#lingnice

Individual images

Nice’s hand comes up before he even registers the desire to move.

Up, out — a clean arc cut short with a deafening crack of skin on skin.

It’s not the movement he feels. It’s the white-hot sensation of his palm on Lin Ling’s cheek. It’s the slight hook of his fingertips around Lin Ling’s jaw. It’s the twinge of pain in his neck, a phantom echo that originates from the way Lin Ling’s head snaps around.

Lin Ling’s eyes are wide, startled. His mouth hangs open on an aborted word. There’s red painted across his cheek already, so much like a teasing blush — but as it deepens, as it grows, there’s the imprint of Nice’s hand. Full force; full contact. Five fingers and palm, down to the heel of it.

Nice thinks he might be sick.

He watches as Lin Ling’s eyes dart to the corners, watching Nice. Lin Ling’s tongue probes at tender flesh, assessing.

Nice can’t breathe. Can’t move. Can’t think. Why did he do that? Why would he— He’s been on the receiving end of a hit like that too many times to even count, fuck, fuck, he’s never wanted to hurt someone like that, not ever, not even—

He’s still watching Lin Ling — couldn’t look away if he tried, because it’s like a car crash, like an open-casket funeral for the only stable relationship he has left — so he sees it. The slight curve of Lin Ling’s mouth. The subtle narrowing of his eyes. The faint bloom of red across his nose, his unmarked cheek.

Lin Ling notices, of course. Nice's rapt attention, his fixation.

Lin Ling smiles. A slash of white across his flushed face — and there’s blood on those pretty teeth of his, blood that Lin Ling’s tongue doesn’t hesitate to swipe away.

It says: you idiot. It says: so that’s how it is. It says: that all you got?

It says what his eyes say. What the tilt of his chin says. What the line of his bare throat says.

As a fun edition, feel free to use these to mark off squares on your bingo card: