Work Text:
Backbeat,Backstep
Jinx leaps from the crane’s payload onto a nearby building, ignoring the shouts of irritated dock workers and one very annoyed Sevika. Her work there is done, someone else can carry her mini-gun home, and she has a bug to catch.
He’d traded his perfectly functional hoverboard with a comrade riding one that’d been damaged, allowing them to fly away home while he took a detour. He wouldn’t get far with a broken board; he’d have to stop somewhere to make repairs. She follows behind, out of sight, eyes on the flickering green.
She loses sight of him as he zips into the thicket of bridges and walkways that form the old shopping district. But she knows where he’s headed now. There’s only one place in that area that would have the resources he needs. Stupid selfless idiot; he might as well have drawn her a map.
Jinx knows this city, has spent her whole adolescence mapping out the complex web of a city built more vertically than horizontally. She knows all the best shortcuts, the best paths for speed versus stealth, the empty, hollowed out buildings whose insides you can rappel down through to quickly change levels. Few people come close to being able to traverse Zaun as efficiently as she can.
She’s already hiding on a neighboring rooftop when Ekko skids into the alley on foot, and slips into the building via the entrance hidden behind the rat’s nest of generators that once lit up shop signs of the entire street. If she wanted to, Jinx could enter the building just as silently. Despite the numerous caution signs, she knows that these generators haven’t been used in decades, and these days their primary function is to hold up the generators that power the street above. She lets cables knock around haphazardly, and even lets the rusty metal door creak open and slam shut behind her.
There’s no sight of him, but Jinx didn’t expect there to be. “Oh no,” she drawls, ambling over to an electrical panel she could rewire in her sleep. “There seems to be no one here.” The labels have all faded but it’s muscle memory to trip the right circuits and plug in the right wires. She doesn’t even have to look as she flips the last switches. “Guess that darn Firelight got away.” Twist the tube joint in the upper left corner. Flip the big switch.
Lights come on and she braces for the nostalgia and whatever pain might come with it. It was once some sort of toy workshop, though it was abandoned and in disrepair by the time they’d found it when she was around seven. Beyond the safes and any luxury toys made of valuable materials people assumed it contained nothing useful or valuable and so it had been spared a more thorough looting. But for a group of undercity kids used to making toys from the junk heap, it was a veritable wonderland.
And for two young tinkerers, the tools and spare parts made it a dream workshop come true.
She’d built some of her earliest attempts at bombs here. And there in the corner, above the collapsed remains of what was once a masterpiece of a blanket fort, is a shelf covered in dozens of tiny metal figures. Some of them were just sculptures, many of them had tiny mechanisms meant to make them move. This had been hers and Ekko’s corner, once.
“I’m surprised all of this is still here,” she says, running her fingers over a crude attempt at a wind-up train. “I thought someone else might have found it and claimed it, or cleared it out.” There’s no reply but it doesn’t concern her yet. “The arcade was cool but it’s a pity we ever let them convince us we were ‘too old’ to come back to this place.” She turns the key on the train to wind it, and when she lets go three of the four wheels spin. They never did work out how to fix that. She grabs a screwdriver and a pile of scrap and carries her treasures to a coffee table that doubled as a game board. She pulls the dust-covered sheet off a giant, plush couch upholstered in a hideous shaggy orange fabric. “Big Oscar!” Jinx exclaims, and fondly pats the small, round eyeball cushions that had given the sofa its name. “Please don’t be full of rats.”
She plops down and sinks into the furry oasis that is Big Oscar without any sounds of screaming rodents, and sets to work on the little toy train.
“Are you going to say anything or are you just going to keep pretending I don’t know you’re here?"
A robotic voice responds from somewhere in the rafters. “I haven’t decided how much I want another fight today.”
Jinx rolls her eyes. “You’re leaving the mask on, really? We both know you’re not going anywhere until your board is fixed and the soldering iron is down here.”
“Maybe it isn’t,” comes the reply, distinctly no longer robotic. “Maybe I’ve been back here and moved things around.
