consent, Loss of Virginity, I know everyone in the fandom has done their own take on this but we've all gotta start somewhere, Post-Coital Cuddling, Breaking and Entering, Jason "J. D." Dean Loves Veronica Sawyer, it's early days but he likes her so much, Sleepy Cuddles, Sleepy Kisses, Canon Compliant, Drunk Veronica Sawyer, or well. she's mostly sobered up at this point, speaking from experience if you chunder before the point of passing out you'll be grand
Language:
  English
Series:
  Part 1 of In Another Life
Stats:
  Published: 2023-08-10 Words: 7,447 Chapters: 1/1

# I was born on the run (but I'll die holding your hand)

by QueerCosette

Summary

> “I figured I have until eight AM on Monday morning to have my last bit of fun before she ruins my reputation beyond repair, so… Iwasgoingtoaskifyouwantedtohavesexwithme.”

> JD stares at her, his mouth falling open slightly in surprise. She hopes to god it’s good surprise and not the bad kind.

> “Me…” he chokes out, after an agonizingly long silence that really only lasts ten seconds, “with… you?”

> Veronica feels her cheeks flush with mortification. She should never have done this. She should have just gone home and waited for Heather’s revenge to rain down on her -

> “Yes.”

> Alternative titles for this fic included Dead Girl Walking (one more time with feelings), Shameless Jdonica Fluffy Smut, and Fucking Hell I Can't Believe They Fucked In Comic Sans (Writer's Block Sucks).

Notes

> This is the most explicit thing I have ever written. Let's get that out of the way right now. Anyway I'm currently experiencing the fourth and final pre-age-30 personality crisis, and it's mostly manifesting in a rerun of my 2017-18 Heathers hyperfixation, only funnier this time because I now have access to the phrase 'Have you considered that I love him, your honor?'

> This fic also contains a brief reference to So I Can See My Baby When I Leave This World (https://archiveofourown.org/works/24048562/chapters/57868657), an absolutely fantastic fic by GlassGeorgeGlass that you should 100% read if you ship JDonica, which also definitely inspired the addition of song lyrics at the start and end. Perhaps slightly pre-2010 of me, but it felt right.

> If you follow me on Tumblr @queer-cosette, yeah, this is the fic that took me out with two inappropriate emojis, the realisation that I was going to have to write in comic sans if I wanted to get anywhere, and finally the phrase '10/10 would recommend to a friend', which I thankfully managed to find a much more suitable alternative to. Hopefully the result is worth having to go through that entire saga.

> Fic title comes from Avril Lavigne's Kiss Me Like The World Is Ending, not exactly era-appropriate but trust me it's a JDonica song.

See the end of the work for more notes

## I was born on the run (but I'll die holding your hand)

Tick tock, should’ve known the time was coming -
Yeah, it’s just like me to be kinda all-or-nothing.
I can’t stop, try to catch me if you can;
I was born on the run, but I’ll die holding your hand.

- Avril Lavigne, Kiss Me Like The World Is Ending

September nights are cold as shit in Ohio, Veronica Sawyer thinks bitterly to herself as she stumbles down the sidewalk on a street three blocks from Ram Sweeney’s house. God, this state fucking sucks. Well, maybe that’s not fair, maybe there are nice parts of Ohio - she remembers a slightly crass joke Heather Duke had made two weeks ago, the day Heather McNamara’s canary had died, when Veronica had attempted to comfort the distraught Head Cheerleader by telling her that Tweety McNamara III was in a better place now:

“You don’t need to die to get to a better place than Sherwood, Ohio; you just have to drive fifty miles in any direction.”

Heather Chandler had chastised her harshly for that one, caring less about Tweety Number Three’s untimely demise than making sure Duke knew her place in the pecking order.

Hah. Pecking order. Veronica lets out a strangled laugh that sounds more like a sob, and pulls her jean jacket tighter around her shoulders to stave off the cold. Bringing up nine drinks at once didn’t sober her up half as fast as the realization that Heather Chandler, the Demon Queen of Westerburg High, is going to fucking destroy her on Monday. Veronica’s head is going to be stuffed and mounted above Heather’s bed before the bell rings for first period.

“Why did Martha have to come to the frigging party?” she asks the night. The darkness doesn’t reply. “God, no, why does Heather Chandler have to be such a mega-bitch? Why couldn’t she have chosen someone else to prank with that stupid note? Why didn’t I suggest someone else? Courtney, she fucking hates Courtney, that would have been hilarious. I would have gladly pranked ‘oh look at this scarf that costs more than your house that I bought to drop shrimp on at the country club’ Courtney. But no, instead I fucked over my oldest friend and then to put the cherry on top of the shit sundae I go and fuck myself over too.”

