Sweet As Sin

~ Hello! I'm back again with a new Flinx one-shot. I had an idea for something like this for a while, so it felt good to finally start and finish it. Thank you for dropping by to read, and I hope that you enjoy it! ~

Summary - "I'm a villain. The villains don't get the happy endings, Flash." She had always hated roses anyway.

Disclaimer - I do not own Teen Titans, the characters, or anything involved with the fandom whatsoever. I also do not own the lyrics at the beginning. No claim intended at all.

If you could only see the beast you've made of me,

I held it in but now it seems you've set it running free.
Screaming in the dark, I howl when we're apart,
Drag my teeth across your chest to taste your beating heart.

My fingers claw your skin, try to tear my way in.
You are the moon that breaks the night for which I have to howl.
My fingers claw your skin, try to tear my way in.
You are the moon that breaks the night for which I have to howl.

Now there's no holding back, I'm making to attack.
My blood is singing with your voice, I want to pour it out.
The saints can't help me now, the ropes have been unbound.
I hunt for you with bloody feet across the hallowed ground.

- Florence and The Machine, Howl

xoxoxoxo

She had always hated roses.

Flowers in general bothered her to no end. She saw no logical reason in collecting the thorny and irritating plants and showcasing them around homes and office desks. They required daily care, a certain amount of water droplets, and some sort of strange, special plant food, only for them to inevitably shrivel up and die weeks after purchasing them, at best. She understood the appeal of them, of course; flowers were awfully pretty and artistic; but she still didn't believe that they were worth all of the hassle that went into taking care of them. Still, even knowing that and voicing the opinion to those she held close enough to rant to, she always seemed to receive a brand new, long-stemmed rose once a week from her not-so-secret-admirer, the infamous Wally West - also known as Kid Flash, for his inhuman speed.

Her eyes, weary and so pink, trailed along the yellow sunflowers that she passed. Each sunflower lined the grass of the familiar forest area, standing tall and proud and soulless, and she wished to crush each and every one of them with the sole of her shoe - because if she saw one more God-damned flower she'd be left running up the walls - but she restrained herself, because that would take far too long, and she didn't have all night to run around and destroy something that may have been perceived as art. Instead, she carried on walking, taking steady steps over the tall blades of grass, until she reached a large maple tree that stood in the outskirts of the forest. She took shelter underneath the thickening tree, continued to wait, and the rosewood coloured leaves protected her from the small spits of rain that she was sure she had felt blemish her skin on her way there.

If she had worn a watch, she would have been tapping on it by now, but no, she didn't like watches; almost as much as she disliked flowers. She had no idea of just how long she had been waiting among the grass and trees for him to arrive. However, she did know that he would staring at a hex in the face if he made her wait a minute longer. She waited for no one, and he understood that, so she had no clue what he was playing at.

(she was starting to wonder if he was going to show up at all)

(damned insecurities flooding through her bloodstream like a poison)

She tore herself from the maple tree that smelled like grime and mud and sap and all things rotten, and she returned to stalking against the darkness that skirted around her, pacing and traversing atop dirty leaves and branches until she was certain that she had treaded on every square inch of the forest - her forest - hers and his - and she wished that she was aware of what time it was, or that she had bothered to take her mobile phone with her so that she could call him and yell all of the obscenities that were burning on the tip of her tongue, just waiting to spew from her tinted lips.

It wasn't until the moment in which she was preparing to vanish from the forest that she heard the faint sounds of his footsteps, felt his presence like a sinful shadow casting behind her anatomy, and she found her lips twitching into something of a smile - not a good little smile, like a child come Christmas morning, more triumphant, ironic - because she would be the one to make him wait next time - and there would be a next time, because he was here and he hadn't changed his mind like she had been beginning to believe more and more every minute that she had loitered.

