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Jim is always reluctant to enter Oswald Cobblepot’s territory, less because of the risk of trouble and more because of the toll it takes to feel Oswald’s shining eyes on him. When Jim walks into the club, Oswald’s smile splits his face, glowing, and it leaves Jim itching with discomfort. He already feels dirty for relying on Oswald and it makes things worse to know that Oswald revels in seeing him.
Jim talks business. He speaks like a cop, hunting the unethical exchange of favours that he came here for. His face hardly moves.
Oswald responds with slimy taunts and bright eyes. He’s playful, but not ditzy. As much as Oswald may look like someone tied up in the blossoming of their first crush, he doesn’t stumble when he speaks to Jim. Defiance is his default setting. He’s the Penguin– a ratty gutter-bird, sure, but hardly the type to take his eye off the ball.
Still. He looks at Jim like someone staring in the face of their own dreams.
~
Jim dislikes Oswald, and for good reason. The Penguin reminds Jim of all the things he hates about himself. Manipulative, liar, killer. Deviant. Traitor to conformity, in more ways than one, and god knows how much Jim relies on the comfort of convention to stop himself feeling defective.
But Oswald blushes a shade of pink that Jim has never seen elsewhere. Not on any flower, or any fruit, or any girl he’s ever met. And when Jim goes home after dropping by the Penguin’s establishment, he slumps in bed, switches the lamp off, struggles out of his boxers and jerks off until he feels like he might turn inside out.
It’s physical. No need to overthink it.
~
Oswald likes Jim Gordon. Why deny it? He likes Jim, and it doesn’t mean all that much. It’s not as though he expects to get anything from him, aside from the scant system of favours they’ve already set up. Jim’s attention is quid pro quo.
Everyone’s attention is quid pro quo.
Oswald is a social creature but he’s used to loneliness, spending time in crowds but never being seen unless he kicks up a fuss. He knows he may never feel reciprocity with other people. This isn’t to say that Oswald is a cynic– in fact, he likes being hopeful, because hope tastes fresh and sweet, and besides, it’s unwise to think in black and white given that grey areas often pay off– but he takes things as they come. He picks up scraps. Which is why it’s a surprise when his relationship with Jim Gordon turns into something that feeds him well.
Over time, Jim forms a habit of bickering with Oswald in the back room instead of on the main floor of the club. They share drinks as they quarrel together, and soon, those quarrels dissolve into chatter. Connection. They talk about things that shouldn’t matter, but do. Tonight, the two of them have drifted close like magnets, standing near enough to feel each other’s body heat, the very essence of their humanity, and this is apparently the thing that brings the crash. Jim makes a move and body heat turns to touch. Postures alter, hearts speed, mouths meet.
Oswald holds on furiously tightly. “Why–?” he demands when they break for breath. “Jim?”
“Don’t talk,” Jim pleads, stubble rough against Oswald’s face. “Don’t talk unless you’re telling me to stop.”
Very well. Silence and adrenaline it is.
Oswald’s pulse races as Jim’s palms fumble over his body and his belt and beneath. Jim touches him; spits in his palm and strokes Oswald with haste, wrist angled to grip him right. Feels good. Feels sloppy. Oswald tucks his scarlet face clumsily against Jim’s neck as he pants into Jim’s collar, whining, snarling, and then coming, wondering why and how and why.
As he comes down, Oswald stews in the racing curiosity of his thoughts. The mess of Jim’s life and job seem to have brewed a perfect storm for him to break open, and the man under the casing is no longer tough enough to keep holding himself together. After hitting rock bottom, fighting with Harvey, fighting with Barbara, and fighting himself, he had turned up at Oswald’s door to drink with him tonight, hence… this. Jim is a ruin. This couldn’t have happened otherwise.
Oswald doesn’t care about Jim’s personal issues in any real capacity. He is, sadly, also unbothered by the existence of Jim’s fiancée.
Jim doesn’t seem fussed about his fiancée either. At least, not while he’s letting Oswald kiss him. Not while he’s bucking up into Oswald’s fist in the back room, groaning and spilling all his frustrations into Oswald’s pale, delicate grip, crumpling with such relief that you’d think this was medicine for him.
The therapeutic effects don’t last long. Afterwards, Jim is distraught. This is a given. He doesn’t take indulgences well.
Meanwhile, Oswald is wickedly pleased. Cat who got the canary. Penguin who got more than scraps.
~
Jim comes back. He doesn’t have to, but he does, even after fixing things with Harvey and Barbara. His job gives him a pretence under which to turn up at Oswald’s anytime he likes, and his tactical relationship with Oswald adds another excuse.
There is no way to justify letting the Penguin into his bed, though.
Barbara is working late and won’t be back for hours. The sheets are clean, no hint of Barbara’s scent. Jim’ll change them again after Oswald leaves, too.