Jinx glances around the workshop and yeah, that would track. It should be far dirtier in here. “Maybe you have. But you still never learned to put the soldering iron back in the drawer where it belongs. I’m looking at it.”
She doesn’t get a reply. She tightens the final screw on the toy train and winds it up. She places it on the table and watches it race from one side to the other.
“Was it the wheel or the spring?”
“Both. So we were both right. Or both wrong.” Jinx turns her eyes to the ceiling and scans the spiraling wooden walkways that lead to dilapidated lofts once used for storage. A pulley system of ropes spiderwebs across the rafters. Fun for swinging through when they were kids. A great way to detect movement now. Even so she knows there are plenty of hiding spots up there. Jinx stands and starts pacing the room. “Speaking of being wrong.” She pulls her gun out of its holster and empties the bullets into her pocket. “What the fuck were you doing there today?” She pulls rubber rounds out of another pocket and loads them. They won’t kill unless at very close range but they will hurt like hell.
“A tip’s a tip.” Jinx listens closely to determine where the sound is coming from.
“I told you not to be there for a reason.” She aims up and shoots. A rope pulley plummets down to the floor. She hears Ekko swear under his breath. “Is this the only way you’ll understand to stay away when I tell you to?” She catches motion and fires again. The bullet chips the corner of one of the loft levels.
“We were fine, weren’t we?” She aims to the left of where she hears him and fires again.
“Because I was watching your fucking back,” she snaps. She fires a couple more shots into the darkness, purposefully avoiding where she knows he’s hiding. “I saved Bat-Ears’ ass twice from Sevika. Told her I saw him in the market with a newborn and felt sentimental. He’s lucky he’s got such a cute baby.” She stalks around the room, eyes still peeled for any hint of movement. “How many times do I need to explain this to you? If I tell you something is happening and tell you to stay away from it, I’m not giving you a free tip. That’s not me being coy. That’s me knowing a situation is going to be especially dangerous and making sure you and your moths don’t fly directly into the flame.”
“And I told you we’ll take what information we can get, even if it comes from you.”
“Goddamnit, Ekko!” Three more haphazard shots. “Smeech and his guys were there sporting a bunch of very knife-y new limbs, Sevika’s arm has just gotten an upgrade—”
“We were prepared for heavy hitters—”
“—and all of this was just to protect a half-dozen cases of shimmer for Smeech’s private use!” Ekko falls silent. “So I hope those sliced tendons and puncture wounds are worth such a huge bust,” she crows sarcastically. “You practically did us a favor. You didn’t torch the shimmer until Smeech had already paid for it, which means we get to keep the money and he has to put in a new order.”
Footsteps fall heavy on one of the upper lofts and Jinx fires at them. “What the fuck, Jinx!”Ekko isn’t trying to be as silent with his movements anymore, and Jinx follows his next few moves with a trail of bullets. “Stop firing at me!”
“Stop ignoring me when I try to save your fucking life!” Some of the rubber bullets hit metal pipes or hardwood and ricochet into shelves, shattering old glass containers or clanging against metal boxes. Jinx reloads and starts running to keep up with Ekko’s movements, firing off rubber bullets at his approximate location. Ekkolocation, she thinks to herself. She’s kind of hoping she’ll hit him at this point. Give him some bruises for her trouble. The sounds stop and Jinx glares into the darkness above. She could switch the lights on for the upper levels, or climb up to them, but by the time she got up there Ekko could have jumped down and started the chase anew. Sound, movement, she turns and points her gun—a rope wraps around her wrist and yanks.
Jinx yelps; her gun falls from her hand and she grabs the rope with both hands and tries to resist her joints being pulled out of their sockets as she’s dragged across the room. Her eyes are on the rope’s path and the cacophony of movement above and she barely looks down in time to stop from running face-first into a wall. There’s the clang of a metal pulley stopping, the hiss of more rope moving through the system; Jinx jumps and grabs the tangle of metal pipes protruding from the wall above her caught hand. She swings her foot up, grabs a knife from her boot with her hand and slashes through the rope holding her hand captive.
