first to cast a stone

     “Yeah, I know,” she admitted, and she hadn’t really been asking. It’d been rhetorical; more like how the fuck do they always get themselves into this shit? It was one thing to be equipped — like Arin or Queenie, who lived and thrived in that world — but it was another to not be, and to end up wrapped up in a bow of fucking shit. 

     “We close?” Queenie stared out the passenger window, “They’re probably fucking gone. And then I’m gonna have to visit Jules’ fuckboy to get a location on her fucking chip.”

   “Uh-huh.” He glanced at the GPS to make sure he wasn’t talking out of his ass, not commenting on her statement as there really wasn’t anything to add. As they drew nearer, the very real possibility that they would go inside to find Queenie’s friend’s holey corpse made itself evident, and he didn’t comment on that, either. At least with her leg she’d be easy to spot.

     They parked out front, and it was already too quiet. No music, no voices, no gunfire. Nothing that carried to the street, anyway.

      Queenie caught the way he wrinkled his nose, a faint smile playing on his lips that she mirrored, unable to help herself. She kept smoking, her attention following his out the front window, watching as buildings and intersections flew by. 

     “How the fuck do they find themselves in this shit all the time?” It seemed like the kidnappings, the violence, the fucking emergencies never stopped, and she wasn’t really asking the question expecting an answer. She let herself idle, blowing smoke rings in front of the glass, “You think other civs are ending up in a shoot out once a year?”

      “Fuck if I know,” she responded with a sigh, her mind clicking with scenarios that Dee could’ve gotten herself into. When the elevator door opened to the parking garage, Queenie pulled out her phone, redirecting the GPS to Arin’s Mustang. It’d make more sense, especially if — and she was hoping she would — Dee was with them. 

     She smoked her cigarette deeply, thick plumes of smoke being left in her wake as they strode toward his car. Arin unlocked it, got in the driver’s seat, and she followed suit, getting in beside him.

     “I’m never gonna not be a Rag Doll, eh?”

      “Anyone who’s snorting coke off dicks doesn’t really have work hours, do they?” Queenie strapped herself up, blindly opening the door to their apartment as she held in her phone in front of her. “Dickhead”—the name of her phones AI “—Search the Vortex.”      “Searching the Vortex,” the electronic voice responded, and Queenie carried her boots out with her, not bothering to begin putting them on until they were waiting for the elevator, her phone now propped between her chin and shoulder. “Social destination. Offers simulation experiences. Some illegal activity reported. Crimes include cigarette and illegal drug possession and consumption, though establishment rules clearly state they highly recommend not taking part prior to simulations. Other crimes include unregulated music and possible affiliation with the Resistance. Location has been pinged. Would you like me to enter it into Spitfire’s navigation unit?”      With a heavy sigh, she replied, “Yes.” Then took her phone back into her hand as the elevator doors slid open and she entered with Arin at her side.       “Image requested?”      “Yes.” And with that, a holographic display projecting upward from the screen of her phone, first exhibiting the exterior, before Queenie swiped a finger through the air to filter forward to the interior.

     Perching herself against one corner, she hunched her shoulders to light a cigarette, her eyes rolling to the ceiling in obvious annoyance as she exhaled.

   “A fucking sim joint?” Arin looked from the hologram off Queenie’s phone to her face.

     Queenie was equally annoyed at their interruption — not as though she didn’t already fill most of their time getting filled — especially given the somewhat rocky ground they’d been standing on as of late, but of course, she acquiesced, because Dee was in some place that was being shot up. And didn’t they always fuckin’ have to be? 

     She yanked on the first pieces of clothing in sight: a pair of short black shorts, and a loose grey tank top that demanded she wear some sort of bra if she didn’t want to be tits out all night. She found a sports bra, yanking the straps down her torso so she could jerk the bra over her breasts before finally putting herself together. As she paced into the living room, she grabbed her weapon belt that was already discarded on the coffee table and began strapping it on, tilting her head toward their weapon cabinet. “AR. And a shotty.” She had an SMG already on her belt, but if she ran into any of those fuckers in the club, she wanted to really blow their brains out; up close and personal.

     “What the fucking fuck is the fucking Vortex anyway? The name itself screams snort coke off my dick.”

     “Fuck,” Queenie cursed — and not in the fuck yes kind of way that usually happened when Arin was littering her thigh with kisses. Like he was. Right now. And she wouldn’t have even looked at the fucking phone except she had a stupid fucking alert for if it contained S-O-fucking-S because of people like Soph. And Dee. And a handful of other girls Queenie had somehow ended up somewhat responsible for in her years with the Rag Dolls.       She reached down, tugging Arin’s head up playfully by his hair to show him her phone, Dee’s messaging a white glow against his perfect features. 