On the bed, Oswald falls open and sprawls, luxuriating, but Jim can’t quite relax. He can’t stop staring at Oswald as he touches him, brain spiralling over how human he is, how ugly, and how pretty. Oswald’s hip joints aren’t as flexible as a woman’s but he still spreads his legs like one when Jim grabs his thighs. Although his freckled skin is clammy at first, he heats up quickly with the right touches, his blush darkening when Jim fumbles two lubed fingers inside him. One hand works between the shuddering parting of his legs and the other tugs at his cock. He comes before Jim can even fuck him.
Jim fucks him anyway. He presses into Oswald a minute later, sliding inside the hot, trembling breach of him and holding him by his middle for leverage as he shallowly starts to thrust. When Oswald takes it well, he goes deeper.
He’s wearing a condom, for Barbara’s sake more than anyone else’s. Bareback is tempting but the idea of Barbara even having secondhand contact with Oswald is a nightmare. Funnily enough, Jim doesn’t mind touching him firsthand. Oswald’s pale stomach is smeared with his own release and Jim digs his hands into the dip of his waist, one thumb smudging his come, beside where his soft cock lies against his belly. There are scars on his skin.
Beneath Jim, Oswald seems tired, but comfy enough. He traces his hands affectionately over Jim’s shoulderblades and kisses him, too sweetly for Jim’s taste, at odds with his lust. Then again, from what he’s seen, Oswald’s desire for closeness is deceptively tactical. Almost cold. It seems like Oswald wants to drain as much intimacy from this encounter as he can, without regard for what is actually being offered.
Mismatch aside, Jim keeps going. It’s easy. Hot and new. Noisy, whether Jim likes it or not. Oswald is all breath and voice, seemingly unwilling to shut up.
“Jim,” Oswald says raggedly, his eyes shut tight, “Jim, James–”
This vocal mess may be for Oswald’s own benefit. Seems like he’s getting off on the idea of Jim more than the man himself.
Jim is too feverish to care. Besides, being a concept feels kinda nice. Freeing.
He surges faster into Oswald. The pace probably isn’t so great for Oswald anymore– jackhammering rarely got Barbara anywhere good– but it’s exactly what Jim needs. He can hear himself making noises, desperate little grunts, barely audible under Oswald’s moans. Oswald’s not even hard but he seems to be starving for Jim’s attention, the kind of starving where you’d get vicious just for crumbs, saying Jim’s name over and over until Jim can’t help but come, pulsing into Oswald and cursing.
Eventually he slumps over Oswald, fighting for breath.
He tries to pull out so he can deal with the condom but Oswald isn’t keen; he tugs Jim closer, making it difficult to withdraw.
“Cobblepot,” Jim mutters, disturbed, “Come on.”
No reaction.
“Oswald,” Jim says.
Oswald relaxes and complies. His face is blank but his eyes are sparkling. They’re far too blue. Scary blue.
Jim pulls out and gets rid of the condom, feeling…
Unsure. There’s a cavern where his emotions ought to be. A clean absence.
Oswald sits up with a wince and kisses Jim’s cheek. “You’re a good man, Detective Gordon. Don’t feel bad. You needed this.”
Jim did need this. He can’t figure out why he needed to wrench himself inside out this way, but he did. He supposes that his life in Gotham is all about repression, stuffing down the urges that don’t match his ideals, eager to be an adequate person (or a hero) in a filthy place. Jim is desperate to convince himself that he isn’t breaking the law twice as badly as the scum he’s trying to do away with– when some lowlife gets stuck in crime, it is what it is, but when Jim bends the law, it’s an abuse of power. He knows it is. He refuses to let this knowledge meet with his conscious mind. He pushes it down.
Jim’s suppression was starting to rot him, but now the rot has been released. Into Oswald, in a manner of speaking. Into the kind of person Jim wants to erase from Gotham. He can’t very well go pouring his rot into his fiancée, so maybe it’s better this way.
He wonders what Oswald even sees in him.
“Did you need this?” Jim finds himself asking, looking at Oswald.
Oswald looks violated, white and pink and damp like a crushed petal. There’s ice in his eyes, but that’s nothing new. “I have no problem taking it,” he says evasively, smiling at Jim.
~
Oswald feels used by Jim. This is not a bad thing.
Oswald sees the world as a series of transactions, so knowing that intimacy with Jim is transactional doesn’t hurt his feelings. Frankly, he’s overjoyed to be doing business with Jim Gordon at all. Sure, their arrangement is not what it would be if Oswald ruled the world, but so many conditions would need to change to give Oswald what he wants that he doesn’t bother praying for it. They have a deal. They each gain something. It’s good enough.
Jim gets an outlet. He gets somewhere to stick his dick. He gets free drinks at the club and he gets to hear Oswald whispering that he’s a good man.
Meanwhile, Oswald gets close contact with a figure he admires, and he gets to make Jim weak.
It works, for now.