She’s about to drop down when the rope hissing stops. Her knife goes flying from her hand, and before she can spin or kick or even register what’s happening, there are metal cuffs around her wrists and connected to the pipes above her.
It takes Jinx more than a couple breaths to make sense of it all. She’s nearly on her toes; there’s just enough slack in the cable to allow her to touch the floor with her arms held fully extended above her. The cuffs themselves are thicker than normal and seem to have multiple locking mechanisms holding each cuff closed. There’s no simple chain connecting the cuffs either; the cable is made of corded metal wire that’s flexible enough to keep it from snapping, but strong enough that there’s no cutting through it or pulling it apart. Jinx pulls and twists her hands, trying to at least pull loose one of the pipes, but they hold firm.
“Those are all welded together at the joints. You’re not gonna be able to pull the pipe apart.” Jinx spins, clumsy on her toes, and sees Ekko standing in front of her. She growls and tries to kick him, but he easily catches her foot and holds it. She kicks her other foot at him but he catches that one too. She tries twisting, kicking, pulling, pushing; he holds her feet steady with little effort. It might be hot if she wasn’t so pissed at him. She gives up, going limp and glaring at Ekko’s impassive face. He tucks both her feet under one arm and pulls her hidden knives from her boots. “You ready to play nice? Or do I need to cuff your feet too?”
Jinx just glares at him until he drops her feet. “What the hell, Ekko?”
“What, me? You’re asking me what I’m doing?” She watches his lips twist as his patience snaps. “You were shooting at me!” He brings his glare in close to her face and she tries swinging a leg at him again. He’s one step ahead of her and soon she’s pressed against the wall with Ekko’s glare inches from her own. “That’s it. You lose bomb privileges,” he tells her, and begins rifling through her pockets and emptying them of any weapons he finds. “I don’t trust you with these either,” he adds, taking away her belts.
“They were rubber bullets,” Jinx interjects. “You’re the one who was hiding in the ceiling, acting like you were afraid of me or something.”
“So you decided to shoot me down?”
Jinx rolls her eyes. “I wasn’t going to actually shoot you. But maybe I should have since the first thing you do when you come out of hiding is capture me!”
Ekko fixes her with a deadpan stare. “I wonder why anyone would ever treat you with an abundance of caution.” He shakes his head and turns away from her. “Can never just have a normal fucking conversation with you.”
He walks away and Jinx panics. “Where are you going?”
“Just over here!” Ekko’s sigh is heavy and exasperated. He takes off his coat and drops it on Big Oscar; Jinx is happy to see he also pats the couch’s fabric eyes in hello, as is the custom. He settles at a nearby worktable and starts gathering supplies to repair the hoverboard. Jinx gives him until he pulls the board from behind a cabinet to address him again.
“So, what, you’re just going to leave me hanging here?”
Ekko shrugs. “Until I’m sure you’re done swinging at me, yeah, probably.”
Jinx grumbles and turns her attention to the cuffs. For the next several minutes she tries to find a way to twist the cable from the pipes, or find some weak point on the hinges or locks she can exploit, but it’s proving near impossible. Ekko must have made these with her in mind. She growls in frustration. She bends her knees and lets the cuffs hold her up for a moment. They aren’t so uncomfortable that she can’t let them support her weight, and there’s some give in the space between cuffs. Jinx stands and studies them. Maybe…
She faces the wall and grabs the cable slack in her hands. She jumps and kicks off hard against the wall while pulling up with her arms. She’s able to gain some height before she braces her feet against the wall again. Progress…of some kind. She can grip the pipe itself now, and pulls her feet up as close to the pipe as possible. She wraps her legs around the pipes and hangs upside down for a moment, contemplating her next move.
As she does she lets her head fall back and catches sight of Ekko watching her with a mildly amused look on his face. “What?” She snaps at him.
