Title:  There's A Fire
Author:  starlastumbleine (@yahoo.com)
Fandom:  View Askewniverse
Pairing:  Jay/Silent Bob
Rating:  R-ish
Disclaimer:  I don't own any one, any names, any titles or any thing
in Kevin Smith's View Askewniverse.  I'm not profiting from this at all.
Notes:  My 5th anniversary on the J&SB Slash List recently passed.  I
know it's not in time and we're kind of dead right now, but here is an
offering I began and now have finally come back around to.
Crossposted to the jay7silentbob comm on LiveJournal.
Summary:  This time it is for real.  This isn't like the last time.

x x x x x x

Jay was biting his bottom lip and staring intently at the railing
separating the main drag from the food court.

Specifically.

He was staring at the dull, sea-green, chipped paint railing that
restrained chairs and sticky tables and the plastic palms surrounding
the trash cans from the place where the mall began and shoppers walked
straight, this way or that.  He was self contained right now.  It was
only ten forty, and they'd been here for twenty minutes.  One might
expect an explosion of sound from his mouth at any moment, but right
now his slack-jawed, coffee-centric stance said, "this is damn near
not happening today."

The coffee, his second cup, surprisingly ineffectual, floated between
alternating hands.  One was always stashed in his pocket and the other
held the extra-large cup.  His head was steadily gravitating towards
one shoulder.  He looked almost asleep on his feet.

For Silent Bob, this was like casual Friday with the promise of an
early afternoon, six beers and PlayStation before bed.  Jay had taken
seven naps yesterday.  Seven.  He went back to sleep after dinner and
stayed that way until Bob woke him for the bus to the mall this
morning.  He'd smoked only half a pack of cigarettes yesterday and
only two this morning.  He was sober and he was quiet.

He was so complacent, Bob almost... said something.  And it wasn't
fear of shattering the quiet that kept him silent, just habit.  His
disbelieving stare would probably rile the boy soon enough.  No point
in disturbing this strange--  peace.  Whatever.

"I want a doughnut."  Jay clicked his jaw shut, swiveled his head
around, propped up an eyebrow.  "You want a doughnut?"  One finger
uncurled from his coffee cup and pointed towards the Cinnaminz.

They have doughnuts? Bob wondered.

"I think they have doughnuts," Jay said.  "I'll go look."

And off he went, the toes of his shoes dragging across the tile each
time he stepped foreword, dragging himself to the Cinnaminz.

From here Silent Bob could watch people in suits enter and exit the
ElectroShack.  They left with small cables and random wireless cards.
 They balanced Ventis, bags and cell phones.

Jay waited for a line of three office-girl types to pass before coming
back across the hall with their doughnut-like things.  They were
jelly-filled and not supposed have cinnamon as the rest of the
pastries there, Jay explained, but Bob was a bit put off by the heavy
spice tainting the glaze and the paper they came in, anyway.  After
Jay had devoured his own, he handed his over and Jay scarfed it,
slouching less.

A businessman loosely dressed and a little shady-looking caught Bob's
attention.  It had been the second time he'd passed and so when Bob
caught his eye, the man smiled slightly and nodded.

Silent Bob elbowed Jay and followed the man with his eyes.  Jay looked
at him, too, with half interest.

Pinstripe suit and Nikes.

"Huha.  Yeah."  Jay grinned.  They were being scoped out.

By the time the man circled back around the food court he had a
smoothie and still carried his cash in his hand.  He came up to them,
'nice day'ed and Jay asked what he wanted without interest.

"Somebody said you were the man to come to."

"Tha's right.  I am."  Jay sucked glaze from his thumb and handed the
man their crumpled papers from the pastries.  "Toss that for me?"

Bob snorted and reached in his pocket to shake loose a bag.  The man
shrugged, took the garbage, went across the hall and chucked it.

"How much?" Jay asked on his return.

The man smiled.  "What do I get for twenty?"

"What everyone else gets for twenty."  Jay took the note and Bob
handed over a bag that everyone else gets for fifteen.