~
Short as Oswald may be, his presence is big. He schemes, yells, and breaks things when his emotions take over. He doesn’t seem capable of letting himself be small. He is capable, though. Every now and then, he screws up his own plans or argues with his mother, and it shrinks him. When Jim turns up at the club on one of these shrunken days, Oswald collapses against Jim’s chest on the couch in the back room, shoulders hunched, gaze distracted. Together, they do nothing.
They’re cuddling, Jim supposes, but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like some heretofore unnamed fringe act. Oswald is layered in fine attire as usual, he’s gritting his teeth, and he smells of gutter and drink, but he’s letting Jim cuddle him.
They get each other off afterwards, of course. It would be weird not to. Jim drops to his knees between Oswald’s legs and puts his unpracticed mouth to work. A favour.
It must be obvious that Jim hasn’t sucked cock before. Every now and then, he does something that makes Oswald stifle laughter. It might be Jim’s expression. Maybe his thoughts are showing on his face: he can’t help but feel like a lady on her knees for a man, even if the man in question is Oswald, who’s flowerier than all the girls Jim knows, in spite of his suits and his dirty hands. It’s a paradox to Jim, who likes people to have clear-cut roles to avoid freaking him out. Oswald sure as hell freaks him out. In Jim’s eyes, Oswald almost seems like more of a woman than Barbara, in the way he holds himself and the way men dismiss him on instinct. (Jim wonders if that’s an offensive thought to have. Offensive or not, it’s apt. If Jim and Oswald’s relationship were a gendered dichotomy, Oswald would be exiled to womanhood right away, and Jim would get to keep his place where he feels he belongs, in the walled bounds of traditional masculinity, far from the muddy truth that he’s fucking another man. He doesn’t know if this role lens makes him feel better but it’s the only way he can let himself think about certain things without losing his wits. He can never think about painful things directly. He always has to step around them somehow.)
Oswald comes in Jim’s mouth, gasping sharply. Jim swallows before he can overthink it. It lingers on the back of his tongue, and he swallows again and again to make sure it’s all gone.
On the one hand, it feels degrading to be taking a load from a criminal, someone who by all rights, Jim ought to have put behind bars by now. On the other hand– and this is where Jim’s distorted view of their relationship comes into play– there’s some honour in giving pleasure to a dame.
Oswald zips up his pants. Nudges Jim out the way so he can close his legs. Brushes his styled hair from his eyes.
Blue eyes. Vulgar blue, framed by hollow dark circles and black lashes. He looks unwell.
“Break up with Barbara,” Oswald says.
And now Jim feels unwell. “You’re not serious.”
“Of course I’m not serious,” Oswald says playfully. “Do it. Break it off. For me.”
Jim takes pause.
Is Oswald intentionally acting like ‘the other woman’?
Can he hear Jim’s thoughts?
“You need this,” Oswald says, cupping the back of Jim’s head. “Right?”
“I don’t need this, Oswald,” Jim says flatly. Not at the expense of Barbara, at least.
“But it helps,” Oswald states. “It cleans you up. There’s all this dirt in you. You’re such a good person, you need to get it out so you can be clean.”
Still kneeling at Oswald’s feet, Jim squeezes his eyes shut. He’s not sure what Oswald is trying to pull here, but it’s fucked up in its specificity. He didn’t realise how many of his inner thoughts he’d inadvertently shown. “Sure,” he mutters.
It’s funny to consider that today’s encounter started with Oswald upset, leaning on Jim for comfort.
Maybe this conversation is just another form of comfort to Oswald.
“Sure,” Jim says again, with more certainty.
“Do you love me?” Oswald asks.
Jim looks up at him. Surely the poor bastard isn’t this naive. “Is this a game?” Jim dares to ask.
“Yes. Don’t lose your head,” Oswald says, softening. “Sit with me.” He pulls Jim up onto the couch with him, tucking one arm around Jim’s waist and kissing Jim’s shoulder through his jacket. “Do you love me?”
Jim doesn’t know what possesses him, but he says– “Yeah.”
Oswald laughs quietly against Jim’s shoulder, clearly savouring the false little piece of affection he’s managed to extract from Jim. “Thank you, James.”
Under his suit pants, Jim is still hard. He feels like he deserves some comfort too. He reaches for Oswald.
He gets a kiss for his trouble, a sincere one, and when he tugs Oswald’s hand to his buckle, Oswald gives him what he wants. Oswald’s eyes are wet and wistful as he unfastens Jim’s belt and covers Jim’s cock with his fist, his touch gentle.
Jim has a terrible feeling that this may be the closest that Oswald has ever gotten to love, aside from his mother– and their little dyadic family is already a can of worms by itself.
Although Oswald clearly knows he’s holding onto something empty with Jim, it’s still worth something to him. Maybe it’s worthwhile to Jim too. There must be some goodness in it, otherwise Jim would’ve ended it by now– he’s a good man, and he only does good things– he has to tell himself that. Besides, Oswald keeps telling him too.