Title: AKA A Little Help
Fandom: Jessica Jones
Rating: 15
Length: 1800
Content notes: Spoilers for the series, mild sexual content, characters with PTSD.
Author notes: Jessica/Trish/Luke, set post-series.
Summary: Jessica is stressed, Trish and Luke only want to help.



"Come on, Jess," she says, throwing herself onto the sofa and narrowly avoiding impalement on a particularly sharp spring, "everybody needs a hand sometimes."

"Trish," Jessica sighs, flopping onto the sofa with a good deal less fuss - she's never had to worry about getting stabbed by disobedient pieces of furniture, "no offence, but I'm not in the mood for your psychological bullshit today."

"It's not psychological bullshit," Luke calls from the kitchen. And, a moment later, emerges with a towel in his hand and his forearms distractingly bare – he’s a nice looking guy, the temptation to stare endlessly is sometimes a little too strong, "and, believe me, I can't believe I'm saying that - but everybody needs help sometimes, Jessica Jones. Even you."

Jessica snorts, her eyes narrow. The eternal pessimist, even when faced with the truth, "Whose side are you on?"

"The side of sense," she grins triumphantly, and pokes Jessica right in the ribs - she hasn't been ticklish there in years, but a girl can always hope, "seriously, Jess. If there's anything that the past few months have proven it's that nobody can do it all alone. Not even you."

"Trish..."

"Jess..."

Luke snorts, quickly turns it into a smile as Jessica spins to glare at him. His smile is about as distracting as his arms, it's most unfair, "seriously, though, she's right. You need our help. And we're here, we're willing, we're offering..."

"This," Jessica says, through teeth that are only slightly gritted, "is the weirdest seduction I've ever been invited to. I hope you two weirdos realize that."

She only grins again. Luke lets out a low, triumphant laugh.


--


The thing is that Jessica is stressed.

Not as stressed as she was when Kilgrave was still running around, thank god, but still. She's known Jessica for years - she can see it in the tense of her shoulders, the occasional hunted look in her eyes, the way she permanently looks like she hasn’t been getting quite enough sleep. The man may be gone, dead and buried and exactly where he should be, but the scars that he's left remain.

She just wants to help.

She loves Jessica, with all of her heart and soul. She's never wanted anything more than that.


--


"You look," Luke says, very deliberately, "like you're about to hurt somebody."

They're out for lunch, as they can do quite easily these days now that a murderous psychopath isn't stalking them, and Jessica is staring at a yelling guy across the bar like she wants to put her hand down his throat and tug. It takes a long few moments, with both of them staring pointedly at her, before she shakes her head - looks away from the loudmouth and offers them a defiant glare, "maybe I am, maybe I'm not."

"Jess," she smiles, and tries to sound teasing - she knows Jessica's moods, she's pretty sure that gently is the way to go, "we've discussed this. You can't inflict random violence on people just because-"

"They annoy me," Jessica finishes, and offers her a sharp little smile. Returns to her food with a certain expression on her face that says more than it hides, at least to her, "because everybody annoys me. And if I hurt everybody then there'd be nobody left, even to do the things that don’t annoy me."

"To serve you drinks," Luke suggests easily, with the slightest smile.

"Or laugh at your jokes," she agrees, summoning up another grin.

"Or rub your back after a long day."

"Or..."

"Hn," Jessica says, and reaches out to take a sharp sip of her dangerously alcoholic drink. When she looks up, her eyes are dark and painful and determined in a way that she's going to regret later, "at least neither of you assholes said that I looked like I was about to punch somebody. It would've been hard, to smile through that."

She chokes on her drink, Luke goes silent and still. They finish the rest of their meal in silence.


--


Luke came back about a month after the whole Kilgrave business. He turned up at her door first, like she wasn't already paranoid enough about everybody knowing where she lived, and patiently waited until she stopped panicking and realized who he was. From there, it was surprisingly easy to make the decision to let him in.

"Why did you come back?" She asked, when they were both sitting on her sofa and brainstorming how to tell Jessica, "I mean, I'm glad you did. But you could've just stayed away, left New York and forgot all the terrible things that have happened. Why didn't you?"

Luke had remained silent for a long few seconds, staring at her. And, oh, there were scars there - scars that she recognized far too well after everything. She saw them every time she looked at Jessica. She saw them every time she woke up screaming in the middle of the night, peered into the mirror and tried to convince herself that she was safe.

"...Jessica needs me," Luke said eventually, and gave a small smile. It was tiny, and painful - but it was a start, "and, hey, maybe I need her too. Can't deny that, no matter how hard the universe tries to say otherwise."