He shrugs. “Oh, I just wanna see how this turns out.”
She gets a firm grip on the pipe and starts walking her feet up the wall above the pipes. She grabs onto another pipe, one turned at a different angle, and using her feet against the wall as a counterweight, she pulls herself forward and up until she can sit on the tangle of pipes and let her legs fall below her.
She leans her head against the wall and just rests for a moment. She’s going to feel the strain on those back muscles later. She pulls her legs back up so she can crouch on the same pipes she’s chained to and carefully turn around before sitting again. She notices Ekko is now watching her while peeling a plummelon. “Entertained?” She gripes, and Ekko grins.
“Honestly? Yeah. So what’s this accomplished?”
“Blood flow.” She lets her circulation catch up with her hands and studies the pipe and cuffs from this new angle. She tests the resistance at different angles, twists here, pulls there, threads the cable around the pipes this way instead of that. It would help if the cable wasn’t twisted around the pipes twice, and maybe if she follows the pipeworks up she can find a place where the pipes are loose, or a dead end she can unhook or detangle from. She carefully moves along the pipe, following it like a maze, until she has to crouch again to let the cuffs around behind her, under her, now up up up, and yes, there, a valve she can partially unhook from. She has to stand on her tiptoes and reach up in order to loop the cable over the valve, but then she can follow the bend back down, back to where she was first attached to the pipes…
…and finds that she’s completely screwed. The pipes split into two, and she’s now ended up with the cable tangled around more pipes than she started with. The only thing she’s managed to learn is that Ekko should not be allowed to eat fruit like that. He’s not wearing his gloves, and with every bite juice is gushing out and dripping down his fingers. He bites again and sucks, trying to mitigate the mess, and there’s juice on his chin… He’s doing this on purpose. Jinx is sure of it.
He’s gone back to studying the insides of the hoverboard while he eats, though not touching anything. After a moment he glances up at her. “What?” He sucks excess juice off his fingers and Jinx forgets he asked her a question. “Jinx?” He makes eye contact with her right before he takes another bite.
Jinx shivers. “What?”
“What, what?”
“You were staring at me.”
Juice dribbles down the side of his hand and Ekko laps it up. “You were staring at me.”
“Because you were staring at me!”
“No,” he rolls his eyes. “I was looking at you to ask you why you were staring at me, and you just kept staring. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fascinated to see how this,” he gestures at her, “saga plays out, but I wasn’t gonna just stare creepily while you sat there trying to figure your way out of this one. So why were you staring at me?”
Jinx doesn’t really have an answer she can say out loud. “You know what?” She starts, realizes she has nothing to follow up with, and shuts her mouth. She turns her attention back to trying to figure out the handcuffs and fuming.
“I guess I’m just not getting an answer?” She looks up, mouth open to just tell him to fuck off but Ekko’s middle finger is halfway out of his mouth and she pauses. Ekko’s movement slows, his head cocks to the side, considering her, and as he pulls the digit out of his mouth she sees the exact second it clicks in his mind. He’s far more purposeful in the way he licks the rest of his fingers clean and Jinx can feel her face turning red, though she’s not sure if it’s more from anger or embarrassment. Jinx turns her glare back to her cuffs and tries to focus all of her anger into a beam of fury that could shoot from her eyes and cut through the heavy metal. No such miracle occurs.
She hates this. She hates that this is the scenario in which she is watching Ekko eating fruit in the most sexual way possible. Because if he hadn’t chained her to a wall, this would be prime flirting material. She would be the one making him feel uncomfortable and hot under the collar by his fruit eating. She’d watch him the whole time he ate, watch as he tried to neuter what should be a completely innocuous activity. She’d raise an eyebrow at every suggestive noise, maybe comment on his technique, even go so far as to ask him if he was trying to give her ideas. But instead she’s feeling turned on and agitated and like the butt of the joke. So far, Ekko is winning. And not because she let him. Unforgivable.