Spinning herself around to face him, she felt the grass scuffing beneath her shoes, and then she was looking directly at him. She took him all in, breathed in his eyes that were so devastatingly blue and conspicuous in the moonlight, the natural curve of his utterly celestial lips, the way that he moved under his clothes - his outfit made from such a rich latex of yellow and red and embarrassment and goodness - and she could see with perfect clarity the apology that harboured in his timid smile. He must have been saving someone, she surmised, someone who could not save themselves (someone who needed him more than she did). Her eyes downcast lower, trailed down to his palm that was hanging by his side, and of course, he held a rose in said hand - a rose that was everything that Jinx was not; fragile, graceful, brittle; only the thorns could ever represent her - and she wasn't certain of whether she should accept it like she did all the others (she had long lost count of how many it had been.) Perhaps, she mused, if she simply hexed this one, he would stop gifting her more. But then she thought not. She had hexed the first one, she recalled distinctly, and yet more had followed.

"Flash," Jinx murmured his name against the fickle, capricious wind as she moved from her spot on the grass, drifted closer towards him and towards his lips that she just couldn't wait to tear into because, oh, his lips were absolutely flawless; like something carved by the angels.

She glided even closer to him, one foot before the other, so featherlight that she was sure she had left no blemish on the grass blades that she had stepped on. Her eyes were trapped onto his face like glue, a face that was overcast with shadows and darkness and a coruscating smile that peaked out through all of the unilluminated mess. Once she was in a close vicinity to him, she extended her black-clad arm out towards his and instinctively stole the exquisite red rose from between his fingers and into her own. The serrated thorns lacerated into her insipid palm, leaving a litter of tiny little pricks running against her marred skin - roses are supposed to be delicate - no better than her - so she wiped the damage onto her silken dress before tucking the rose into her pocket, where she would soon toss it into the pile of countless others that Kid Flash had gifted her - (keeps them in a little black box underneath her Queen-sized bed) - (barely looks at them unless she misses him, which is a rarity because he always seems to be around).

Exhibiting a smile so seraphic that even the angels would sin to lay eyes upon it, Jinx slumped her head to one side and stared at him from behind her winged eyelashes. "I thought you'd never show up."

Her eyes swam into his before traveling over his familiar, lithe frame, wandering around his customary yellow and red unitard, an outfit of which adorned and accentuated each and every muscle that hid tucked underneath the latex material. The suit always made him appear taller than he actually was, and she secretly loved it. She hated what the suit represented, but she adored the man inside and that surpassed the hate that burned inside of her heart whenever he showed up wearing the outfit.

(innocents always came before her)

"And miss a chance to see you?" Wally West - or, as by his more veracious moniker; Kid Flash - intoned into the air that stood betwixt them, his voice as delightfully mischievous and saccharine as always. "Never, Princess."

(princess?)

(she was a Queen and he knew it)

Jinx wasted no time in eradicating what little distance was left between them, essentially rushing into his open arms and soaking inside of his warm and familiar embrace, digging her claw-esque nails into his neck - because he had made her wait - causing a slight physical pain that he was unable to comprehend because when her lips overcame his, he was gone, no longer in control, and he could feel nothing but the sensation of her icy lips brushing up and down against his and the feelings of euphoria that spiraled throughout his veins and into his bloodstream like a sweet venom.

As she carelessly tossed her lengthy arms around his broad shoulders, she hauled him downwards so that he was close enough for her run her splayed fingers through his sunset hair and feel every inch of his cranium beneath her frail fingertips. She hastily broke their kiss and dragged her lips to his neck and pecked the space of neutral complexion that sat between the curve of his shoulder and his collar-bone, her kisses burning into his skin like a toxin. She inhaled his scent of latex and rain as though it were her air supply and she needed it to breathe, and it was so close to asphyxiating her because of how strong it was.

She often found herself wondering why he was with her in the first place. He had said many (too many) times that she was the most ravishing and beautiful creature that he had ever had the pleasure of being in company with - he loved her outsides - but did he love her insides too? Did he love the thirst for destruction and the crave to be the worst that she could possibly be? Did he love her for her? She feared she'd never know (funny, she never feared anything before he came along and made her feel these terrible sorts of emotions) but she'd still never dare ask. Too afraid of the answer. Too afraid of the very notion that Flash - her Flash - could never accept the parts that he couldn't see.

