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It’s been seven years. Seven years, a lot of deaths, a lot of things she can never come back from, and a lot of things she doesn’t want to come back from. She’s seen him around. She knows who he is, who he runs with. She knows he’s around. Standing on this bridge, her sister with some fucking enforcer and the container for the crystal, but not the crystal itself, is the first time she’s seen his face since their childhood.
Nothing has changed. Everything has.
They fight like their child selves. It isn’t until she’s on the ground, the breath knocked out of her and his fists connecting with her face, that she realizes he’s learned from his mistakes. Good. Vi would be proud.
She stares up at him, vision blurry and face wet with blood, and wonders if he can see it through. She knows he can’t. He stops. Fool. He hasn’t learned enough. She takes a bomb, pulls the pin. She thinks she’ll die here, that they’ll both die here.
She feels him scramble on top of her, sees the light of the explosion, feels the rattle of it in her skin, her bones. Then she feels nothing.
‘Powder… Powder!’
“Jinx!”
Jinx opens her eyes. It’s Ekko. For a second she thinks they’re dead, but she’s in too much pain for that to be true.
“Come on, we gotta go! There’s enforcers-”
She tries to sit up, and can’t. Her head falls to the ground, and she groans in pain.
“Jinx, hey,” Ekko says, and then puts one of his hands on the back of her head.
When was the last time anyone besides Silco touched her without malice? Vi. Vi. Vander. Vi .
She recoils and shrieks at the pain that shoots through her body. It comes from everywhere, all at once, has her head swimming and her limbs feeling heavy.
“Sorry, sorry. Can I help you stand? We have to go.”
Jinx looks up at him, slowly. Ekko. Little man. Ekko. She trusted him, once. Her gaze falls beyond him, and she thinks she can see enforcers coming.
She nods.
“Okay, I’m gonna help you up now.”
He lifts her gently by the arms, and when she’s up enough, pulls one of her arms over his shoulders and wraps one of his around her, supporting her. It hurts, it hurts but she pushes through. She may not exactly trust him, but she trusts him more than the enforcers.
“You have to walk now.”
She does her best, moving one leg in front of the other, leaning on Ekko for the support she can’t give herself.
Briefly, she wonders how he managed to stay mostly intact.
He gets them both out of there before the enforcers see them, and while she knows they keep moving, Jinx falls in and out of consciousness along the way.
After what feels like forever, Jinx finally feels herself being lowered to the ground and leaned against a wall. Her vision takes a second to come into focus, but when it does it lands on Ekko, who is looking right back at her.
“Where are we?” she asks, voice cracking.
He hesitates. It seems like he still doesn’t completely trust her, either.
“My home,” he says eventually.
She’s seen him around, but she never knew where he called home. She still doesn’t really, having not been conscious for part of the trip.
Silco is her first thought: getting back to him, him worrying about her. She knows even if she tried to leave, she wouldn’t get far. Not for a few days, at least.
“What are we doing here?” she asks next.
Ekko scoffs. “I’m trying to help you. I don’t know if you recall, but I saved your life.”
She tries to adjust herself, but it ends up being more painful than it’s worth. “Oh, I recall,” she quips, “I was the one who set off the bomb.”
She watches as Ekko shakes his head, looks around, and his gaze falls back on her.
“I’m gonna get some stuff to help you” he announces. “I’d tie you up, but I’m pretty sure you can’t move without help anyway.”
She rolls her eyes as he walks away, but she also knows he’s right. It’s against her best interest to leave right now, even if Silco could get her better help than Ekko. She isn’t really in a position to be picky if she wants to survive.
How had either of them survived, anyway? The bomb was a last resort that maybe shouldn’t have been a resort at all, but she set it off knowing what it would mean for her as well as Ekko. Mutually assured destruction. How either of them were still alive, she couldn’t say. Maybe she should ask him later.