     “We have to go.”

     Frowning, Arin laid his forearm over Queenie’s abdomen, rested his chin on top of it, and squinted at the phone screen she had dispassionately shoved into his face, making out the words Dee, SOS, and shot up before he made himself actually read the short exchange in its entirety.

Queenie Benton​.

     She heard him. She knew she had; she’d heard him but all she could comprehend was the new opening in her chest, how it began to consume her. Somewhere, in the midst of it, her heart was hammering along, giving more power to the cavernous, glowing core that could barely contain what she felt for him. He hadn’t answered her question — and maybe he didn’t have the answer, maybe that cunt was simply a parasite, and proximity was all it took to get bitten and burrowed into — but she was able to forget it. It was consumed along with everything else that wasn’t him; that wasn’t them. Their love. 

     Queenie was clutching his face barely seconds after he got the words out, kissing him deeply, her legs tightening their hold around his waist. “I need you so fucking much,” she murmured between kisses, and even though they’d fucked at least twice already, the everlasting hunger was reawakened by his sentiments. He’d said thank you and she couldn’t put words to it either; she never could. 

     So she did what she did best, what she was capable of, her hips beginning to undulate slowly against him, her words filled with breathless urgency, “I feel like I’ll fucking die if you stop touching me.” 

   “You,” Arin said back, smiling into the kiss as he returned her embrace, meeting the steady motion of her hips with his own. And it was true; he needed her like she was fucking oxygen, every moment without her a struggling, choking gasp for air as he fucking expired, life fucking draining out of him.      Her body was as perfect as she was; every curve, every tattoo, every scar, his hands running over her skin so he could feel every inch, map it out for the millionth time over the outline that lived in him always — and he would never fucking get enough of her.

Queenie Benton​.

     She was so hyper-aware when they were like this, the way his chest moved, the beat of his heart, basking in the afterglow of sheer perfection, of the overflow of adoration that poured and poured out of them, every second, every breath. Queenie felt the tiredness, fulfilling rather than exhausting, and in the bliss fueled peacefulness that settled over her, she was able to cup his cheek, brow furrowing as she felt something begin to burrow in her chest, disrupting the lightness that had come from their entwined bodies. Ruining the moments she’d normally spend savoring it. Them. “I’m sorry. I was…” Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, “I was hurt… and I was a dick.” 

     Blues shifted away from him, to his tattooed bicep, her index finger tracing the ink delicately as she tried to formulate her thoughts, “You told me why you do it, but not… how you pick. Why them?” She kept her focus glued to his skin, “Why her? That’s all I’ll ask about it after that. It’s the only one I have left.”

     He hadn’t thought she’d apologize. Something dipped in his stomach and he nodded as she went on, a thoughtful expression settling on his features. Relaxed afterglow faded into tension and a vague, uncomfortable sense of dread quicker than he would’ve thought possible, because what if his answer wasn’t good enough? He heard how it all fucking sounded, but he didn’t have anything other than the truth to give her, so he guessed he’d just have to fucking hope; an action he considered ridiculous and naïve in any other context. He didn’t hope; he fucking acted.

   “I don’t.” She wasn’t looking at him anymore, so Arin directed his gaze at the ceiling as he continued, focusing on his thoughts. On trying to get the words to make sense. Formulating his fucking shit. “Whoever the fuck talks to me, that’s what they get, cause—” the corners of his mouth dipped, and he drew his shoulders up in a half-shrug, “fuck ‘em.” He took a breath, searching his thoughts. “I don’t like people. They don’t fuckin’ make sense to me, they’re full of fucking shit, and as far as I’m concerned, they can call get fucked. I wanna be left alone. Since I can fucking remember. So I made it fucking hard to be around me, and I make people feel like shit, because honestly even whatever motherfuckers I’ve been straight with end up realizing I’m a fucking asshole anyway, so what’s the fucking point?”

Queenie Benton​.

     She was hungry for him; always fucking hungry for him. And there was no way a single one of those others had this; had him. It was never just sex with them, it was a ritual, it was absolute devotion, and a breathless, “You’re mine,” slipped out, a demand and a prayer, laced within the helpless whimper of being at his mercy. His magnificent fucking mercy, every powerful thrust incendiary, a passionate flame she could feel engulfing every atom.       Then it was reverence: “I love you,” she gasped, the fingers in his hair strengthening their grip to keep his lips as close to hers as possible. “I love you.” Again, though this one was punctuated by a louder moan when she raised a leg, when he felt even deeper. Her hands slid along his back, desperate to touch every inch, to feel his muscles shift each time he moved into her. He was perfection. Unadulterated, unequivocally fucking perfection. 