"One of these days," He was speaking equanimously against her lustful lips when she finally blinked back into the reality that encompassed her, waving a good-bye to the Heaven that she thrived in whenever his kiss met hers. "You're going to have to stop hiding this," There was a silent plea harboured inside of his voice - a plea that she could feel with every spasmodic beat of her black heart and it was too deadly to listen to. "I'm sick of this," He carried on as his lips sunk against the pale skin of her face. "I'm tired of these secret meetings and the lies about where we are."

"I'm bad," She spoke through a melody of harsh breaths, through the cracks in her teeth - eager to get this habitual conversation over and done with so that she could return to his lips before their time alone together was up for today and she would have to return home and vise versa. "You're good." She wished that he wasn't, truly. He'd make an excellent King to her Queen. But he had chosen his side and even she knew that he would never leave it. "No one is going to understand this, you know that."

The words caused Kid Flash pause, and he began to register them into his subconscious, absorbing each and every locution she had spoken to him, feeling them embed into his bones because he knew that most of it was true and that destroyed him more than she ever could. His eyes darted between hers, searching for a form of hesitance that he prayed he'd find one of these days, and he released a breath through his nose, his lips remained pursed into an unintentional solidus, and then he shook his head with adamance. "I don't think that you're bad." He never had, otherwise he wouldn't have dared to start something with her. He knew that she could be saved, and he was most likely the only one who could save what was left of her goodness. He knew, knew she had virtue inside of her, because he'd seen it, only he had ever seen it with his own two eyes. "Misunderstood," He offered. "But not bad. Not evil."

In an instant, Jinx's hands slipped away from Kid Flash's neck and she began to take a steady step backwards, discarding herself of his cordial embrace and habitual scent and leaving them in her dust as she scooted off as though his words were made of venom that could easily annihilate her where she stood. She spun herself around and took another step, distracting herself by fixating her gaze on the branches of the red maple trees that surrounded them like a non-transparent fog, swaying back and forth in the wind.

"I like being who I am," She said with no doubt whatsoever hiding in her tone. It had always been a choice that she had made; a choice between bad and good, and bad had always called to her more than good. She liked being strong and in control and free, not having to fret about doing the right thing and risking self-destruction to save the people who could not save themselves. "I always will, and I thought that you had accepted that." She shot him a cursory glance from behind her silk-clad shoulder. "If not, why are you here?"

"Because, Jinx," He took a singular step forwards in an attempt to shred apart the space that kept them from one another - although that space was getting bigger with every second, even though neither moved. "I'm still hoping for the day when you realise that you're supposed to be on the side of good." He blinked repetitively under the blackened sky, striving to make out her willowy, snake-hipped figure from the shade. "With me."

"That's never going to happen." She ran her hands through the spare amount of bangs that hung low against her face, careful not to ruin her coiffure in the process. Her stress ran evident along her face, and she wanted to scream - wished to scream her words in his face; toxic and true; get it into his dense skull that she was a devil and he was an angel and that was that.

"I choose not to believe that."

As his devotion stuck a nerve in Jinx's heart, she revolved herself back around to face her boy-thing - not her boyfriend - not even close - and she forced out a groan that rung around them, her white teeth bared underneath cracking lips - dark like a poison apple and so pink that they glistened in the murk of the forest. "I was born with bad luck, Flash, okay? Born to be bad, and it's where I've always belonged." Her intonation felt desperate and she hated it. Under the moonlight, she could only quite make out the melancholia that sat imprisoned inside of his navy irises, and she hated the way that it made her heart hurt (made her heart feel something). "Theres nothing for me on the other side."

Kid Flash reached out to steal her hands in his, to pull her closer into his compass and never let go until she understood how hard he was trying. "There's me." He replied while woving his fingers through hers, cementing them, running his thumb across the back of her hand like she was the most precious thing in the world to him - and she was. "You'll have me and we can finally stop hiding our relationship..whatever this is..and we could be happy."