Later , assuming she’ll be here for a while. If the pain is anything to go by, which it is, she could assume she’ll be here for a few days at least. Part of her feels like it’ll be a good time to learn about Ekko’s weaknesses and figure out how to bring him down, but… another part of her feels like that’s wrong. Since what happened, Ekko’s felt like something far away and untouchable. Even being here feels like crossing a boundary. She knows she could use this opportunity to gather information, to be productive, but she doesn’t want to.
Silco won’t care anyway, as long as she’s alive.
Jinx doesn’t realize she’s falling asleep until she’s woken by Ekko speaking to her.
“Hey,” he says, “I have some bandages and some painkillers. Take these.” He hands her a few pills and a glass of water, but there’s a sharp pain in her shoulder when she reaches out for them.
“Shit, sorry, here,” he says, holding out a pill between his thumb and pointer finger. She gives him a deadpan look, not wanting to take pills directly from his hand, but he shoots back a look suggesting she take it, and she supposes he’s right. Might as well take advantage of his kindness.
She opens her mouth and he puts the pill inside, following it by holding the glass to her lips, from which she drinks. Same thing for the second pill.
“You’re bleeding from your leg and your side. Can I put bandages on both?”
She looks down, noticing for the first time that she is, in fact, bleeding from those places. Her body is covered in developing bruises as well. She is, maybe, severely injured, and it is her fault. Her plans don’t usually backfire on her, but it was bound to happen eventually. At least she’s alive.
Jinx looks at him, makes eye contact with him, looking for the reason he’s helping her. She hardly recognizes him anymore.
“Why are you helping me?”
Again, it takes him a second to answer. “I don’t know,” he says.
She believes him.
She lifts her leg a little, bending her knee and setting her foot flat, insinuating that he can bandage it. He looks at her and she gestures to her leg.
He bandages her carefully and wordlessly. Not once does his hand touch her skin. She can’t tell if it’s because she jerked away the first time or if he’s afraid of her. She’s not sure she wants to know.
He leaves her when he’s done, leaving behind the glass of water. It doesn’t take long for her to fall asleep again, pain gradually fading.
—
The next few days go like this: Ekko moves Jinx into a room with a bed as opposed to leaving her on the floor. He comes in to check on her at least once an hour, brings her water whenever her glass is empty, and brings her food at least twice a day. He checks her bandages regularly, and when they need changing, he does so quickly and silently.
Jinx feels like Ekko is walking on eggshells around her. He’s either afraid of her, or afraid he’ll do something wrong. For the first day or so, she deals with it, not exactly understanding it and not knowing what to do about it. It shouldn’t matter anyway: she’s only here to recover.
On the third day, she wakes up sweaty and panting. Feverish. The wound on her leg is burning. She tries to go back to sleep, but the pain is too much.
When she hears the door open, her eyes snap to it, and if the look she gives Ekko is desperate and vulnerable, neither of them say it.
He rushes over to her. “What is it?” he asks. She can hear the worry in his voice.
“My leg,” she says simply.
He pulls the blanket down unceremoniously and carefully unwraps the bandage.
“It’s infected. It doesn’t look too bad, but- Hold on, I’ll be right back.”
He’s out of the room before she can even say anything. She glances down at her leg and nearly vomits at the sight. She’s been injured a lot, obviously , but she hasn’t had a lot of infections. She can staple her wounds back together no problem. Pain isn’t a big deal. But seeing her skin discolored and deformed, scabs halfway formed, it’s a different thing.
Ekko returns with a needle. “Antibiotic,” he explains. “Can I give it to you?”
She nods. She doesn’t mind needles. She does look away when he injects the antibiotic, and she screams at the pain it causes being injected into the infected wound.
“Okay?” Ekko asks when she’s caught her breath again. She turns to find him looking at her, his brow furrowed.
“Yeah,” she says, her voice hoarse. “Just hurt.”
He nods. It seems like he doesn’t know what to do. And when he gets up to leave, Jinx realizes she doesn’t want him to. He comes in only for minutes at a time without saying a word to her. She can go days without speaking to anyone, without needing anyone, she can. But… she doesn’t want to. She’s tired of being in pain alone.
“Stay,” she requests quietly.
He stops, slowly turns back to look at her. It looks like he’s considering. For a second she’s worried he’ll say no, or just leave without saying anything, but then he says, “I have to throw the needle out. I’ll be right back.”
She nods, and he leaves.
It is only a few minutes later that he returns. In the time he was gone, Jinx had moved herself to one side of the bed to make room for Ekko on the other side. She could see him processing when he came back in, and then hesitate for another second, but he then did join her in the bed, lying on his back on top of the blankets.
For minutes, they lie there in silence. Jinx’s mind wanders, as much as she wishes it wouldn’t, to when they were kids. Having sleepovers, lying in a bed just like this but smaller. They were smaller, too. He was her best friend. She would’ve trusted him with anything, back then.
In some ways, it feels like nothing has changed. She knows that’s not true.
“Why did you set off the bomb?” Ekko startles her out of her thoughts.
Why did she set off the bomb…? She had the crystal. Vi and that enforcer would’ve gotten away either way. She knew Ekko wouldn’t kill her. So why did she set off the bomb?
“I… don’t know,” she admits. “What did you do with it?”
“I threw it,” he says. He doesn’t elaborate. She doesn’t really understand how she ended up with so many more injuries, but it doesn’t really matter.
“Why did you… why did you go with Silco?”
She feels him move. She looks at him and finds him looking back.
“He took care of me,” she says. “Vander was gone, and Vi was gone, but he was there. I didn’t have anything else.”
“Do you have anything else now?”
The question takes her aback. Why would she have anything else now? Vi is back, but not for her. Other than that, she can’t think of anything else she would have. Unless, of course, Ekko means himself. Which doesn’t make sense either, considering they’ve been fighting each other for years.
“No,” she says, “I don’t.”
It doesn’t bother her. It never did. After finding Silco, she always had him, and that was always enough. The only more she could’ve wished for was what she’d lost, and she knew she would never get that back.
Looking at Ekko now though, lying in this bed with him like they did when they were children, letting him take care of her, she wonders if that’s true. If some of it, maybe, is not lost forever.
—
It’s almost been a week that Jinx has spent in this room in Ekko’s “home,” which she still isn’t quite sure of what it actually is . He stayed with her the entire day after she asked him to, only leaving to bring back food for the both of them. They talked some, but mostly they just lied there, listening to each other breathe. They fell asleep in silence.
After that, Ekko stayed more frequently. Briefly, Jinx wondered if he had responsibilities he was ignoring, but decided it isn’t her job to decide what he should be doing.
Her leg has started properly healing, the wound on her side is closed, and her bruises have all hit their darkest and are on the way to fading. She’s gotten up and moved around a bit, but she’s still not strong enough to be up for long. She’s left the room a few times by now, but never goes far and never for long. Not while she’s still healing. Part of her had been surprised to find the door unlocked the first time she left.
Most of her time spent with Ekko was the same as the first night he stayed with her: lying, or recently, sitting, in bed together, sometimes talking, sometimes staring at each other, sometimes just looking up at the cracked ceiling.
Ekko had been the first to reach out. They were sitting on the edge of the bed and they had been talking, but the conversation came to a lull. Ekko reached up with his hand, his fingers just barely brushing the hair next to her face before stopping. He’d made eye contact with her, and she assented, and he gingerly tucked her hair behind her ear. His hand had come to rest on her neck, cradling her face.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt a touch like that. Harmless and caring. No ulterior motives. This time, it wasn’t even to help her. It was simply to touch her. It felt… nice.
Since then, touches became more regular. A brush across the face, a thumb on the cheek, a hand on a side. It felt natural. They fell into a rhythm around each other, understanding boundaries and each other’s personal bubbles.
It’s the same as when they were kids, and it isn’t. They understood each other back then, too, but it’s a different level of intimacy now. Not to mention all the years between them, all the fights and rivalry that still remain simmering under the surface despite breaching intimacy.
Jinx, since what happened, hasn’t had anyone aside from Silco. She’s had Mylo and Claggor in the back of her mind, but she doesn’t have to navigate that in any kind of way. They’re just there, whether she likes it or not.
This is to say, she has no idea what she’s doing with Ekko.
She probably should’ve been gone by now, back to Silco. He must be worried about her. Really worried. She feels guilt for that, but she doesn’t want to leave. She’s afraid that if she leaves, whatever she has here will be broken beyond repair.
So she stays.
It’s her sixth night here. She feels the best she has since the explosion. She’s lying with Ekko, him on his side and her on her back. They’re just looking at each other.
She breathes deeply and rolls onto her side, her back facing Ekko. It’s only a few seconds before she feels him shifting, and then a hand come to rest on her side. She half-consciously scooches back into it to be closer to Ekko. He does the same, their bodies pressed against each other.
Ekko’s hand starts moving eventually, rubbing up and down her side, brushing over her ribs. It falls onto her stomach, exploring further. Her skin tingles under his hand, goosebumps raising in it’s track.
His hand continues moving, pausing in places but never really stopping, and it effectively clears Jinx’s mind. She can’t think of anything except how his hand feels on her, how it’s unlike any other touch she’s felt, even from her childhood. Even from Ekko back then.
She’s breathing a little harder, her body beginning to quiver under Ekko’s touch. She wants more, but she doesn’t know how to ask for it. She doesn’t even really know what ‘more’ is.
She knows , of course, but she doesn’t. Not practically. It’s not a line she’s ever crossed, with anyone else or with herself. She’s aware of it, and has been for years, but never had a particular interest in it. Especially not like this.
She feels Ekko’s hand migrate from her abdomen to her leg, running over her hip and onto her thigh. For a second, she thinks about not doing anything, just letting this continue on as it is.
Over the past week, she’s grown to trust Ekko, at least a little. He’s taken care of her, helped her through her injuries despite the bomb being meant for both of them. He’s also given her things she hasn’t had in years, things she didn’t think she could ever have again and doesn’t know if she could get from anyone else.
She trusts him enough. And she wants him.
She lifts her leg, the one Ekko’s hand is on, opening her legs a little. An invitation.
Ekko’s hand stops. Jinx feels his breath on her neck, and the hairs there raise.
After a few seconds of stillness, he quielty asks, “Are you sure?”
She nods.
“Jinx,” he says.
“Yes,” she confirms, “I’m sure.”
It’s a vulnerable position, but she isn’t afraid. She doesn’t have to feel fear that he’ll hurt her, or that he’ll take advantage of her and this sliver of trust she’s giving him. She’s safe here. She’s safe with him here.
Ekko slides his hand back to her stomach, but instead of lingering there, it begins traveling down. He works his way under her pants, her underwear, and then his hand is on her, and it’s unlike anything else she’s ever felt before.
She sucks in a breath and closes her eyes. Her hips unconsciously move against his hand, searching for more.
Ekko moves his fingers on her in slow circles and asks, “Is this okay?”
“Yeah,” she says breathlessly, “keep going.”
He does keep going, keeping his fingers in the same place, then venturing futher down.
Ekko kisses her neck at the same time he pushes a finger inside of her, and she shivers. When he starts moving his finger in her, she can’t help but let out a shaky whine.
“Good?” he asks against her skin.
“Yes.”
Before long, he adds a second finger and starts moving them faster. Jinx is panting now, arching into Ekko. He’s still kissing her neck, mostly softly, but occasionally he sucks on her skin, or bites it, and that does more for her.
He pulls his fingers out and Jinx whines at the loss, but his fingers never leave her, instead returning to the sensitive spot on the outside. She thinks she likes this better, anyway.
He’s moving faster over her now, and it takes her aback. A moan comes out with her breath, and her hands grasp for anything they can find, which ends up being Ekko’s hip behind her and the sheets.
As he continues on, she can feel something building inside her, begging to be released. It would scare her, if not for how lost in pleasure she is. Such a small point of contact between her and Ekko has become so all-consuming, isolating them from everything that’s happened, that’s happening, and that will happen. For now there is just this. It matters who they are, but it doesn’t matter what they’ve done. Just that they’re here together.
Jinx feels it as the build becomes a climax, her breath hitching, eyes closing, and body curling in on itself. Ekko keeps his hand on her, keeps it moving, until her not breathing becomes screaming in overstimulation. He withdraws his hand immediately at that.
There are a few moments spent in silence, Jinx catching her breath and letting her body come down.
Ekko is the first to speak, asking, “Are you okay?”
Jinx takes a few more breaths and rolls onto her back, looking over at him. She nods.
“Yeah,” she says. Then, “That was a lot.”
“Good?”
“Yes.”
Ekko smiles. He rolls over and Jinx can’t figure out what he’s doing, but then he’s back, and his arm is draped over her, and it doesn’t matter.
She closes her eyes. She feels more at peace now than maybe ever before. For once, her head is silent. She falls asleep quickly, sinking into unconsciousness, only grounded by Ekko’s skin on hers.
—
Jinx leaves a few days later. As much as she has enjoyed being away from everything, she also misses it. She misses Silco. So, she leaves. And they don’t agree on anything, because they both know that’s not how it works.
Silco gets up and hugs her the moment she walks into his office. He asks where she’s been, more worried than angry, and she shrugs it off without mentioning the Firelights. They’re supposed to be enemies. He would hurt them if she told him. She doesn’t know if what she had with Ekko will survive on its own, but she knows it won’t if Silco intervenes.
She’s back in her room in no time, working to understand the crystal she stole from… from Vi, and how to enhance her guns with it.
She can’t stop thinking about Ekko. She’d thought she was past all that, past wanting what she lost, but this taste of getting it back has proven her wrong. She’s missed him so much. He was her best friend. She never thought she could have him back.
It’s only a few days later she finds herself lost in the only city she’s ever known–something she thought impossible–trying to find Ekko’s home. She was sure, sure , she could find it, but here she stands in empty streets looking for any sign of light.
“Lost?”
Jinx turns around on full alert, handgun at the ready, only to see Ekko. She keeps her gun raised.
“No,” she lies.
Ekko laughs. Jinx frowns.
“Fine, fine,” Ekko shrugs. “You’re in the right place. But you don’t know how to get in.”
It doesn’t feel right to stand here and have a normal conversation with Ekko. Her gun is still pointed at him, but after she saw it was him, she lost any intention to shoot. There’s no fight to be had. It’s just them.
Ekko walks past her and she turns around to watch him, putting her gun down.
“You coming?” Ekko asks over his shoulder.
Jinx huffs, but follows. She never would’ve gotten in alone, but she pays close attention so next time, she can.
Ekko takes her to a different room this time, somewhere she never made it to when she ventured out. There are books, and half-built things, and little pieces of the Firelights.
“What is this?” she asks.
Ekko turns to look at her. “My room.”
Ekko’s room.
She has the urge to run away. To hold him at gunpoint again. To scream. To hold him.
When Jinx was here before, healing, that room belonged to neither of them. It was neutral. They haven’t occupied each other’s space since they were kids. Now she’s here and she’s in his home, in his room, and it’s suffocating.
It’s invigorating.
“Why did you bring me here?”
Ekko looks like he doesn’t have an answer. He shrugs. He sits down on the edge of the bed that Jinx didn’t even notice.
They stare at each other for a few seconds, faces open but expressionless, and then Jinx sits down next to him.
They sit in silence. From here, Jinx can hear people outside. Firelights. It feels wrong to be here, but it would’ve felt wrong not to come.
“How did Silco react?” Ekko asks after a while.
“Worried,” she says, “like I thought he would be.”
“Did you tell him where you were?”
She can hear the worry in his voice. They both know if she’d told Silco, if she’d betrayed Ekko, he would be dead by now.
“No.”
Jinx’s hand sits on the bed between them. Ekko puts his hand over hers. She doesn’t move, but she also doesn’t pull away.
Ekko looks at her first and she returns it. He hovers his other hand over her neck, above her collarbones, she nods, and he puts his hand gently on her. She closes her eyes and leans into him.