     While it was hard to think of anything outside of them when they were like this, insecurity slithered in like a worm, torturing her for a moment where she did picture someone else at his mercy. Someone like Eve. Someone like Melissa. Someone like Rowan or Bambi or whatever her name was that Ivan and Arin had shared. It made tears brim her eyes again, a confusing mixture of pleasure, anger, and pain congregating at her center. You’re not one of them. You never could be. “You’re mine,” she breathed into their kiss before their lips met, a hand dropping to his ass to urge him on, harder, faster. 

   “I love you,” Arin echoed, out of breath and in between kisses, the motion and the raw pleasure putting a strain on his voice. Still, Queenie tugged at him, and he obliged — harder, faster — because he wanted that, too; was aching for it, and she was fucking divine. “I’m fucking yours.” He’d never been anyone else’s, and he never wanted to be; Q was everything, forever.

Queenie Benton​.

     She’d half expected him to grab her, flip her over onto the couch, and fuck her senseless. Maybe she’d expected it because it was what she wanted: pleasure mixed with pain. A punishment dressed in ecstasy; to knock everything out of place so one couldn’t tell what she was missing anymore. Only the moment he got to work, Queenie’s brow furrowed, eyes closing as her head tilted back, releasing a contented sigh. Her arms reached up to find something to hold onto, quickly dropping to grip his elbow, not that she needed to, because he had her. Her chest hitched with every labored gasp, because he knew exactly how to drive her crazy by now, and he was doing just that. 

     “I need to see you,” she gasped out, the demand punctuated by a higher pitched moan. “Fuck me,” she pleaded; once, twice, and the third was replaced by his name, her nails digging into his forearm. And she knew this wasn’t some easy fix; she knew a fuck wasn’t the solution, even though it always was. But she needed it. She needed him. Needed to feel the way he worshipped her body, how she felt him try to reach impossible depths just to be as close as was humanly possible, and then some. Queenie needed to be reminded, more than anything else, that she wasn’t any one of those other girls. That what she had with Arin was sacred, special, and no one else on the planet had experienced what they did to each other. With each other. 

     She wanted to look at him now. To touch him, to be close; and he wanted the same, tugging her down onto the couch so he could get on top of her. He wondered if this was one of those fucks she used to avoid dealing with shit — wondered if he should’ve made her think about it for a second — and then wondered nothing, every thought centering on her body. On how it felt to be inside her. On how her nails dug into his back, his shoulders, his hair. On her legs locked around his waist and squeezing as if she could force him deeper.

Queenie Benton​.

     He’d seen it now and she didn’t know what to do with it, because she needed to know how. How had that bitch done it? And would it happen again? How had she stolen his attention? How could someone so small, so pathetic, sink her claws into him enough that it meant he hurt Queenie. She resolved she’d never get it — he said he she didn’t know him when she’d already been so scared of just that — and the sadness melted down through her like molasses. Only it wasn’t sweet. It was bitter. Sickening. She needed to kill her. She needed… she needed… 

     His hand hovered in the air between them for the cigarette and she relinquished it, rising from her position on the couch to stand in front of him. One leg bent forward to situate it between his thighs, then slowly, the other moved to straddle his other side. Queenie leaned down over him as her other leg followed and she lowered herself onto his lap. Her lips lingered close to his — a hand sliding down between them to stoke him, her hips raising enough to give her the room — and they parted, brushing his ever so lightly between whispers, “So…” Her tongue slipped out to graze his lower lip, “Show me.”

     The cigarette changed hands again, Arin passing it back to Queenie, nodding as he urged her off him until she was standing again. Then, he slid off the couch and knelt on the floor in front of her. Another nudge to part her legs a little more, his hands wrapping around back of her thighs to pull her closer, almost stepping over him, and he tipped his head back, fitting it between her thighs.

Queenie Benton​.

     Blues fell to the floor as she gave a curt nod, and there was the sensation that she might fall, but all it left in its wake was numbness, and muscles that felt too weak to move. Her shoulders slumped forward and she turned on her heel, moving sluggishly toward the couch for their pack of cigarettes. Now, her features were empty, save the moisture that clung to the waterline of her lower lashes, and a limp arm lifted a smoke to her lips which she lit with the same lackluster movement. 

     Her mind was blank as if it’d waved the white flag once it’d gotten the confirmation it’d been waiting for, and now she was a husk after the war she’d been waging with herself. She’d won. That stupid bitch, as minuscule as the victory may have been, won. And now he was realizing it too. Queenie exhaled weakly, a feeble wisp of smoke filtering slowly out from between her lips. She didn’t know what to say, what to do, so she just smoked, staring aimlessly at the burning, orange ember at its tip.

