Title: Off The Record
Fandom: Jessica Jones/Daredevil (TVverse)
Pairing: Jessica/Karen
Rating: NC-17
Words: 1944
Timeline: Post-Daredevil Season Two
Notes: Spoilers for Season Two of Daredevil. Roughplay. For
Ladies Bingo, prompt "day-in-the-life", and a
prompt at
Daredevil Kink.
Summary: Jessica's just trying to enjoy her drink, Karen's just trying to write a story, and neither of them is looking for more than that. But they find it anyway.
The woman’s dressed in office-casual, her strawberry-blonde hair loose and her purse swinging from her hand. She doesn’t wrinkle her nose or look uncomfortable as she weaves her way through tables with lone regulars wearing jean jackets with patches of grey in their beards, even though the floor is clearly sticky under her pumps and the shitty old jukebox is clicking over into the third Jethro Tull song in a row.
Jessica watches out of her peripheral vision as the woman gets closer, and if she didn’t know better, Jessica would almost buy the act. She’d almost buy that this woman just happened to fancy a drink, that she chose this bar for no real reason, that she’s there because of fate or what-the-fuck-ever.
But it is an act. Because that woman is Karen Page, the Bulletin’s shiny new reporter, and she’s there for Jessica.
“Scotch,” Karen says when she reaches the bar, taking the stool one down from where Jessica’s perched. Still not looking over, still acting like it’s all one big coincidence. She’s good, at least, better than the other reporters who’ve been sniffing around since everything went down with Kilgrave. Karen’s got subtlety, but subtlety’s never been Jessica’s style.
“Can we skip to the part where you start bothering me,” Jessica says, glaring down into her drink, “so I can tell you to fuck off already.”
Karen doesn’t flinch or twitch or even blink. She just turns on her stool, facing Jessica fully. “You got something against foreplay, Ms Jones?” she smiles and, oh, that’s not fair. She’s not supposed to be interesting, she’s supposed to be just another slimeball looking make a quick buck off Jessica’s back.
Jessica leans her cheek against her hand, elbow up on the bar, and looks into Karen’s pretty eyes. “Maybe I’ve just got something against people interrupting me when I’m trying to enjoy a drink, Ms Page.”
Karen ducks her head, grinning wider at Jessica’s words. “You know who I am?”
Jessica lifts her glass, tilts it between them, first towards Karen, then herself. “Investigative journalist meet private investigator,” she deadpans, and then drains the last of her drink. “And I don’t do interviews.”
Karen takes a long sip of her scotch, eyes never leaving Jessica’s face. “That’s a shame. I’m sure the Bulletin’s readers would love to read about a day in a life of a superhero,” she says, her tone teasing, like she already knows Jessica won’t bite but she’s enjoying the game anyway.
Jessica snorts, nudging her glass across the bar. “I’m not a superhero,” she insists. “And I’m not interested in being your puff piece.”
“Okay,” Karen says. “So you’re not interested in an interview, that’s fine.” Which is bullshit, because everything Jessica’s heard about Karen Page says she never backs down from a case or a story. “But would you be interested in a drink, at least?”
Jessica should tell Karen to shove her drink up her ass and leave. But Karen’s watching her with this glint in her eye, part-mischief, part-challenge, goading her to accept, and Jessica smirks and signals the bartender for another round.
Hell, a free drink is a free drink.
She’ll say this for Karen Page - it turns out the woman can hold her liquor. She matches Jessica glass-for-glass, and she’s kind of a giggly drunk, but Jessica doesn’t mind it. Even when Karen leans against her shoulder, her body warm and her hair smelling floral and sweet, Jessica doesn’t mind it.
“Why’d you want to interview me, anyway?” Jessica asks, that warm whiskey glow under her skin. “The way I’ve heard it, you’ve got an in with Hornhead himself.”
Karen shrugs one shoulder, laughing like it’s some private joke Jessica doesn’t get. “Daredevil’s one thing,” she explains, “but you? You put your name out there, you’re not hiding behind a mask.” She tilts her head, looking at Jessica through her eyelashes, almost shy with it. “That’s really something, you know? That’s - I don’t know. It’s something.”
Jessica rolls her eyes, but the side of her mouth is turning up, she can feel the stretch of it. Because Karen’s trying to say there’s something about Jessica, but Jessica thinks there’s something about Karen. There’s something earnest and fierce, something that reminds her of Trish. Always looking for the truth, always wanting to see the best in people.
“What is a day in the life of Jessica Jones like?” Karen prods, her thigh pressing against Jessica’s leg, her elbows on the table in this way that makes the line of her cleavage deeper and more obvious.
“I told you I’m not giving you an interview,” Jessica reminds her, no heat behind the words.
“Off the record,” Karen insists. “No interview, just …” She waves her hand vaguely, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright. “Just talking over drinks, that’s all.”
Jessica looks down at her glass. She doesn’t drink as much these days, doesn’t numb herself with booze the way she used to. But she still likes bars like this, as anonymous as Hell’s Kitchen ever gets, places where nobody looks at anybody else’s face because they’re too busy with their own troubles.
She should be mad at Karen for disturbing her peace, but Jessica finds it doesn’t bother her at all.
“Why do you care?” She looks Karen in the eye, frowning a little because up close Karen’s eyes are so fucking blue.