She feels his breath on her neck. She opens her eyes and sees that he is very close to her, that his lips are almost on her skin, but he still waits. She tilts her head to give him more room and pulls her braids to the other side.
She wants this.
His lips are on her and she lets out a breath. It’s softer than last time; more tongue and less teeth. Ekko’s hands move on her until they’re pushing her down lightly. He guides her to lie down on the bed, his body half over hers, one hand still on her neck, the other on her side.
Ekko’s hand slides up her side, over a little onto her chest, his hand resting around her breast, his thumb gently rubbing underneath it.
She sighs. This is a part of her body that has never really been touched. It’s sensitive. Ekko’s hand is warm, his callouses hard against her unscarred skin. A lot of the feeling is barred by her shirt, but the thought of taking it off doesn’t even cross her mind.
Ekko moves his other hand and keeps kissing down her neck, down to her collarbones. He grabs her breast and Jinx moans, quiet.
He abandoneds her neck and looks at her. She doesn’t know how she’s looking back at him, but whatever he sees, she thinks, causes worry.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
She stares at him blankly for a few seconds. She doesn’t feel okay. Her heart is racing and her skin is hot and she feels out of control. But she wants more, so she says yes.
“Can I kiss you?” he asks.
Jinx has never been kissed, not properly. Only on her forehead, or her cheeks, or the top of her head, and only by Silco, by Vi, by Vander. She wonders what it’s like. She wonders if she and Ekko are the kind of people who usually kiss each other.
She wonders if that matters at all.
She nods. Ekko stares at her like he wants to ask again, but he doesn’t. He kisses her.
She closes her eyes on instinct. His lips are still as soft as they felt on her neck. His mouth is kind of open, so she opens her mouth a little. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. Ekko seems to know well enough, so she follows his lead. He’s definitely done this before, and she wonders when, with who. She can’t imagine ever having the time or interest in this before now. She wonders what kind of life she’s missing out on, but any of the possibilities seem too far away to have ever really been possibilities.
Ekko’s hand is back on her side, just her side, and his body is so close to hers. She feels something against her leg, and she pulls back from the kiss to look down, and it takes her a few seconds to realize that it’s him. He’s… hard.
She sits up abruptly. Suddenly, it’s too much too fast. She has the stark realization that she’s in over her head, she has no idea what she’s doing. What they’re doing. She looks at him, but she doesn’t know what she’s looking for.
“I’m sorry, it just happened. Ignore it,” he says. He sounds concerned. Apologetic.
She needs to leave.
She gets up without warning and walks out. She pauses at the doorway and turns back. Ekko is looking at her, and Jinx can see that he’s holding himself back from getting up and following her. She doesn’t want to leave him like this, but she has to.
Her heartbeat still hasn’t slowed by the time she gets home. Her skin is still warm, just underneath the surface.
—
For days after, those twenty minutes were all she could think about. It haunted her. She has never, in her life, wanted so wholly. It’s an awful, burning feeling, and there’s nothing to remedy it. She tried touching herself, but it wasn’t the same. She didn’t know how to make herself feel pleasure like Ekko knew how. She had given up, frustrated and still needing.
So she went back.
She remembered from last time how to get in. Ekko’s room was empty when she got here, so she sits on his bed and waits.
She doesn’t know how long she’s been waiting. She fiddled with some of his things, but now she is just sitting, letting all of this feeling bubble up inside her. She feels like she needs to move, needs to do something, but she just sit. Her skin crawls.
Ekko stops in his doorway when he sees her.
“Jinx,” he says, neutral.
“Hi.”
He closes the door behind him, turns back to her, and asks, “What are you doing here?”
Jinx sighs. She doesn’t know how to want like this. She doesn’t know how to tell him how she feels. She doesn’t know how to be vulnerable at all.
“I need you,” she says, and her body recoils from the admission.
Ekko doesn’t seem to understand. He’s still just standing in the middle of the room, staring at her.