     Arin watched her go. She wasn’t leaving, and she wasn’t yelling at him anymore; this was a new thing, and he wasn’t sure what — aside from maybe the fact that he’d finally gotten it through his thick fucking skull what she’d been trying to say. People made no fucking sense. To him, how he felt about Queenie was as obvious as the fucking color of the sky, and he expected other people to see it as easily. But they didn’t. They rarely saw anything about him, now that he was thinking about it, and didn’t he prefer it that way?      Not when it came to her. And it was clear he’d fucked something up in the mix of the possessiveness she’d awoken in him and the guardedness he’d always carried in regard to himself. She was part of him, so he’d kept her close to his chest, too — and to her, and maybe to everyone fucking else, that made him seem uncaring; which was the last thing he was as far as she was concerned.

     On the couch with a cigarette between her lips, Queenie looked kind of how she’d looked after the first stint of their fight — when he’d asked her what she’d wanted and she’d said she didn’t know… and then they’d started it up again and she’d left. Maybe this was the same. He’d already said he was sorry, a million fucking times, and it wasn’t enough. She didn’t want to be touched by him, and she probably didn’t want to be near him, either.      Still, he couldn’t bear her absence, so he sat down next to her on the couch, what he figured was a fair bit of breathing room between them.

Queenie Benton​.

      So that is how you fucking see me. And she didn’t know what he meant by that, which part of her pointless fucking ramble he was pinpointing. She didn’t think he had a hero complex, but it didn’t seem to matter, because she’d done the damage, and it was pouring out of her eyes, gathering above her upper lip until it rolled further, salt stinging her tongue. Then he let go, and his voice softened, only Queenie felt as though she was still bleeding out, pouring her insides onto the ground between them. She hadn’t realized she was trembling, fear gripping every nerve so it couldn’t remain in place. There are pieces missing and he’s going to leave me if I don’t find them. Quickly. 

     But that wasn’t what he said, instead, he explained, and Queenie tried to look at him through tear-brimmed eyes as he went on. “How’d she snap? How’d you hurt her?” The question leaped from her lips before she had a chance to stop them; because if that’d been the goal, then she wanted — needed — to know he’d damaged her. Because she had only seen a cocky girl who felt she had a right to her man. Her mind began wandering to the other: the nurse, Eve, even Bambi. How had they snapped? Queenie had bore witness to Rowan, though she had an inkling there was more to come with that one — and she craved it. She craved watching them burn, because if they did, then she was wrong. She didn’t have to hunt for the pieces she’d been missing. 

   “She didn’t.” His nose wrinkled, his lip curling a little as a furrow appeared between his brows. “Talk about fucking crazy. No matter what I said or fucking did, she’d just fucking agree with me or—” Realization struck him like a flash of lightning, something akin to shame rolling along like thunder in its wake.

Queenie Benton​.

     “She didn’t have the power to get under my skin,” she spoke low and balefully, her eyes locked on his, “You do.” Her body was still under his grip, tense, and her hands were still balled into fists. “And it’s different because that nurse or Harlee wasn’t a fucking Lost Boy.” She was glaring now, the hole in her chest growing larger and larger, and it felt as if he’d reached in and stripped her of her heart because he’s said it, hadn’t he? She didn’t fucking know him. “And you got caught up with Harlee… how many times? It is different. I’d have let her in rot in the fucking dirt.” Queenie jerked her arms, trying to shake him off, “But I don’t fucking know you, huh?”

     “I never said I don’t believe how much you love me. I know you do. But something happened with her. Something had to have and all you ever tell me is it was funny!” Her body tensed again as she fought the urge to knee him in the stomach, to free herself, because she was wrong. Always wrong. Pieces missing and littered along the trail of her fucking life. “It’s more than the warehouse. It’s more than one moment. And I’m not fucking crazy for noticing it. And… stop—” Her eyes squeezed shut again, “—telling me what I believe!” 

   “So that is how you fucking see me.” He hadn’t been talking about Becker, or the fucking nurse, but every word out of his mouth was just more fodder to shove down his throat about what a fucking asshole he was, so maybe he’d do better to shut up. Except when he did, she tried to storm off.      He felt betrayed. Queenie had been the one person who’d been supposed to understand, and she didn’t, and neither of them did, apparently, and it was all fucking fucked.

     She looked so fucking uncomfortable. Arin realized he was still keeping her in place, flashes of Martin and fucking Gerard and kid Queenie in his fucking memory, and he let go, hoping he’d never have to see what he’d just seen on her face again. A desperate fucking need to get away from him.      He wouldn’t tell her what she believed. He’d asked her not to tell him what he fucking was, and fair was fucking fair — and she refused to even fucking look at him now, and short of carving out his own heart and fucking showing it to her, he didn’t know what else to do.    “I never said you’re crazy.” A pause. A breath. “Maybe I am, alright?” He hadn’t really considered it before.