--


"Okay," Jessica says, after punching the wall so hard that they can actually see the crumpled pipes underneath, "maybe I am a little stressed."

It was a bad case, from what she can gather. A very bad case. Not Kilgrave, because she saw that bastard die and there's no way he's coming back this time, but something similar enough to hit every single trauma button that Jessica has. Malcolm filled them in on the details, and then sensibly ran for the hills - leaving them, one invulnerable and one stubborn enough to be close, to deal with the aftermath.

"Yeah, we know," she says gently, and reaches out - wraps her arm around Jessica's shoulders and guides her to the battered sofa, "we've known for a while, Jess. And..."

"We don't mind," Luke finishes for her, takes up Jessica's other side - the three of them crowded on the sofa like this isn't all absolutely absurd. Like they're meant to work together, "we're here for you. If you just let us help-"

"Everything will be rainbows and light and joy, and we can all skip off into our happily ever after like nothing will ever go wrong again," Jessica sighs, sneers just slightly. That painful look is back in her eyes, the scars that'll never quite go away no matter how hard they all try, "yeah, I've heard that before."

"...No," she says after a long pause, arm still wrapped around Jessica's shoulders.

"No," Luke echoes, still on Jessica's other side.

"We can't fix all the bad shit in the world," she admits, and hugs her Jessica close - reaches out to touch Luke's knee, until she can almost believe that it's only the three of them. Together. Come what may, "but we can try, can't we? We can always try."


--


Jessica doesn't trust people. She sometimes acts like she does, she sometimes pretends like she's learning how to relate again, but she doesn't. She expects every person to be rotten, every good front to be hiding shadows underneath. She still shies away from contact, like it's something poisonous to her.

Luke gets a faraway, distant look in his eyes a lot. He stares into space, expression flat, and seems far away from everything good in the world. It's not so much thinking, as it is remembering. But not the good kind of remembering - the dark kind of remembering, that should be kept to the middle of the night and rarely allowed to touch the light.

She has nightmares. So many nightmares, every time she tries to get any sleep. She dreams of her throat closing up over and over again, she dreams of Kilgrave's lips so very poisonous on hers, she dreams of the look in Simpson's eyes both before and after she got to know him, she dreams and she dreams and she awakes screaming with bile surging up her throat.

They’ve all been scarred, by Kilgrave and what he inflicted on the world. But those scars don't define them.


--


The sex is good. Better than good, great even. She kisses Jessica, Jessica kisses Luke. She tugs off her jeans, Luke discards his shirt, Jessica rips off her bra. They all lie down on the bed together and start to explore. And eventually... They all come. Her with a low scream, Luke with a desperate grunt, Jessica with her eyes closed and her knuckles white.

In the aftermath they lie heaped on the bed together. Luke’s arm dangling awkwardly off the edge, her hips almost falling off the mattress, Jessica squashed in the middle in a way that must be uncomfortable at best.

“It didn’t fix anything,” Jessica says suddenly, and sits up in the middle of their nest of arms, “we had sex, we got our rocks off, woo. But it didn’t actually fix anything.”

“Jess-“ she starts, voice still ragged.

“It wasn’t meant to,” Luke finishes for her yet again, reaching up to wrap his arm around Jessica’s trembling waist, “this isn’t a movie, not everything can be fixed by a happily ever after kiss at the end. This was just... Stress relief.”

“Then what was the point?” Jessica hisses. And, trapped between them as she is, she can’t hide the way her whole body starts to tremble – with anger and fear and a grief so absolute that it touches all of them like a blow, “if it doesn’t fix anything, then why did we do it? If we can’t fix ourselves, then why the fuck are we here?”

“Jess...” Luke says, helplessly.

“Because we’re trying,” she provides for him this time. And sits up, wraps her arms around both of them and squeezes, “and we may fail, we may never fix it, but... It’s better to try than just give up. And it’s better to try together, no matter how much shit the universe throws at us for it.”

There’s a long moment of silence. And then Jessica makes a helpless, aching noise and buries her head in her hands. And all they can do is hold her, hold on no matter what.


--


They lie in bed, after Jessica had cried herself to sleep, and wrap comfortably around each other. She rests her cheek on Jessica’s hair, Jessica leans her head against Luke’s chest and Luke reaches out to gently graze his hand against her arm. Peaceful, as safe as they can possibly get after everything that’s happened.

Jessica needs her, Luke needs Jessica, they all need each other.

And everybody needs a hand sometimes, no matter what.