He feels something, and that's when he knows that it's over.

"Oh God-" and "Fuck, yeah-" and "I love you-" and she probably doesn't even notice it, doesn't falter in her twisting, slamming hips, doesn't stop panting into his hair, against his neck, doesn't stop making him hers.

Damn it, but he loves this girl. Already.

He loves her.

It all happened so fast - but then again, so does everything in Jason Dean's life. He starts to panic, but she bites down on his collar and he gasps and jerks and grabs her hips for support, for -

Jesus Christ, he's so in love. So in love.

There are no fucking words for this feeling, but he wracks his brain fervently for something to suffice.

He's always had his words. Those had never failed him. Books, murder mysteries and cheap thrillers from thrift shops, the classics, everything he could get his hands on. (his hands are on her now, hot skin, wordless pleasure, everything, all at once-) If he couldn't control anything else in his goddamn life at least he was articulate but here he was, unable to splutter out more than three words at a time in - in reverence-

He hasn't felt anything in years. Hasn't let himself. Abstract disdain, yes, but only abstract, nothing - nothing -

Like this. (Like her.)

God, she's everything. She's got him surrounded, got him begging, whimpering, got him with his hands pinned up over his head, she's got him vulnerable and she wants and God he wants right the fuck back at her, this is -

It's everything. All at once, just, everything, just Veronica.

Slap me she demanded, so he did, pull my hair, so he yanked and shuddered at the way she moaned and rolled her hips forward, hard, unforgiving - she doesn't have to beg but somehow he thinks they both know that desperation does not equal submission and that she is definitely, definitely running the show here.

All she'd done was bat her eyes at him in that gas station and he'd been hooked. Nothing to be done about it. She'd be stringing him along until the day he came home and his dad would flash those bus tickets in his face, grinning, just the way he always did when he'd bled a town dry and went on his merry way.

It wasn't love, then, maybe but it hadn't taken her long to change that.

All she'd done was come falling in through his window, disheveled and wild-eyed at eleven p.m., and he was lost.

Fuck the world. Fuck Westerburg! Fuck his piece of shit father, fuck absolutely everything, everyone, he had what he wanted-needed-craved, he didn't have to drift anymore, didn't have to look, lost, oh God-

He loves and he hates, he feels-

He FEELS.

Somehow he doesn't think that crying during sex was really appropriate, especially not the first time, especially - not with her, so confident and so insecure, so wild and angry and if he could just bottle that energy shimmering from her now, so beautiful, if he could just absorb it into his skin until he felt beautiful too, shiny and new, ready to take on the world…

It's like he's been baptized, like he's been touched by an angel. This angel, come to give him a second chance, a second life.

He wants to cry, wants to scream, wants to feel his throat bloody and raw from telling the whole fucking world what he thinks of them, and he wants to feel Veronica's body flush against him for the rest of his life, wants her there with her head high to watch it burn.

She throws her head back and tightens her hands, tightens around him until the entire world is narrowed to the expression on her glowing face, and J.D. knows for certain that he's being reborn.

When he jerks up, gasping her name like a prayer, pulling her closer desperate for love for reassurance for some sign that he isn't just imagining things, she fits their mouths together and swallows every pathetic noise, lifts him up…

God. He feels it, blooming like a crimson stain inside his chest, hot and certain. God.

This is more than love, this is God.

They are God.

Vaguely, he knows that she is stroking his hair, breathing softly against his neck. That is the only thing that matters now - the sticky-warm press of their bodies together, the way her eyes find his in the darkness, lips swollen and bitten, makeup smeared down her sweaty face.

They can do anything. He can feel it, power, responsibility.

Together, they can take the world apart, put it back together again.

She smiles, nervously, starts fumbling for her clothes, mumbling something awkwardly flirtatious, a "see you on Monday", and he opens his mouth to say something stupid, like "let's go get a slushie", a plea really. Don't go. Not now.

Not ever…

Instead, he grabs her wrist and somehow his fingers don't shake. "Stay," he whispers, and with a long pause she licks her lower lip and nods, lowering herself back into his arms. Back where she belongs, where he'll keep her safe and his.

For the first time in years, Jason Dean feels everything, and falls asleep knowing that there is a heaven, is a God, that above everything else there is Veronica. And for the first time in years, he falls asleep without a revolver in reach.

He doesn't want to die anymore, he realizes.

It's over. His old life, it's over, gone. He's been reborn, he's - he's more, he's better. No more nightmares. No more lonely nights.

There's so much to do. So much fixing, so much to love, so much to burn. He is heaven-sent, on a mission. He's going to do good - they are going to do good, together! Cleanse his soul, cleanse the world.

Starting with that bitch, Heather Chandler.

Nobody will make Veronica cry ever again. Not if he can help it.