There’s a flash of teeth as Karen gnaws her lower lip. “I guess I want to know more about you,” she admits, and her gaze drops, her thumbnail worrying at the edge of the table. “What gets you out of bed in the morning, how you choose your cases, what you do for fun.” She looks back up at Jessica, pupils dilated and her bottom lip swollen. “How often you pick women up at bars.”
Jessica’s fingers flex against her glass. “I’m pretty sure that you’re the one doing the picking up,” she points out, smirking. “You came here for me, right?”
“Yeah, I came here for you,” Karen says. She’s leaning in, and Jessica can feel herself leaning in too, her eyes falling to Karen’s mouth. “But I wasn’t expecting this.”
Jessica can taste the whiskey on Karen’s breath. “Expecting what?”
Karen shivers lightly, her ankle sliding against Jessica’s own. “I wasn’t expecting you to be so … you. I wasn’t expecting to like you.”
“Is that off the record too?” Jessica teases, and Karen laughs, leaning back and breaking the trance.
Jessica wasn’t holding her breath, but she realises from the tightness in her chest that she was damn close to it.
Karen tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, looking down at the table, chewing on her lip again and smiling. She reaches for her drink, downs the last of it, and places her hand on Jessica’s own. “Take me home,” Karen murmurs, and Jessica grabs her jacket from the back of the booth and walks from the bar, Karen’s hand in her own.
They take a cab because Jessica’s place is too far away to walk to, and she doesn’t trust herself not to just drag Karen into an alley and fuck her against a dirty brick wall. The driver keeps his eyes up front and pretends he doesn’t see Jessica’s hand on Karen’s inner thigh, Karen’s tongue in her ear.
Jessica waits until they turn on her street, pushes her fingers up against Karen’s pussy beneath her skirt and waits until Karen gasps and tries to arch into the feeling before Jessica pulls away and says, “We’re here.”
Karen gives her this mean little glare that dissolves into a flirty grin, and she fumbles money towards the cab driver with Jessica’s hand on her ass.
She gets Karen pushed into the corner between the hall and the apartment door as soon as it closes behind them, Karen’s hand leaving a smudge across the textured glass right over the word Alias. She nips Jessica’s lower lip, tugs at it with her teeth, and Jessica growls, lifting Karen’s body until legs wrap tight around her waist.
Jessica’s navigated her apartment blind-drunk enough times that she can get them to the bed without breaking the kiss.
She tears Karen’s panties off like they’re made of tissue paper, and Karen pulls her hair when Jessica shoves her legs open and gets her mouth down there, just like Jessica knew she would. Karen’s hips arch up, fucking herself against Jessica’s tongue, the salty taste of her making Jessica wish they’d been drinking tequila instead of whiskey. She shoves one of Karen’s legs up over her shoulder, twists two fingers into her, and Karen comes with her heel drumming against Jessica’s back.
“Harder, fuck, make me feel it,” Karen gasps, and, shit, she’s got a real mouth on her, this one.
Jessica likes it. A lot.
She pumps her fingers in deeper, grinds her mouth down messier against Karen’s clit. Karen’s damn loud, her head thrown back, still yanking on Jessica’s hair. Hot and soft around Jessica’s fingers, tightening up around her, and when she comes a second time Karen makes a noise that’s so fucking raw that Jessica has to shove a hand down between her legs, rubbing herself through her jeans.
She kisses Karen back against the bed, Karen humming into her mouth and dragging denim down Jessica’s hips. She fingers Jessica slow, her thumb massaging circles over her clit, leaving bite marks on Jessica’s shoulder, and Jessica turns her head and sinks her teeth into the pillow when she comes, shaking all over.
They grind on each other, kissing lazily, Jessica’s thigh getting wet where it’s shoved up against Karen’s pussy. She gets Karen off again, and then Karen kneels up between Jessica’s legs and gives her four fingers, putting the strength of her whole arm into the thrust, and Jessica almost breaks the headboard, she comes so damn hard.
Karen’s phone buzzes in the morning, but Jessica doesn’t open her eyes. Her skin is sticky, Karen’s body too warm where they’re pressed together, even with the heating barely working and the air outside stupidly cold. She listens to Karen moving around her apartment, the pipes clanging as the shower starts, and Jessica smirks at the sound of swearing when the water refuses to get all the way hot.
She sleeps for another couple of hours after Karen leaves, not quite hungover but the good kind of tired instead. There’s a business card waiting on her desk, the phone number circled, Karen’s neat writing saying, “If you change your mind about the interview, call me.”
On the back there’s a different number, her personal number, and the words, “Or if you just want a drink, call me for that too.”
Jessica reads Karen’s article in the Sunday paper. It is a puff piece, but she guesses she never really gave Karen anything to work with. It never mentions Jessica by name, instead talking about how a day in the life of a superhero isn’t all that different from the day in the life of anybody else, because everyone’s just trying to get by.
Jessica reads it twice and then throws the paper away. But she texts Karen, offering her a drink to celebrate how she managed to say so little in so many words.
Karen shows up that evening with a bottle of tequila and a smile, and Jessica doesn’t know what a day in the life of a superhero is, but she has a feeling Karen’s going to be part of a day in her life from now on.
Turns out, Jessica’s totally okay with that.