Ekko finishes his fruit and Jinx has enough self control not to watch him or call after him when he goes into the back room to wash his hands. She just sits on her pipes and pouts.
As he returns she sighs and carefully lowers herself from the pipe until her feet touch the floor again. She’s not stuck on her tiptoes this time though, so maybe she accomplished something.
“Are you gonna let me out or not?”
“Are you gonna behave?”
She’ll claw back her dignity one annoyance at a time if she has to. “Maybe. No promises.”
Ekko has a funny sort of half-smile as he walks slowly closer to her. “You know most people would understand that the correct answer would be yes.”
“Since when have I been most people?”
He gives her a smug grin and leans in close to her, one elbow resting against the wall above her, effectively caging her in. Her heart skips a beat and she flattens herself against the wall. “Never,” he says, and his voice is too low and it’s hot and he’s not allowed to do this. “But then I guess most people wouldn’t have gotten into this situation in the first place."
Jinx bristles and scoffs at him. “Oh, so you don’t normally chain your enemies to pipes? Should I feel special?”
“No, yes, and is that what we are?”
“Well, I assume you don’t normally chain your friends to pipes.”
Ekko raises his eyebrows. “Is that what we are?”
Jinx kicks at his feet in irritation but he easily side steps her. “Fine, I assume you don’t often chain random girls to pipes!”
“You don’t know what I’m into.”
She would punch that stupid smirk off his face if she could. “I mean I sort of do,” she says, glaring. He chuckles and leans in closer.
“Do you normally shoot your enemies, friends, or random guys out of ceilings?”
“No, I reserve that kind of treatment for you.”
Ekko’s smirk grows. “Oh really? Then what does that make me?” Jinx has to backtrack a couple of sentences for that to make sense, and now she feels even more trapped. She’s really off her game today. Normally she’s the one easily getting under Ekko’s skin, but today he’s beating her at every turn.
“I don’t know, my captor?”
“So you normally follow your captors through the streets and then try to shoot them out of the ceiling?” She hates his entire face. The whole thing. The whole stupid wide grin like he’s thoroughly amused by everything she says, all at her expense.
Jinx starts kicking again. “Can you stop changing the subject? You’re being purposely obtuse and I don’t appreciate it!” Ekko hops back as her kicks swing wider. “You’re the one who chained me to the wall; how am I the one who is somehow being unreasonable?” She kicks off the wall and attempts a roundhouse kick to the chest, but she overshoots it and swings wildly from her chains for a moment. Ekko grabs her by the waist, the world spins, and suddenly her face is pressed to the wall as he pins her. She tries to kick back at him but his legs trap hers.
“I didn’t say you were being unreasonable,” he says, right next to her ear. “But yeah, you kinda are. You’re the one who followed me and tried to shoot me out of the ceiling.”
Jinx shivers despite herself. “Well, you ran from me and then hid in the ceiling!” She grinds out. “This all could have gone completely differently.” She feels as well as hears his laugh against her ear.
“I don’t know, I think this is going pretty well.” His voice goes gravel low and he lowers his head to her shoulder. It’s not a kiss, but he lets his lips rest against her skin and Jinx feels her legs turn to jelly.
“Don’t even start that,” she says, voice shaking. “I’m mad at you.”
“Start what?” She’s about to reply when his hands grip her waist and spin her to face him. Then his eyes are right there, staring into her own and his face is so close. It takes her a moment to regain her metaphorical footing. Her brain is usually a chaotic place, and while Ekko’s presence does tend to quiet down the typical noise, it can also overwhelm her mind with thoughts of a different nature.
“You know what,” she says, trying and failing at biting. Ekko smirks at her and runs his hands up her arms; he’s still gloveless and his touch leaves goosebumps in its wake. He slides his fingers through hers and presses her hands to the wall. His hands dwarf hers and she’s not even sure she can explain why she finds that as hot as she does. His whole body presses hers into the wall and her thoughts go syrupy.
