#ninazcnik

It’s not the first time he’s been eased into a life-altering blowjob. And it’s not like easing–er–cornering (no, that’s too absolving of his guilt) Nathan takes very much effort. At this point, the most that precedes his surrender is a cold glance and a tight pinch at the bridge of his nose. Nathan is exasperated with his own inability to stop wanting. 

Perhaps it’s that life had no rhyme nor reason before now. Perhaps it’s that he was taking one slow march to his grave between the occasional slivers of half-entertainment. That not even a court of law in which chess pieces were the livelihood of guilty and innocent people could sate his urge for more purpose, more spotlight, more anything. 

Of course he’s so resigned to Quinn’s heart-starved chaos. It’s a labyrinth of intimacy that hurts at the center of him, and he can’t stop himself from reaching for more. From kissing him. From letting his back fall against the wall where Quinn takes him into his mouth. 

It’s like that for a while–muffled groans and unsteady breaths–the pace of Nathan’s heart loud enough in his ears to mimic the bang of a gavel that goes on without end. He’s had nightmares like that before, he’s sure. Where he’s not allowed to walk away from a courtroom because he couldn’t win, that his every word found the worst possible contention, and that his ears ring like this was the end of some terrible movie, like he was being punished. 

He punishes himself when he tangles a tight hand in Quinn’s hair, sucks in a tight breath and holds it until his sternum feels wound. 

“Fuck, Quinn… fuck.” When he’s about to fall apart, legs shaking and eyes rolling back, Quinn gathers himself and guides them to the bed. 

“Yeah?” And he makes such a horrible promise: “I’m gonna fuck you until you beg me to stop.” 

Nathan’s hard and leaking when his shoulders hit the mattress, his head halfway to the pillows and watching the ceiling spin. They kiss until their lips are raw and somehow, he holds himself together long enough not to spiral when Quinn starts to makes good on his word. He’s capable of surprising himself in all sorts of ways, evidently. 

The further they go, the faster he feels like he’s rolling. He’s slick and hot and the sight of Quinn’s focus on him now is a sick kind of unbearable. When he blinks, there’s light behind his eyes. Maybe he sees the first time Quinn smiled–sees himself remembering/forgetting that person, sees himself recognizing the one that was always there amidst their game of judiciary pretend. 

Amidst their dance of war and passion and everything that’s become of them. 

What’s become of him, then? And what’s the explosion of feeling that blooms from his groin to his chest? Everything shatters around and inside him. 

“Stop,” He says, shuddering and spending himself all over. “Ugh–my sheets…” They’re such a nice thread count. They cost so much money. This better come out. Who cares? He’s barely thinking. He messes a hand over the apple of Quinn’s cheek, spreads his thighs further apart. “Stop. I think I––” 

“What’s that?” Quinn asks, voice a little labored, but sounding altogether pleased. 

“I–– no, I love you.” 

His eyes train back into focus so quickly once the words come out that his head yanks up. He bends onto his elbows, sitting up a little higher and fighting the urge to cover his face. “Forget it.” He can still feel Quinn inside him, fucking him whole. “Forget it.” He hopes this is one of those dreams where all his teeth fall out.

“Please forget it.” 

Yes, now that the words were catching up to her. Yes it was. She shook her head, trying to re-center herself as she approached the other woman, still standing right by the front door of her apartment. “What was that about my lips, again?” she teased.

Tegan flushed, a delectable pink coming over the tips of her ears, the bottom of herc collar bone. She held her ground as Alexa reached her, though she did lean back, cornering herself against the wall. Made things easier for Alexa, who moved in, lips barely an inch away from Tegan’s. “Just thinking about them,” Tegan managed.

This  was one of her favorite parts of her girlfriend. The way she was so easily caught off guard by Alexa’s particular brand of forwardness. The way she always reacted as if it was the first time. “Thinking about them doing what? Kissing you?” Alexa licked her lower lip as if to emphasize the part. Tegan nodded, mirroring Alexa’s actions. Alexa moved even closer, until her lips faintly brushed Tegan’s as she spoke. “Kissing you where?”

The response was better than she could have hoped. Their lips crashed together. Tegan’s hands were on her lower back, pulling her in, fully closing the distance between them. The kiss wasn’t so much rough as it was urgent, needy, bordering on impatient. The kind Alexa loved. When they finally had to break for air, Alexa pulled back enough to smirk. “That’s it?” she teased.

“No,” Tegan answered immediately. She leaned in for another kiss. Alexa relented, but pulled away before Tegan was done. She loved this game. “Everywhere. I’ve been thinking about your lips everywhere.”

And jesus, she’s not interested in falling apart for no reason. Especially not over someone who doesn’t know half the things she’s seen and done for the people who make up her blood. But there’s something more to say about Luciana, even if Renata’s viciously unwilling to give voice to the words. 

Maybe it’s the sound of their voice. 

The two of them have had a lot of conversation since the first time they’ve met. And hey, Renata’s used to people talking. She works for a radio station, for crying out loud. OLATE FM is both the bane of her existence and one of the few habits she doesn’t mind having adjusted to. Altogether, seeing Luciana around and getting to know them has been a strange matter of coincidences. It’s not like she sought her out. 

They’re… attractive, yes. To the extent that Renata found herself trying to doodle the shape of their shoulder-frame in the margins of her to-do list. But that’s never sent Renata on a rampage to get to know someone before, and she likes to think she interacts with enough attractive people on a daily basis for that not to take away from her merit. Still, Luciana is attractive enough to make her second-guess the length of each glance she shoots in the other’s direction. Mostly because it seems both stupid to look and stupid to look away. 

In so many words? That’s a new one. And Renata’s not entirely sure how to deal with it. 