"Nice," said the man.  He stuffed his bag in his pocket and turned
towards the exit without too close an inspection of the goods.

"Christ," Jay muttered.  "Job interviews."

*That* made Silent Bob laugh.  Just the image of that kid stumbling in
stoned for a job as a paralegal, or better yet, a convenience store
manager.

"He'll get it, too," Jay smiled at his companion.

What in hell makes you say that?  Silent Bob gave him a starkly
disbelieving look.

"Better than showing up all stressed out.  Watch.  He'll come back
here in a week with new shoes and his Nextel all dodododo!" Jay put
his hand to his mouth like a walkie talkie.  "That's five cappuccinos
and ten mocha lattes?  Gotcha, boss!"

Hm.  Silent Bob leaned away from the wall to watch the man retreat.
His pace had sped up and he patted some change in his pocket with the
weed noisily.

Jay was probably right.  He nodded, shrugged and leaned back against
the wall absently.

He watched the professional men and women passing them.  He wondered
how many were doped to the gills right now to put up with all the
bullshit that went on in offices.

Jay was quiet again and this didn't disturb him until he sensed that
he was staring.  Bob only turned then, looking down the opposite end
of the hall, his hair falling back into his periphery, shielding him
from the long look.  He began to hope again that it really was a lazy,
early day so that he could get out of his company.

This was a recent development in Silent Bob's daily thought processes.
 The need to escape Jay, put him in front of a television or let him
go away and nap.  On top of the nagging need to just not be in his
presence the guilt situated itself firmly.  He was Bob's friend after
all.  Roommate and confidant.  Best friend, really, something else, maybe.

It was the something else that made him want the day to end, like, now.

He needed a cigarette.  He started walking outside without motioning
for Jay to follow him.  Didn't care if he did or not, at this point.
But he did.

They were in a shady alcove to the right of the doors and around the
building's exterior instead of to the left, at the bus stop.  There,
he lit up and studiously scanned the parking lot.  The only other
drug-buying crowd was out skateboarding past the parked cars of the
employees in the back of the lot.

Long fucking day.  He exhaled in time with this thought, sending long
plume after plume of smoke from his lungs into the crisping October air.

And okay, the staring was getting really hard to deal with.  He shot a
'got a problem?' look at Jay and Jay still didn't look away.

He couldn't decide weather to address it through the whole cigarette
and into the next.  Ask him to stop.  Ask him what the fuck he wanted.
 Ask him if there was something on his face.  Of course he wouldn't
ask anything.  If a situation called for questioning or stern words
Bob's stock reaction was no reaction at all.

As he finished the second smoke, he had decided, as always, to say
nothing.  Jay stepped in front of him before he could make to head
back inside and unnerving was no longer the word for it.

"Fucking what?" he asked, rolling is eyes.  Jay bit his lip and pulled
a hand from his pocket.  He held it out in front of Bob's face,
presented it as if he were an animal and might bite it off.  Silent
Bob dropped his head stiffly, with as condescending a glare as he
could manage.

"Lemme see somethin'?" Jay almost mumbled this.

Bob didn't want this.  Didn't want to deal with anything other than a
spastic-as-usual Jay.  He wanted to step around him and go back
through the entrance, or across the lot to the main drag.  Or down the
sidewalk to the bus stop.

But he did what he did best instead, and did nothing at all, the look
of obstinate fuck-you weighing down his features in the grey fall shade.

Jay's hand moved towards him then, tilting Bob's head up and away, his
hair falling to the back.  Jay stared at his neck, now, high enough
above the collar and just below the jaw.  Where a dark bruise-bite was
dimming back to skin tone after three days' time.

Now that Bob remembered what Jay must be inspecting, he really.
didn't.  want.  to be here.  For fuck's sake.

He began to back away, eyes sliding to lock with Jay's and filling
with all the warning he usually reserved for feisty kids who alleged
they'd been sold oregano.

And the tips of Jay's cold fingers remained where they were, resting
lightly on the flesh of his friend's neck, two of them skimming
lightly over the discolored skin, his thumb coming to rest on the side
of his bearded face.