Silence. She should get used to it; no one’s going to talk to her again after this. Except maybe Martha, but honestly, if anyone has a right to ostracize Veronica Sawyer, it’s Martha Dunnstock. Veronica lets out a miserable little sigh. Martha’s too sweet to realize what a terrible person Veronica is. Too firm in her belief that everyone is good at heart when it comes down to it to even consider that Veronica could ever be a terrible person.

Too naïve to twig that Ram ‘wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am’ Sweeney would never have given someone with the nickname ‘Martha Dumptruck’ a hand-written invitation to his homecoming party with an xo after the signature, Veronica thinks spitefully, and immediately hates herself for it. As desperate as she is to shift the blame for tonight onto someone who isn’t herself, that part is definitely her fault.

She wrote the note. She flawlessly copied Ram’s handwriting. She added the damn xo.

She let the Heathers slip it onto Martha’s lunch tray.

She’s not just a terrible person. She’s a coward.

With that bitter realization ringing in her head, Veronica pauses to rummage through her pockets for the pack of wintergreen Breath Savers Heather Duke had recommended she bring. She doesn’t know why everyone on the bottom of the Westerburg food chain is so convinced that going to keggers and getting wasted is the height of glamor. Being included was the only nice part; everything else about it just wasn’t worth the shame spiral she’s currently experiencing.

God. She can’t go home like this. Her original plan was to sleep over at Heather McNamara’s and hang out there until her hangover wore off. (Will she even get a hangover now? All the alcohol she’d consumed ended the night spattered across Ram’s pool deck and Heather Chandler’s shoes.) She’s certainly not drunk any more, but she still smells of booze. And weed. And general disgrace.

And, shit, even if she had an explanation to give her parents as to why she’s home twelve hours ahead of schedule and stinking of bad decisions, her keys are in the overnight bag she left at Heather’s because she didn’t want to risk losing them at the party.

Home isn’t an option. Neither is Heather McNamara’s, for obvious reasons. And she doesn’t much fancy wandering around the streets for the rest of the night. It’s Sherwood, hardly the violent crime capital of the US or even Ohio, but it’s still dark and cold and creepily silent.

As far as she can tell, the only option left for Veronica Sawyer is changing her name and taking off to start a new life as far away from Sherwood as possible. Seattle, maybe. Yeah, Seattle’s good. She can get a job in a coffee shop and become a writer who publishes under a pseudonym, and who the fuck is she kidding? She doesn’t have a car. She doesn’t even have a - motorbike?

Her gaze is caught by the definite silhouette of a motorbike under a black cover parked outside a single-story house across the street. It’s the only house on the block that still has a light on - a pretty dim light, but still unusual for this town at this time. That would be unusual in and of itself, never mind the fact that no one rides motorbikes in Sherwood. No one except…

“That’s your bike parked outside, right? It’s really very.”

A little half-smile. “Yeah, just a humble perk from my dad’s construction company. Or should I say deconstruction?”

“I don’t know, should you?”

Dark messy hair. Vividly blue eyes. Lips stained red from a 7-Eleven Slurpee, lips she’d desperately wanted to try kissing, to see if they tasted of cherry syrup like she’d thought they might. A tall slender frame draped in a black trench coat, wiry but strong, somehow maintaining gracefulness in the midst of a cafeteria fistfight.

“Look, you clearly have a soul. You just need to work a little harder keeping it clean. After all, ‘we’re all born marked for evil’.”

That had done something to her. Definitely. It had been a heart-fluttering realization that here was someone different, someone who had read and liked the same nineteenth-century French poetry she did, who had seen how shitty she was capable of being but instead of judging, quietly reminded her that she was capable of doing better.

An outsider who understood the politics of high school, but chose to avoid them. And the craziest part was that he didn’t even seem to realize how cool he was.

“I’m Veronica, by the way. Veronica Sawyer. You ever going to tell me your name?”

“I’ll end the suspense. Jason Dean; JD for short.”

Jason Dean. JD-for-short. He’d flirted with her in the 7-Eleven, not caring that she was one of the most popular girls in school on the way to the party of the year, the opposite of everything he seemed to stand for, asking her to stay and hang out with him in a convenience store. And he’d offered her a sip from his slushie. He wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t liked her, at least a little.

There had been something wonderful in the way he’d looked at her. She’d felt attractive and charmed and understood all at once. Intoxicated.

This is his bike, meaning that this is his house. He’s right here, within reach.

What would we be doing right now if I’d stayed with him in that 7-Eleven earlier?

Maybe they would have driven around on his bike together, with her arms wrapped around him. They could have talked more, chatted shit; he was funny and smart and made her feel like she didn’t need to act more grown up than she actually was. Maybe he would have kissed her.

…Maybe more.

I want more, she realizes. I want him. I want to know if he wants me that way. I wish I could have done all that with him tonight, instead of going to the party.

…Maybe… Maybe I still can.

Perhaps she’s not quite as sober as she’d thought, because she’s pretty sure that it’s Dutch courage that lets her cross the road and dash across the yard to the window with the light on. To her delight, he’s there, sitting up in bed and leafing through a book that she strongly suspects is the copy of Flowers of Evil that he was reading in the cafeteria, in the glow of a cheap bedside lamp that’s propped up on a stack of cardboard boxes. He’s hunched over, wearing a very kissable expression of deep focus, and she realizes he’s making notes in the margin. It’s nothing short of endearing.

She wonders if he’d make that expression while focusing on her. More than wants; she needs to know, needs to know how it feels to kiss him, to have his hands on her, how to make him smile that intrigued smile he’d had when she’d told him that she didn’t really like her friends, like he wanted to know everything about who Veronica Sawyer really is.

Veronica Sawyer might be about to die on Monday, but she doesn't have to die a virgin.

The thought makes warmth flare in her lower abdomen, and before she can second guess herself, Veronica shoves her fingers into the gap between the frame and the sill (who leaves a window cracked open in September in Ohio? Not that she’s complaining) and shoves the window up and out of the way. She scrambles up and ducks into the room, but in her attempt to dismount, trips headfirst into another pile of cardboard boxes because her other foot is still mostly outside.

“Ow,” she groans. Shit, that smarts. Real sexy, Veronica. She lifts her head to see JD sitting bolt upright in his bed, staring at her in shock.

“Veronica?” he gapes, his eyes round and perfectly, deliciously blue. “What are you doing in my room?!”

Mostly hoping my nose isn’t broken, she thinks, and then groans in embarrassment when she realizes she said that out loud.

“Shit,” JD mutters. He marks the page in his book and chucks it onto the makeshift bedside table, before scrambling out of bed and rushing over to her. He’s dressed for bed in only a pair of white boxers and a soft gray T-shirt, and Veronica, in spite of the ridiculousness of the entire situation, distinctly thinks to herself that she likes what she sees. “Are you okay?”

All Veronica can do is nod, because he’s kneeling down next to her and cupping her face in his hands so he can check her nose for damage. Fuck her gently with a chainsaw, if she hadn’t already been totally gone for this guy, she would be now.

“It looks alright,” he says finally, dropping his hands from her face much to her disappointment. “Just a little red. You won’t notice it in a few hours.” He grins and teasingly adds, “By the time you get this whole cat-burglar shtick down properly, you won’t even remember it.”

In spite of her embarrassment, Veronica bursts out laughing, and JD’s smile widens, as if he’s proud that he made her laugh. God, I like him so much. It’s taking an embarrassing amount of willpower to not simply jam her mouth against his and beg him to completely and utterly ruin her for anyone else, because he’s dishing out an all-you-can-eat buffet of gentleness, and after the last three weeks, she’s, quite frankly, fucking starving. It would seem that this side to Jason Dean, gently checking to see if she’s alright after she’s humiliatingly smacked her face off his bedroom floor, cracking a stupid joke and looking proud when she laughs at it, is even more of a turn-on than the side to him that fought back against Kurt and Ram when they’d had a go at him in the cafeteria. And that had been a pretty big turn-on.

Good to know, and also explains why none of the guys Heather Chandler deemed acceptable potential boyfriends had caught her gaze.

“Thanks,” Veronica says, once her giggles have subsided. Her throat’s gone a little dry. “Um, sorry I knocked your boxes over.”

JD laughs at that. “No worries, I think those ones were just clothes. But, um, speaking of you knocking over my boxes…”

She knows what he’s leading into with this, and avoids his gaze, staring at her shoes and feeling a dull flush creeping up her neck.

“How come the world’s prettiest cat-burglar is crawling through my window at fuck-o-clock on a Saturday morning?”

It feels silly to get so flustered over a guy calling her pretty. Grade-school crush shit, especially when every guy at Westerburg has been drooling over her for the past three weeks. But for some reason, ‘pretty’ feels much more… heartfelt than ‘sexy’ or ‘hot’ or whatever other adjectives Kurt and Ram and their friends have been describing her as since the Heathers’ makeover.

Willing herself not to turn into a human tomato (the curse of pale skin), Veronica lets out an awkward laugh. “The world’s prettiest cat-burglar may have ruined Heather Chandler’s attempted prank on Martha Dunnstock, then puked on her shoes and told her to lick it up.”

JD chuckles delightedly. “You didn’t!” he says, sounding approving. Veronica nods, starting to grin in spite of herself.

“I figured I have until eight AM on Monday morning to have my last bit of fun before she ruins my reputation beyond repair, so… Iwasgoingtoaskifyouwantedtohavesexwithme.”

JD stares at her, his mouth falling open slightly in surprise. She hopes to god it’s good surprise and not the bad kind.

“Me…” he chokes out, after an agonizingly long silence that really only lasts ten seconds, “with… you?”

Veronica feels her cheeks flush with mortification. She should never have done this. She should have just gone home and waited for Heather’s revenge to rain down on her -

“Yes.”