So, perhaps, she got a little out of her mind drunk with two of her cousins yesterday. And perhaps she is nursing a terrible hangover, but that doesn’t stop her from asking Luciana out for coffee. Or for going back to their place for a little while after to talk about something work-related. Something they should focus on, right up until the music that’s playing gets a little too easy on her nerves. A little too kind to the worry in her body. A little too inviting to the way she watches Luciana’s hair curling around her ears. 

The way her heart beats at her ribs feels like a complaint. It’s caged, all right. And it’s gilded as all hell when twenty minutes pass and they’re kissing on Luciana’s couch. 

It’s not their first mess, and she has this itching feeling it won’t be their last. Particularly because she’s used to calling all the shots in bed. They make out for a while, their shirts and jackets come off, she wants to rip up this couch and disappear. She wants to… 

kiss Luciana until their lips are a little bruised. 

It’s a difficult, encapsulating feeling. She’s hot all over, trying to swallow the star in her throat that keeps her from saying something that would destroy everything up until now. What are they doing? How far has she come, now that they’ve done this more than once? And what will it mean if they do it again? 

She’s so stupid, and she doesn’t want to go. 

“How do you want me?” Renata says, one hand on Luciana’s shoulder, the other at the inside of her own thigh. 

Luc says I want you to touch yourself for me and Renata’s head almost lolls in disbelief. She goes lightheaded instead. Wishes she’d eaten earlier–she feels light and driven a little out of her head. 

“For you––” She sighs, almost condescendingly. It’s not that literal. “All right.” She bites the edge of her voice back when her hand slips under the leather of her pants and the front lace, tipping her head back and her eyes shut. 

“But kiss me, at least. For me.” Because she’s not certain she can bear making herself come apart in front of someone she’d like to touch her so much instead. 

See, he knows he can take a lot because he’s a lawyer. He went to school to learn to take it. Defendants chewing him out, judges shutting him down, criminals worming their way around laws because of the things he does and doesn’t say. Law school was its own hell and case of its own: he wrote who knows how many papers he didn’t believe in, stuck around for who knows how many office hours with professors who couldn’t put their money where their mouth was. Altogether, he’s not so bad at seeing things through that degrade and upset him. 

But right about now, he’s a candle all out of wax. The last of the cigarette, mouth full of ash. 

Last week, he was grazed with a knife and his hands were bloodied. Today, a man who matches the description of the one who cornered him is missing on the news. He puts two and two together faster than Quinn moves his key through the front door. 

Nathan’s self-loathing crushes him like a thousand inches of heavy snow. He suffocates himself underneath the weight, could go blind and numb under the pressure of what he’s done. Perhaps he’s got no right to work himself up over this any longer: he knows he’s accountable for everything that’s happened. 

Quinn Elliot is a thousand times free to do as he pleases. The city belongs to him, and Nathan is at fault. 

It was his pity, his heartstrings that were tugged. Him and the neuroscientist who caught onto the idea of a violent, second identity that went hand in hand with the horrible hand Quinn had been dealt. Or something along those lines. Years of study and memorization and dry intrigue built on a spotless record–Nathan’s never failed one of his clients, but he’s never failed as spectacularly, on this magnitude, as he has with Quinn. 

And his relentless housemate sidles up next to him like a cat who owns this place. And what can Nathan say? That he doesn’t? That he hasn’t completely dominated the situation? That Nathan didn’t let him get away with murder? That he doesn’t continue to? 

He’s got Frank Sinatra loud on the living room radio, burning a cigarette between two fingers, sunk low into his reclining chair with his tie loosened enough to fall into the open split of his collar. The back of his throat burns with the taste of old smoke: he wants to blaze away, to disappear through the vents and not have to look at himself when Quinn asks if he wants to dance. 

Yes, there were times, I’m sure you know, when I bit off more than I could chewBut through it all when there was doubt, I ate it up and spit it out… 

When he looks up at that pretty, unmoved face, his insides spin like a washing machine. It’s always Quinn who turns him on his head. Rends him like a lion might turn his chest to ribbons and mess him up. 

“No.” He says. But he stands up anyway, in his very nice shoes, thank you. “No, I really don’t. I don’t want to dance with you.” He drops his cig in the ash tray and burns his thumb on the edge where he snuffs out the light. He feels immaculately cursed by god for the games he’s played with his law degree. Worse, he knows he deserves it. Worse, he thinks Quinn’s face looks as sweet and as awful as he did when he made Nathan believe he could never really hurt anyone. When he had him thinking his innocence was the only thing worth fighting for in his entire career. 

I faced it all and I stood tall, and did it my way…

The night slows. The air grows heavy around them. “You’re too much, Quinn. I can’t. I can’t–” He speaks slowly, like every word’s a question he’s asking himself. And he takes a few steps, too, starting to walk Quinn into the corner of the room. Quinn’s looking at him like he’s already won this match, and Nathan only riles because he knows… of course, he has. 

He hangs his elbow up to the wall and pins him there, at a loss in terms of proceeding. 

The record shows I took the blows, and did it my way––

He feels fevered when he leans over him, sick with the way he wants to taste him more than he wants Quinn to taste the rust of his mouth. 

“You’re in my head. I know you are.” But there’s a second’s reverence somewhere there, because he couldn’t want anything the way he wants to be looked at the way Quinn’s looking at him now. 

So he lets himself be turned smoothly around, where Quinn presses their chests flush together and shifts his weight, so Nathan’s back moves to the wall. 

“So clever, Nate. Relax, would you? You’re all worked up.” 

He thinks he might just go up in flames. But Quinn yanks his hands and works him into the appropriate form for a waltz, and off they go.