Bob felt almost like he was being played as a phrase which had been
spoken so many times before did not escape Jay's mouth for the first
time.  That is, he'd said so many times before--

He'd made him feel--

For FUCK'S sake.  Every other time, it was this flippant, "where the
fuck you get that from?" Or a pointed tease at him about the markings.
 The bruises Jay left with his very own teeth.  The marks Jay never
left unless he was allegedly too out of his mind to remember the
proceedings.

That is, they hadn't been drinking or smoking in months now, and when
Jay hadn't had an excuse, he'd done this.  Marked Bob like this.

Marked Bob like he *liked.*

And maybe this meant he could remember it now because the skimming
fingers were curling around the back of his neck, coming to rest
there, stilling Silent Bob's movements, shocking him into total
paralysis.  No fight, no flight.

These are the things Jay didn't say:
"Where the fuck you get that from?"
"Who's the lucky working girl?"
"When did that happen, yo?"
"Who took a chunk outta you, Lunchbox?"

Instead there was an unrealistic calm about him when he said:
"I remember this."

Really?  Bob's face deadpanned.

Jay only nodded.

It was him all along, of course.  Every drunken or stoned encounter
that hurt good enough to remind him in the following weeks.  And it
had been him three nights ago, rambling but sober, crawling atop Bob
in the dark, caressing him in better ways than ever before.

He woke up and Jay wasn't beside him the next day.  Like always.  Just
like when they were blitzed enough not to know what their names were
but Jay was always there enough in the morning to know *not* to be there.

"You remember it, too, right?" Jay asked, still staring.  Bob realized
the armor was sliding away from him rapidly.  He realized this was
happening.  He realized Jay had been up that morning, in the kitchen
guzzling coffee, not only just not beside him as he woke.

So this was it?  Three days processing time was all he got from only
gay when I'm drunk to you remember, too, right?  He remembered.  Oh,
Lord, did he remember.  The sensation of the kiss before this one,
especially.  The kiss before Jay's teeth had dug into the side of his
neck, into the sweet spot, where he'd sunk them in, kissed, sucked,
kissed, licked.  The kiss before that one.  That was the one where Jay
had moaned into his mouth.  Moaned Bob's name and he could feel the Bs
of it puckering against his half-open mouth.  Could feel Jay's hair
beneath his hands.

Wanted to feel all of those again.

"Bob.  You remember, don't you?" with worry this time, as Silent Bob
had gone all blank in his hands.  His hands that came around both
sides of Bob's head now, as he stepped forward, moved in, eliminating
the space he'd intended to escape with before.

Remember.  Remember?  Like I could *forget* with your teeth in my neck
for three days.  Like I ever didn't remember.  Like I haven't learned
to look away before you notice I'm looking away in all those moments
you never should have been staring in the first place- ya Fuck.

"I didn't--  I didn't go back to mine after I left, you know?  I just.
 Wanted to give you the time to figure it out for yourself.  It's not
like before."  Jay's brow furrowed.  "Was it always like that?"

"Never," Bob answered, instantly.  It had never been like that before
because before they'd been all booze and haze and nerve endings.  And
now, what?  They were nothing but themselves and their lips and their
teeth and this godforsaken hickey.  Now it wasn't some shameful
drunken debacle.  Now Jay was looking for him.  Looking for him to
tell him he didn't have to leave at the end of the night.  To see if
he was more of a companion than a funny best friend.  Looking to see
if it was alright to go around claiming him like this, a
red-and-purple stamp, a Jay Was Here, a sign of intimate possession.

"It's just.  I saw."  Jay stopped and started.  His eyes moved between
Bob's eyes and the bruise.  "I keep seeing it," Jay breathes now.

Silent Bob doesn't know it, but he shudders and all the rest of what
was crumbles at their feet.  He watches Jay hesitate.  Jay, randomly
his lover, who pulls back a hand to run his right palm over the mark
and back around his neck again.  And breaking with his long tradition
of inaction, Bob steps that bit foreword and closes the space between
them.

.end.
this time i swear it is the truth.  this must be dealt with urgently.