She stares at him. His cheeks are the same color as hers must be, but his eyes are huge and full of… well… awe. Earlier in the 7-Eleven, he’d made her feel actually desirable for the first time she can remember, even better than the confidence she’d gained from hanging around Heather, Heather, and Heather, but it’s nothing compared to the way he’s looking at her now.

It makes her feel like she’s magic.

“Yes?” she repeats, a wide smile spreading across her face. JD nods, standing up and offering her a hand to pull her to her feet. She stumbles a little, but catches herself on his chest, her smile widening when his hands automatically find her waist and pull her closer.

“Yes,” JD says again, and she goes to lean up for the first kiss she’s been wanting to share with him since he first spoke to her in the cafeteria, but then - he sniffs and pulls away. “Veronica?”

“What?” she grumbles, trying not to let her sudden hurt show on her face.

“How much alcohol did you drink tonight?” He bites his lip, looking a little pained. “Just… you know where you are and who you’re talking to, right? I don’t want… if you’re just here because you’re wasted and pissed at Heather Chandler… I don’t want to take advantage of you. I don’t want to be that guy. How drunk are you right now?”

She grins. Any other boy at Westerburg wouldn’t think twice about taking what she’s offering right now, but Jason Dean is different, and Veronica has decided that she really likes different. He’s not rejecting me. He’s respecting me.

She stretches up on her tiptoes to whisper into his ear. “Just drunk enough to feel brave enough to ask for this.” She presses a light kiss to his neck, and feels him shudder slightly. Oh. I like that I can do that to you as easily as you’ve been doing that to me. “Not so drunk that I don’t know what I’m doing.” She kisses his neck again, and once again he shudders, and this time his arms tighten around her waist. “It’s mostly out of my system, I’m practically sober by now. I knew exactly what I was doing when I climbed in here.”

JD swallows slightly and pulls back again, but this time it’s so he can lean his forehead against hers. “Is this real?” he asks softly. “I’m not hallucinating, right?”

Veronica grins dopily at that. “You’d hallucinate about me?”

“I don’t know how anyone couldn’t. You’re the coolest, weirdest, most incredible person I’ve ever met, and I’m not entirely sure that I didn’t overdo it with the slushies earlier and send myself into some bizarre sugar-induced delirium where you… where you want me the same way that I want you.”

Veronica feels her smile involuntarily become less dopey and more tender. How the hell does he not realize how much everything he says makes me want him more? “This is real. I want you, for real. I’ve… I’ve wanted you since you first spoke to me in the cafeteria this afternoon. I want you because every time we’ve spoken to each other, I’ve felt understood, like you actually fucking get me. I want you because of all the smart, snarky shit that comes out of your mouth every time you open it, and how you’ve made me smile more in the last twenty-four hours than I have in the last three goddamn weeks. Because everything about you has been unexpected, your fucking Baudelaire quote, your obsession with sugary ice water, hell, the fact that I climbed in here and practically threw myself at you and you stopped me to check that I'm sober enough to give informed consent. I want you because when I’m with my friends, it’s like Martha just wants to see the old Veronica, and the Heathers pretend they can’t see anything except the new Veronica, but you… it’s like you see all of me. The whole real Veronica Sawyer. The good parts and the awful parts, and you don’t want me to change any of it. I want you, Jason Dean,” Veronica emphasizes, pressing closer to him and sliding her arms up his chest to drape them around his neck, “because you’re beautiful. You might be the most beautiful person I’ve ever met. And when you look at me… you make me feel beautiful.”

“You are beautiful.”

Veronica laughs, finding herself a little choked up at his simple admission. “God, you say shit like that and you’re still doubting that I want this with you? It’s not because you’re convenient or… or new-and-exciting, or some other shallow popular girl bullshit. I know who you are and why I’m here and what I want to ask you for, Jason Dean.”

JD swallows again, and visibly glances from her eyes to her lips. “What do you want to ask me for?” he says huskily.

Veronica meets his gaze with a grin. For all he insists that he’s numb inside, JD is one of the most intense people she’s ever met. It’s intoxicating, far more than any alcohol she’s consumed tonight.

“I want to ride you ‘til I break you,” she breathes, relishing in the way his eyes darken with desire. “I want to not be able to walk tomorrow. I want you to leave marks all over me, and I want you to pull my hair until it hurts, and I want you to fuck me until I forget everything else that’s happened tonight. I want to lock the rest of the world out and just be with you. I want to make this beautiful.”

The most gorgeous smile breaks across JD’s face, wider and happier than she’d imagined he was capable of, and once more his eyes flick down to her mouth. “That works for me,” he whispers blissfully, and she’s not quite sure which one of them leaned in first, because suddenly his mouth is crammed against hers and they’re kissing fiercely.