Jinx gets up and stands in front of him. She looks vageuly downward as she explains, “I can’t stop thinking about the other day. I… I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Nothing is enough. I need you. I need you.”
When she looks up at Ekko, he’s smirking. She frowns. “What?” she asks.
“Nothing. I thought I scared you off.”
Jinx scoffs and crosses her arms. He doesn’t need to know that she’s still scared. “Will you just,” she breathes out, “touch me, please.”
Ekko puts his hand on her face, guides her toward him, and kisses her.
It doesn’t start slow like last time. It starts much the same way Jinx feels: stir-crazy, touch-starved, desperate . It’s disorienting but it’s good. She’s terrified of it, but it’s exactly what she wants.
Ekko leads them toward the bed and Jinx falls back onto it, Ekko on top of her. They manage to get further onto the bed, into a more comfortable position than having their legs dangling off the end. Never once does his mouth leave hers.
He grabs at her–her hips, her breasts–hasty. He struggles to get his hand under her shirt and Jinx breaks the kiss to get it off. She sits up, and Ekko looks at her like he doesn’t know what she’s doing. “Hold on,” she says.
Her shirt takes a minute to diassemble enough to remove, and as much as Jinx wanted to just make Ekko do it, it would’ve taken forever. She gets it off as fast as she can and drops it on the floor. Before she even has time to think about the fact that no one has ever seen her in any state of undress, really, Ekko is kissing her again and the worry is so far away.
Instead of grabbing at her again like she thought he would, Ekko starts kissing down her neck, her chest, onto her breast and finally, her nipple. Her chest arches into him, the sensation traveling down her back, tingling. Her breathing is labored. She looks up at the ceiling, because looking at Ekko is too much.
It feels simultaneously like she can feel every specific movement, and also that every feeling on her body is merging into one, the whole thing a whrilwind of lips and tongue and teeth and skin.
Ekko leaves her breast and crawls down her body, kissing her stomach, sliding his hands over her waist. He starts undoing her pants, pulling them off and removing her boots along the way. First, Jinx is relieved. This is territory they’ve breached before. Then Ekko takes off her underwear. He nudges her legs open with his shoulders. She can feel his breath on her. This is different than what they’ve done before.
She looks down at him.
“Ekko?” she asks, and how small her voice sounds is unfamiliar.
He looks up at her from between her legs. “Is this okay?”
He looks as desperate as she’s felt since the last time she left. His eyes are glassy, his cheeks are flushed. He looks so… sincere. She trusts him.
She trusts him.
“Yes.”
She wants to watch him put his mouth on her, but as soon as he makes contact, her eyes are closed. She’s never felt anything like it before. There’s been a lot of that, with him. He’s warm, and slick, and insistent. He works at her like they are the only people alive in the world. She grinds against him unconsciously and he lets her.
He puts a finger in her, and she yells. It’s all so much–too much–and before she can stop it, she’s falling over the edge, unable to warn Ekko. Her whole body tenses, she grabs at whatever she can, and she’s gone.
When she looks at Ekko again, he’s sitting up between her legs and rubbing his hand over his mouth. She sits up, too.
“How was that?” he asks her.
Instead of answering, she kisses him.
He tastes different, and she realizes it’s from her. She doesn’t mind.
It was good, but it wasn’t enough. She still aches with want.
“Take your clothes off,” she says.
He looks at her, confused.
“What?” she asks.
Ekko shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says.
He gets off the bed and starts removing his clothes, piece by piece, layer by layer. She watches him, watches his every movement. Eventually he’s down to his underwear. He looks at Jinx. He looks uncertain.
“Those too.” It’s not like there’s anything she can’t see through them anyway.
He takes them off too, and she stares. She knows she’s staring and still, she can’t stop herself. She’s never had this with anyone, and she never expected to, especiallt not with Ekko. Maybe if they had grown up together, like they should’ve. But not now. Not like this. And yet, here they are.
She stands. This is the most vulnerable she can remember being. She looks down at her own body, then at Ekko’s.
“You’re beautiful,” he says.
It feels far away, but she believes him.
She kisses him.