"No. We won't." Jinx tore her hands from his grasp and she cradled them against her caving stomach, gripping at her conventional black dress with a fist to prevent herself from tossing hexes at his mouth until it stopped spewing the words. His words were poison and he was a fool to believe them. "I'm a villain," She took a singular step backwards, her shoes scuffing across the tall blades of green grass and the sunflowers that mocked her. "The villains don't get the happy endings, Flash."

Her heart was beating in her throat and pounding in her ears and she had to seal her lips to stop herself from screaming at the top of her little lungs. She was fully aware of the constant risks that came with being who she was and she had long accepted each and every one. She had accepted the fact that she was a villain, that she would never be able to taste the sweet euphoria of a happy ending, or of a clean life that she could at least revel in. But Kid Flash - damn him - was a constant reminder that she had a happy ending in reach and she wouldn't take it. Whatever life she could have with him would never be able to fulfil her the way that the crime did, yet she always found herself coming back to him - even knowing that they had no future.

(the heart is wild, is that not what rib cages are for?)

"Then stop being one," Kid Flash was begging - almost grovelling at her feet like the Queen she was - because he couldn't allow her to slip from his fingers, couldn't give this up and go back to being against her. "Stop using hate and evil to define the person you're supposed to be." He placed his chilling hands on either side of her face, sending shock waves of coldness and ice against her once burning skin, and trapped their eyes together - blue irises swimming in pink so deep and so close that it was disorienting. "Stop being a villain and be good."

(no, no, no, never)

"If I stop living this life, I would have worked so hard for nothing. This," She motioned between their bodies with her index finger. "Us? It's not a good enough reason to turn my back on everything that I've spent my life working towards. Don't you get that!?"

(no, no, no, no, no, never)

"We're great together," He spoke through a hopeful and long forgotten smile. "You've got to admit to that, Jinxie."

Her face was as frozen as her heart, as if she was pondering an answer - an answer that she needn't think about, because she knew that they were great together. He accepted all of her flaws with open arms and vise versa. His incessant kindness complimented her selfishness. He was the light that shone hope into the darkness of her soul. She was the dark that struck purpose and independence into the brightness of his heart. Besides standing on opposite sides, they were the flawless match that no one saw coming, that no one would see coming, but it had to be that way - nobody was allowed to see it. God forbid someone found about them. It would end them and the ruin the illusory world where they thrived with only each other.

"You kiss remarkably, and you make me feel good." She admitted with ease - because, oh, how true it was - in a subtle intonation, peaking up at his overcast face and willing herself not to reach up and bring him back to her. She began to wonder if it was too much to ask for them to just kiss and be with one another and allow themselves a tiny shred of ecstasy without him eternally bringing up the same enquiry only to inevitably immerse themselves in the same argument about the same issue over and over. She was sick to the stomach of it all. "However, Flash," She continued with a stern lilt to her tone. "I'm not leaving the H.I.V.E Five for this."

Kid Flash released a breath he was unaware that he had been holding in. He wasn't quite sure what it was that kept bringing him back to her - to this derogatory, contumelious villainess. Maybe he did like to think that he could change her, sure, but it was not for his gain. He knew that she wanted more - needed more - and he could help her be the best that she could be. She could be good and he could be good with her. But he still couldn't seem to understand why he hadn't given up already - because she so clearly wasn't considering anything he said, she wasn't going to change for him - because if it had been any other villain, he knew that he would have long given up by then.

But this was Jinx -his Jinx- and she was special and she meant something to him and she needed him (almost as much as he needed her). Whatever the reason may have been, he kept coming back to their little forest for private, secret meetings and getting nothing out of it besides some quality Jinx-time. He didn't know if he'd ever be able to truly give her up - give up on her.