His mouth is hot and wet and his lips are supple against hers, and kissing like this is far more instinctual than Veronica had thought it would be, her previous experience stopping at a couple of awkward, mouth-closed kisses she’d shared with Jeff Ryan during the three weeks they dated in eighth grade, and a game of spin-the-bottle at Heather McNamara’s 14th birthday party, back in the days when your parents would insist you didn’t exclude anyone with birthday invitations. And even at that, she’d kept her lips firmly closed to Andy Dilmore’s pathetic attempt at using tongue, and pushed him away when his hand had started wandering from her shoulder down in the vague direction of her chest. But kissing JD is nothing like that. They’re communicating without words, taking cues from each other: she whines involuntarily when he gently sucks her lower lip, so he does it again; and as one of his hands gently curls into her hair to cradle her head, she instinctively tilts to one side, changing their angle and deepening the kiss, and feels heat rush to her stomach when he groans into her mouth.

She moves her hands from around his shoulders down his chest to his hips and toys with the hem of his soft gray T-shirt, then gently slides her hands under it, seized with the desire to feel skin on skin. His abs are firm but not overly sculpted, a reminder of that wonderfully attractive rangy strength he’d displayed fighting Kurt and Ram in the cafeteria, and he shudders beautifully when she runs her hands over them, then breaks the kiss - to her momentary disappointment - to attractively yank his T-shirt over his head (God, why does she find that motion so hot?) and unceremoniously fling it away. He’s only wearing boxers now, and Veronica feels embarrassingly overdressed next to him. As he leans in to kiss her again, she stops him, holding a finger against his lips.

“Close the window,” she whispers with a grin. “Just you and me, remember? We’re pretending the unfair parts of the world don’t exist tonight.”

JD presses a kiss to her finger, and another to the inside of her wrist, then heads over to the window to pull it closed. As he does so, Veronica hurriedly shrugs out of her jean jacket and drops it onto the nearest cardboard box, unbuckles her sparkly black T-bars and steps out of them, then rolls her turquoise stockings down her legs and folds them next to her shoes (hey, good quality hold-ups are hard to come by, and she’d feel mildly heartbroken if this pair wound up laddered). JD turns back to her just as she sits on his bed and slowly pulls her dress up her body and over her head. He’s still staring at her by the time she reemerges from the skirt.

“You okay?” she asks, a little uncertainly. He nods slowly, still staring.

“Yeah, just… wow.”

Damn, that’s one hell of an ego boost. Veronica grins and throws her folded dress on top of her stockings. “As much as I like that expression you’re making, I think you might struggle to kiss me from all the way over there -”

JD practically bounds across the room and his mouth is back on hers in a millisecond. Veronica sighs happily into the kiss, gently sliding her tongue against his and letting her fingers dance across his chest. To her delight, one of his hands traces up her arm to her hand and tangles their fingers together, the other one snaking around her waist to pull her closer. Once more his lips part from hers, but this time it’s in order to plant kisses next to her mouth, along her jaw, and down her neck. He sucks at the join of her neck to her shoulder, making her knees go weak and causing her to let out a frankly obscene noise. She feels him smile against her, and then the playful scrape of his teeth as he honors her request to be covered in marks. His free hand moves from her waist up to her back and gently shifts her bra strap out of the way, but leaves it awkwardly hooked over the round part of her shoulder instead of moving it all the way down, as if he’s afraid that going too fast will put her off. It’s simultaneously charming and deeply frustrating.

Veronica groans and weaves her own free hand into his hair, pulling him away from her neck. He looks worried. “Was that okay? Because -”

“Oh my god, shut up,” she groans, pulling him into another kiss. “Yeah, that was great, just - my bra’s getting in the way. Gimme a sec -” She reaches up behind herself and undoes the clasp, then wriggles it off and down her arms. She’s forced to let go of his hand to throw it to the side, but he doesn’t seem too bothered, completely distracted staring at her naked chest.

He doesn’t move to do anything, but she’s too busy riding the high of his “Wow,” comment earlier to get worried. “You can’t tell me you’ve never seen boobs before,” she teases. His gaze doesn’t waver.

“I’ve never seen yours.”

Veronica bursts into giggles and pecks his lips. “For a” - smooch - “Baudelaire-quoting” - smooch - “badass,” - smooch - “you’re kinda” - smooch - “adorable.” Big smooch. “Now, get your ass in gear. Lips, neck. Hands…” She boldly straddles his lap, then grabs his hands and moves them up to cup her breasts. “Touch me.”

JD grins widely at her and immediately drops his mouth back to her neck, now following an absolutely delightful pattern of alternating between nipping her skin with his teeth and pressing soothing kisses to it. “God, that’s good,” Veronica sighs, then lets out an honest-to-god whimper, because he’s just brushed his ever-so-slightly calloused thumbs lightly over her nipples. “Oh, do that again,” she purrs.

“I can appreciate a woman who knows what she wants,” he mumbles into her skin, and she can feel him smirking as he obliges her request. She involuntarily grinds forward into his lap, making him hiss slightly - oh. He’s hard. She feels momentarily silly for being surprised by it, but it quickly gives way to satisfaction. God, it’s good to have evidence that he’s as turned on by this as I am, she thinks hazily, and then whines loudly, because JD has just moved his lips down her collarbone to her chest and - shit, his mouth on her nipple feels even better than his fingers did. He swirls his tongue gently around the tight bud, sucking lightly the whole time and making her buck forwards against him again, then switches to the other one, lest it feel left out, drawing curses and moans and adorations from her lips.

It’s amazing, but she needs more, and pulls him even closer, burying her hands in his hair and grinding against him urgently. He takes the hint, shifting her onto her back and moving on top of her, kissing his way down her stomach and pausing to suck another bruise onto her hip before carefully hooking his thumbs under the waistband of her bright blue lace panties and pulling them down her thighs. Veronica awkwardly kicks them away and pulls his mouth back to hers so desperately their teeth click against each other. She shudders happily when he runs one of his hands down her body, only stopping briefly to circle her nipples with his fingertips, before going lower, making her shiver and spread her legs embarrassingly eagerly.

“Oh, fuck,” she moans, because he’s just traced his fingers over her core and his touch feels even better than she’d anticipated when she originally embarked on her mercy mission. “Yes, shit, yes - right there!” She mewls and arches her back as his thumb finds her clit and flicks it, experimentally at first but quickly growing more confident when she voices her approval. One of his fingers presses lightly against her entrance, teasing slightly, then dips inside her, making her keen and rut against his hand. He curls his finger inside her, his thumb continuing to work her clit, and presses hot kisses against her jaw.

“You feel so good,” he murmurs between kisses, the huskiness of his voice turning her on even more. “I can’t believe how wet you are, it makes me so hard, I want you so bad. God, you’re so fucking beautiful, Veronica. So fucking sexy.”

“Two,” she gasps out, grabbing his wrist and forcing his hand to stop moving. He stares at her, uncomprehending, and she elaborates. “Can you use two fingers? I’m so fucking close, JD, I need you to -” His eyes widen in realisation, and before she can finish her sentence he thrusts two fingers into her, making her cut herself off with an enthusiastic string of curses.

“Shit fuck yes oh jesus fucking fuck fuck fuck god yes, that feels so fucking - yes yes yes right fucking there, christ fucking fuck yes, please please please, I’m so fucking close, oh my jesus fucking god, please don’t stop - OH, GOD, FUCK FUCK FUCK - YES YES YES YES YEAH YEAH YEAH - JD!”

She squeals as her orgasm crashes over her, twisting the bedsheets in one hand and clutching him against her with the other. He stops moving but doesn’t remove his hand, instead pressing his fingers against her as she shakes from the intensity of it, and strokes her hair with his free hand as she comes down. She smiles goofily at him, giggling slightly helplessly as she tries to catch her breath.

“That was good,” she manages at last, unable to stop grinning. “That was really fucking good. I, um, I really liked that.” I hope we can do more of that at some point, she thinks. JD is gently playing with her hair, and smiling at her so fondly it makes her heart throb slightly in her chest. “What?” she giggles.

“You’re really pretty when you cum,” he says bluntly, making her cheeks positively glow red. She can’t think of anything to say in response, so she cups his face in her hands and kisses him, softer and sweeter than before, and rolls on top of him. His arms automatically go around her, one hand finding her waist and the other tangling in her hair, and she hums into the kiss, pleased.

She pulls away to catch her breath again, and they stay there like that for a moment, foreheads pressed together and breathing slowly in time with each other, and it somehow feels equally intimate to what they were doing a few minutes ago, when he had his fingers inside her. She almost wants to stay here like this forever, but there are more pressing matters to attend to this evening.

No pun intended.

Veronica sits up and shuffles back to straddle JD’s thighs, running her hand down his chest and boldly rubbing her palm over the bulge in his shorts. He hasn’t touched himself or asked her for anything, completely focused on her pleasure thus far. “You know,” she grins as he props himself up on his elbows and throws his head back with a sharp inhalation, “I don’t think it’s very fair that I’m sitting here naked while you still have your underwear on. We might need to remedy that.” She squeezes him lightly, but to her surprise, he grabs her wrist and forces her to stop. His lips are pressed together, and he looks pained again.

“Veronica,” JD pants, his cheeks flushed delightfully pink. “Veronica, don’t get me wrong, I really, really want this, but I don’t have a condom.” He looks embarrassed. “I should have mentioned it earlier -”

“Are you clean?” Veronica cuts him off, batting his hand away and stroking him gently. He moans and bites his lip, nodding.

“Yeah. Yeah, I don’t have any - um, that’s not an issue.”

“I am too, and I’m on the pill. Does that work for you?”

“Does it work for you?” JD asks pointedly. Veronica nods, her grin widening.

“Very much so.”

“That works for me, then.” He grins and sits up to kiss her, and moans into her mouth when she shoves her hand down his boxers and touches him directly. “Fuck, shit, Veronica, that feels so good.” In response, she slowly pumps her hand up and down and kisses his neck, making his hips jerk upwards.