All she feels is Ekko’s skin on hers. He’s warm. Their skin sticks together in places. Ekko puts his hand on the back of her neck, the tips of his fingers grazing her hair.
They end up back on the bed, Jinx on top this time. She gets so lost in kissing him, in his hands on her, that she doesn’t even realize she’s grinding against him until his hips buck up.
She moans
“Sorry,” he says, breathless, even though he doesn’t have to.
“Keep doing that.”
He does. The drag of him against her is the perfect tease; enough to keep her on edge, but not enough for more. It’s slick and it’s slow and it’s good until it isn’t enough.
Breathless, desperate, Jinx says, “I want you… I want you inside.”
Ekko looks at her like it’s too much. She’d be afraid she overstepped if the want to say yes wasn’t plain in his eyes.
“It’s okay,” she reassures him, “I’m ready.”
He takes a deep breath. “Okay.”
Jinx lifts her hips, just a little, just enough to be able to reach her hand back and guide him inside of her.
She takes it slow. Ekko’s breathing picks up with every passing second, and Jinx feels much the same. Her skin is burning. All of her feeling has been narrowed down to one point and it doesn’t leave room for doubt, for fear, for history. It’s just them and it’s only now, only this.
Jinx leans forward and lets her head come to rest on Ekko’s shoulder. She can hear his labored breathing. He sounds like he’s trying to stay in control.
He hasn’t moved much. She started mindlessly rocking her hips and he remained still. It’s not enough.
“Move,” she says soft, just a whisper. “Let go.”
He whines. The only thing she can think to associate the sound with is pain, and it worries her for a second, but she knows that’s not what it is. It means something else.
“Are you sure?” he asks.
He’s more careful with her than she remembers anyone else being.
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
Jinx stills.
All they’ve done since what happened is hurt each other. Or at least, she’s hurt him. The loss hurt, too, even before the guns and the bombs and the blades.
But he doesn’t want to hurt her.
She doesn’t want to hurt him, either.
“You won’t.”
Ekko kisses her shoulder and starts moving his hips. He’s rough but not with abandon. She can tell he’s mindful of her, of her inexperience. She can also tell how much he wants her.
She opens her mouth and lets whatever sounds want to come out come out. Ekko is grunting with his movements and mouthing at her shoulder, occasionally biting down.
She wonders if he’ll leave marks. She wonders if she’ll be reminded of this for days after, every time she looks in a mirror, every time she presses her fingers into the right spots on her neck, her shoulders. She wonders if, even though it doesn’t hurt now, this will hurt her later.
She sits up, carefully but quickly. She wants to see him.
She watches him watch her. His eyes are wide, his face flushed, his mouth open and breaths hard. His eyes don’t leave hers.
He puts his hands on her hips. He rubs his thumbs over the bone there. It’s soothing. It’s a small spot of calm on her sweaty, overheating body.
She looks at his face and time slows. She sees him not for who he was before, or for their past, or for everything they’ve done to each other. She sees him for who he is now, for what he is becoming to her. She understands, in that moment, that they care for each other. They always have, even under everything else.
She keels over, grasping at the sheets, at Ekko, gasping for breath as the most intense pleasure she’s ever felt floods her body until there is no room for anything else.
After that, it is just still. The only sound is their mutual catching-of-breath. Jinx feels every place where her skin is in contact with Ekko’s. She feels their chests moving together.
“Jinx,” he says. His voice is small.
“Yeah,” she says.
He doesn’t say anything else. She doesn’t need him to.
“I know,” she says.
Eventually, she gets off of him. Ekko lies on his side and traces her arm with his fingertips. She closes her eyes and soaks it in.
They fall asleep like that. She doesn’t dream.
She wakes up in the middle of the night and lies there, half asleep still, thinking about what she’s done. What they’ve done. When she set the bomb off on the bridge, they were both supposed to die. In that moment, that felt like the only way any of this could have ended. In this moment, she’s glad it didn’t. She never would’ve had this otherwise. She probably never would’ve regained anything she’d lost.
That bomb was a new beginning.