"Look," He pushed the word past his lips on an exhale of breath - wishing that for once, Jinx would at least try to be open-minded about what he had to say as opposed to the stubborn spirit that she always seemed to be. "If we could just talk about it, maybe-"

His words were halted before they could leave his lips as Jinx held up her palm and stationed it before his face, and as her own lips pried, she began to talk over him. "What is it that you're after, Flash?" Her tone and the general ambience of her actions proved that she was genuinely curious; and also a tad frustrated, not enough to aim a hex at his mouth like she occasionally did to shut him up, but enough to make her turn around and walk away or yell her truths into his ear. "You would do or say anything to change my mind and I just don't get it anymore." She felt her teeth clenching because her skin was aching with emotion and it was too much. He was too much. "What is it that you want?"

"You." He told her succinctly, and Jinx noticed the immediate change in his previously choleric physiognomy; the way that his lips were prising and sealing over and over as if he didn't know what to do with them, the subtle affection that swam inside of his cobalt eyes, the tenderness of the artistic lines that trailed along his forehead; and she knew from his visage that the answer held so much meaning to him. But she still didn't allow herself to buy it. Couldn't.

"No," She whispered in a fragile susurrate against the opaque air that environed them, and she shook her head with an equal amount of adamance that he had exuded from his reply. "I'm starting to think that you just want a challenge," Her insecurities were battling with her predominance and she wished that she could take control of the words that were spewing from her lips like a symphony of each emotion that oppressed her. Didn't think she was good enough. Didn't think she was worth any of this. She hadn't wanted Kid Flash to know any of it, but she couldn't stop herself. She had no control. "Because no one is worth all of this hassle. Not me. Not anyone."

Kid Flash softly shook his head back and forth as he ran his fingers across her sculptured cheek-bones; his fingertips struck with the harsh sting of iciness from her bitter, insipid skin. "Jinx," He breathed out her name with so much affinity that it broke Jinx's heart and mended it all the same. "You will always be worth it."

(always and forever worth his attention)

He didn't waste time in waiting for her to respond - to argue that she was just a girl, just a villainess, and she didn't deserve his utmost devotion. Instead, he captured her lips with his once again, anchored them together like the kiss could be their last (because for all he knew, it could have been. Easily. He never knew what to expect with her, she could break this at any time she wished and he'd beg on his knees and she'd win like she always did). He kissed her in a way that was so ethereal that Jinx felt her blood running in slow-motion and her skin melting against the arms that enveloped and embraced her.

And she wanted to protest so badly - to tell him that, no, this was the end of the conversation, that she would always be bad (bad, bad, bad, terrible) and that he'll just have to deal with that and get used to it or he'll have to give this up - but she couldn't, because he was kissing her, and the sensation of need was coarsing through her like the blood through her veins and it was too strong to eradicate. She lost control of her hands as they slid up and found their way to his cheek, her splayed, almost skeletal fingers, drawing his lips close to hers, and she couldn't help but revel in how sinful it all was. Good boy. Bad girl. Kissing in a forest. Keeping seconds from those with whom they love.

(it was so sinfully delicious)

His kiss was absolutely psychedelic, like a surge of novocaine straight to her veins that caused her to feel lulled and anesthetized, and she couldn't get enough of it. Each time that his speed slowed, and it appeared as though he may be pulling apart from her, she felt as though she might drown, might go insane. His kisses did that. Or maybe it was just him in general. Jinx didn't honestly want to know which.

She remembered their first kiss as clear as day; four months and sixteen days prior to this one. It was intense, it was filled with this lustful, sinful passion that made her toes curl inside of her shoes and made the hair on the back of his neck stand. It was slightly awkward too, everything that one would expect a first kiss between a newfound couple to be like, but it was pure magic and intoxication, sheer ecstasy, and it made Jinx's head twirl like a delirious ballerina, made her blood still beneath her skin, made her eyes melt and her lips twist into unexpected smiles.

It wasn't just that he was a good kisser, she had come to learn over time, it was their connection - an attachment that had formed from the very moment that Kid Flash had laid eyes on her in the store in which she had planned to rob, from the second that Jinx took a glance at the first rose he had ever gifted her (before he had even had the pleasure of knowing her) and it was an entirely unbreakable bond that neither understood the full extent of until this day.

When she withdrew from their spellbinding, mesmeric kiss, her lips still held into a complacent little smile, Jinx felt her breathing slow drastically, and the words (the words that were spiraling throughout her mind all throughout their kiss) were slipping from her painted pink lips before she could do anything to stop them. "Do you love me, Flash?"

(love is the ultimate sin to evil)

Her question was met with a fragile silence that caused Jinx's smile to play with a scowl. She didn't give the notion much thought, but when she did, she assumed that love was the only plausible answer behind his incessant devotion for her. You never give up on someone with whom you love, no matter what, and Jinx knew enough about love to know that to be true. She wasn't sure why she wanted to know if he did indeed love her; perhaps it was the promise of power, maybe she was simply curious. Either way, she wished to know, once and for all, because she had been wondering in silence for far too long, so many months that she couldn't dare to count them all.

She did not love him. She refused to allow herself a chance to indulge in what, in her mentality, surely was the greatest sin to somebody like her. It wasn't that she found it disastrous to love an enemy - to love a boy born and bred of goodness and nothing dark besides his preferences in women - it was more that she found the concept of love to be a weakness. In a world like hers, a world in which good fights evil and battles are a daily occurrence, things like true friends and lovers are liabilities - they can be used against you - and Jinx didn't want any liabilities. She didn't want to let the frailty inside just so that she could feel something as destructive as love.

No, she didn't love him. What she did love about their union was the attention that she received from him - knowing that Flash would always be hers if she so much as whistled or clicked her fingertips. He'd come running like a lost puppy and she liked that.

(made her feel powerful, so powerful she could almost taste it)

"Jinx," His susurrate was so subdued, so careful that she was adamant in the notion that a rejection was loitering on the tip of his tongue, and she felt her flesh sting as she chewed at her lower lip, dragged her teeth across the breaking skin, trying to bite down hard enough so that she could feel something -anything- besides the twinge and the sink of her intermittent heart inside of her chest. "Of course," Her eyes swam into his as he answered her question, and the twinge dissipated into nothing, replaced by something else. Something lovely. "I don't think there will ever be a time when I don't love you."

At his terribly saccharine words, a smirk, so depraved and so Jinx-like, twisted against her mouth. "Good."

With that said and done, she gripped her fingernails into his broad shoulders and planted her lips back onto his as though her world might collapse around her if she didn't succumb to him right then; she kissed him like she never had before; kissing him with some sort of sweet paroxysm and craving because he loved her and she had never felt more alive and in control. She was at Heaven in his embrace, his arms wrapped around her gracile body like a warm tourniquet, his lips skidding to the curve of her jaw, causing her head to spin in the clouds above, making her toes curl inside of her shoes. Her spectral skin was fervid with unbridled passion, and she could almost feel the white hot, incandescent flames soaring into her bloodstream because everything from then on felt so heavy and overwhelming but she still managed to revel in it like she always did when he was near.

And for the first time in the entirety of her existence, she felt utterly powerless, even though she had first assumed that his admission of love would make her feel the complete opposite - but no, she didn't feel powerful as his words spiraled around her subconscious, because he could so easily make her feel things that were romantic, things that were real and desirable, and that alone caused her to lose her grip on the control that she held onto so dearly. He could make her heart hurt and make her doubt herself - and that gave him more power over her than she could ever have over him. He had the ability to change her and he knew it. And yet, while she should have bailed and ran at the first hint of weakness, she stayed, in their forest, in his arms, because she craved the affection and the sanity of it all.

(she had never craved anything like she craved Wally West)

He had gotten under her skin and she had crawled into his heart and there was no getting either of them out.

(he was her sin and she was his)

Sin had never tasted so good.

~ Thank you for taking the time to read, I hope you enjoyed it! ~

Review, please?