She’s forced to get off of him in order to get his boxers off, but finds she doesn’t mind all that much, because Jason Dean is naked in bed with her, and she gets now why he stared so much earlier when she took her dress off, because she kind of wants to stare at his naked form for a while. Admire him.

She reaches out and lets her fingers brush the head of his cock, grinning victoriously at the moan he lets out, then circles her fingers around his shaft and gives him a tug, hooking her leg over his hips again and sitting on his thighs. He pulls her into a lazy kiss, and she strokes him in time to it, slow but firm.

She’s excited for this, excited to have sex with him, and wonders if - hopes that - this is what it’ll always feel like, what it does always feel like, that the buildup is always this fucking nice. She can’t imagine Kurt Kelly being this gentle and considerate to a naked girl in his room, and Ram Sweeney has certainly never looked at anyone the way JD is looking at her, with huge blown pupils and flushed cheeks, like she hung the fucking moon in the sky.

Huh. She feels kind of sorry for the Heathers.

Veronica shuffles forward, and kneels over JD, carding her free hand through his hair before tilting his chin up so she can kiss him. When he pulls back to catch his breath, she places a light kiss to the corner of his mouth and stills her other hand.

“Um,” she whispers, “I’m ready if you are. I want you inside me.”

JD nods enthusiastically. “I’m ready. Um, really ready. I want that too.”

He leans back on his right hand while his left one moves to her waist, and Veronica carefully guides his tip to her entrance, grinding slightly against him, before angling him against her and finally - fucking finally - sinking down onto his cock.

“Oh, fuck,” she breathes. She rolls her hips, rocking forward then back, and moans at the sensation. JD throws his head back, eyes closed and mouth open, and Veronica leans forward to kiss his neck, continuing to move as she does so. Like kissing, it’s a lot more instinctual than she’d thought it might be. She kisses down his neck to his pulse point, and eagerly sucks at it, wanting to make him feel as good as he made her feel earlier.

She nips his skin with her teeth and grinds against him, relishing in the groan he lets out. He leans back even further, his head hitting the pillow with a soft thump, and moves both hands up to touch her breasts again, his fingers circling and teasing and - oh holy fuck that feels good - tweaking her nipples. To her delight, he’s making that exact focused expression she’d found so attractive earlier, but with the wonderful addition of slightly biting his lower lip. Veronica leans back, changing their angle slightly, and tries bouncing her hips.

“Oh, fuck!” she moans again, because that angle is fan-fucking-tastic, and that movement makes his cock slide inside her just perfect. “Fuck, JD, right there, right fucking there…”

She gives up on words because there aren’t enough to describe how fucking good it feels, and finds herself making nonsensical noises instead, interspersed with his name. The heat is building up inside her again, something in her core stretching like a rubber band being pulled taught, intensifying when one of his hands slides down her body and finds her clit again, working tight circles into it with his thumb. It’s so intense she finds herself struggling to meet the pace she’s set, which is inconvenient, because she doesn’t want to go slower, she wants this to be fast and messy and overwhelming, but he helps her out, his hips snapping up to meet hers, and god it’s exactly what she’d asked him for earlier, to fuck her until she can’t remember anything about the night except him.

“God, Veronica,” JD moans under her, and the sound of his voice - especially when he says her name like that, in that tone - makes her legs shake a little, he sounds so delightfully fucking ecstatic. “You’re so fucking hot, Veronica, you feel so fucking good, you look so fucking beautiful…”

Veronica whimpers slightly, finding that she has to force the words out. “JD, I’m gonna… I’m nearly… I need to… Make me… God, fucking, please -”

JD sits up, still working his fingers beautifully against her clit, and yanks her hair back with his free hand, making her cry out euphorically, before pressing his lips to her throat and biting gently. It’s perfect, exactly what she needs, and she slams her hips forward, probably too hard, because he jerks back from her throat with an “OW!”

Her thoughts are too blurry to apologize to him; the rubber band has just snapped, making scorching heat flood her entire body, and she flings her arms around him, desperately needing him to hold her while she shakes apart. He clings onto her equally tight, falling back against the bed and pulling her down with him, pressing his hips fiercely against hers, and through her orgasm-induced haze she comes to the blissful realization that her climax was enough to send him over the edge too.

Fucking beautiful, she thinks victoriously. So fucking beautiful.

She rolls off of him and cuddles into his side, tangling their legs together and resting her head on his shoulder. JD puts his arm around her, his hand resting on her belly, and she tenderly places her hand over his and tangles their fingers together, her other hand moving up to softly stroke his cheek.

“Good?” she asks after a minute of just breathing together, suddenly feeling shy. JD lets out an incredulous little chuckle.

“Good’s putting it mildly. Veronica, that was… fucking incredible.” She feels him turn his head and press a kiss to her hair. “It was really good for me. Really fucking good. Was it… was it good for you?” he adds, sounding slightly self-conscious.

It’s Veronica’s turn to giggle incredulously, because she’s pretty sure she’d made it incredibly obvious how much she’d enjoyed it. “Very,” she smiles. “It was very good for me. I really liked it. I, um, I really like you.”

JD cups her cheek with his free hand and tilts her chin up towards him so he can kiss her, softer and sweeter than earlier, his tongue only briefly touching against hers this time before he pulls away to smile tenderly at her. “I really like you too,” he murmurs. Veronica grins sleepily and pecks his lips, snuggling closer. “Can you stay the night?”

She nods, smile widening. “My parents think I’m sleeping over at Heather’s, and it’s a bit late to call them and tell them the address has changed.” The mention of Heather McNamara makes the girl’s voice pop into her head, a specific bit of advice about situations like this mentioned offhand in the girls’ room last week, and Veronica forces herself to sit up before she gets so comfortable that she’ll forget to follow it. “Hey, can I use your bathroom real quick?”

JD nods, sitting up too and pressing a quick kiss to her shoulder before reaching over the side of the bed and grabbing a bundle of fabric. She beams when he passes it to her and she realizes it’s the T-shirt he was wearing earlier. “First door on the left,” he tells her, once she’s pulled it over her head and awkwardly climbed over him and out of the bed. She smiles and pecks his cheek.

“Thanks. Be right back.”

Thankfully, the bathroom has a frosted glass window rather than drapes, which means it’s lit up dimly by a streetlight outside so she doesn’t have to turn on the light. Heather McNamara’s horror story of her older sister Lavender getting sent to hospital with a UTI because she didn’t pee after sex one time echoes in her head, and she quickly uses the facilities and washes her hands before checking her appearance in the mirror.

She kind of loves what she sees. Hickeys are blooming all over her neck; her dark hair wildly frames her face, having long since waved goodbye to the perfect styling carefully bestowed upon it by Heather Chandler; her makeup is a lost cause. Her lips are swollen and red, and there’s a pleasant ache between her legs that’s making her knees shake a little.

She looks like she’s been fucked.

She manages to clean off the worst of her makeup with a washcloth - dark gray in color, thankfully - which she rings out and leaves draped over the edge of the sink before patting her face dry with a towel and heading back along the dark hallway to JD’s bedroom.

He’s sitting up in bed when she gets back, and she catches the slightest glimpse of nervousness on his face - like he thought she might be making her escape or something, clad in nothing but his T-shirt while her clothes are still folded on his bedroom floor, as if he’s still a little afraid that she’s not as into him as he’s into her (a ridiculous and unfounded fear, because she’s pretty sure she’s made her interest in him very well known tonight, but also, bizarrely, kind of sweet) - before he realizes she’s returned and he lights up with that gorgeous smile.

She pads across the room and peels off the T-shirt before climbing back into his lap and gleefully accepting the hugging kiss he bestows upon her in greeting. He pulls the duvet up to cover both of them, flopping back onto the pillow with his arms still around her so she’s pulled down with him, and shifting her over so they’re both lying on their sides, facing each other, and he reaches back to flick off the lamp before pulling her closer. It’s wonderfully peaceful, lying there in his arms and trading slow sleepy kisses, letting her fingers trace imaginary pictures across his chest, and when a lock of her hair flops into her face he brings one hand up to brush it back behind her ear in a gesture that makes her heart flutter.

Like he did earlier, she brings her hand up to weave their fingers together, and in doing so notices the smattering of purple bruises across his knuckles - souvenirs from fighting Kurt and Ram in the cafeteria, she realizes. Veronica pecks a gentle kiss onto each one, making his smile widen, and cuddles closer, thinking to herself as he presses kisses to the top of her head that she wants to fall asleep like this every night for the rest of her life.

“Veronica?” JD says quietly, right as she’s about to drift off.

“Hmm?”

“I’m really glad you climbed in here tonight. But, um… is this just a one-time thing for you?”

Veronica sleepily shakes her head and settles against him. “Wanna see you,” she murmurs. “Really like you. Wanna do more of this. You want that?”

“Yeah.” His voice is quiet, but she can hear the smile in it. “Yeah, I really, really do.”

September nights are cold as shit in Ohio, but Veronica Sawyer doesn’t notice, warm as she is in Jason Dean’s arms. Fuck, everything about him is so, so warm. His skin, his kisses, his heart. Nowhere near as numb inside as he makes out. She falls asleep with a victorious smile, unable to give a rat’s ass about Heather Chandler and what might happen on Monday, not when JD is holding her close and falling asleep next to her, and she knows his expression matches hers.

Kiss me just like the world is ending,
Give me one last perfect memory!
I don’t want to say goodbye;
Let’s meet up after we die -
So kiss me just like the world is ending!

## Afterword

End Notes

> Thanks for reading!

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