“Do I?” He asks, bringing his lips tantalizingly close to hers and then pulling away. His cheekbones look so sharp in this lighting that she thinks if she tried slapping that smug look off his face she’d cut her hand.
“You’re the one who chained me to the wall and started pornographically eating fruit.”
“Is that not what you came here for? You’re the one who followed me, Blue.”
“You—” She attempts to headbutt him, but there’s not really enough space and he easily evades her. One of his hands wraps around her throat and Jinx freezes. His grip is only tight enough to encourage her to be still, but it steals her breath all the same.
He shakes his head and sighs in exasperation. “You know if you want me to let you out you’re gonna have to start being nice to me.” His face twists and that smirk is back. “Unless, you know,” his hand tightens just slightly. “You don’t want me to let you out.”
Jinx barks out a harsh laugh and tries to squirm out of his grasp. “Yeah, because I want to spend my day chained to the wall.”
Ekko shrugs and traces his free hand up and down her arm. “Hey, I don’t know what you’re into.”
She rolls her eyes; she’s too irritated for the joke to land. “Yeah, you do.” She realizes the trap she’s walked into a second too late. Ekko’s expression darkens into something sly. He tightens the hand around her neck and grabs her waist with the other.
His breath is hot under her ear after he ghosts a kiss there. “Yeah,” he says, “I do.” Her eyelids flutter and a shiver runs down her spine. She struggles to grasp at some shred of composure.
“And what, you think this is it?”
He makes a noncommittal hum. “You’re not complaining nearly as much as I would have expected.”
“I’ve complained plenty!”
“Not much in the way of yelling or swearing, or even really trying to escape, which is what I would have expected you do.”
His body pressing into hers is making it increasingly difficult to access her usual acerbic wit. She settles for simple outrage. “What the fuck are you even talking about?”
Ekko’s chuckle is too dark, too self-satisfied. “I think you like this.”
Jinx splutters for a moment. “You think I like being chained to the wall?”
“I think you like it when I chain you to a wall,” he purrs, right into her ear. “I know you like it when I put you in your place.” She aims for a headbutt again but he backs away, no longer pressing her into the wall, and she immediately misses his body against hers.
“I think you may have inhaled some of those epoxy fumes,” she snaps. “What?” Ekko has his arms crossed over his chest, and he’s looking at her with a barely restrained smile that attempts to hide deeper amusement.
“I’m not convinced you care that much about being chained to the wall. You’re not trying very hard to get out.”
Jinx glares. “That’s all I’ve been trying to do for the last hour! What the hell do you mean I haven’t been trying very hard?”
Ekko gives her a shit-eating grin and pulls out his pocket watch. “Because it’s been,” he looks at the watch, “Four minutes, thirty-seven seconds and counting since I unlocked one of your cuffs and you still haven’t noticed.”
She frowns, confused. “No you didn’t.” She yanks against her right cuff. “I would have noticed if y—” The left cuff gives way as she pulls against it and she immediately snaps her mouth shut. Ekko raises an eyebrow. She draws herself up to her full paltry height, chest swelling with indignation. “Okay, so sue me for thinking you were a halfway decent kidnapper, I guess?”
Ekko barks out a laugh. “A kidnapping, is that what this is?”
Jinx squeezes her hand, restoring circulation. “Yeah, because that’s what I was looking for when I followed you here.”
“What were you looking for when you followed me here?”
She tries to pull the cuffs loose from the pipe but they’re too tangled. “I don’t know, boy genius, what do you think I followed you for?”
It’s a rhetorical question, mostly, but that doesn’t stop Ekko from fixing her with a self-assured smile and answering confidently: “A hook-up.”
Her heart stops. Her breath catches. Words abandon her. But she has one free hand so—
She slaps him. Not hard, not enough to hurt, not even enough to sting. Just enough to get her message across. Ekko looks back at her, nonplussed, and—smack.
Jinx reaches for her cheek with her free hand and for a moment she’s so shocked all she can do is stare wide-eyed at Ekko’s stupid smug face. The slap didn’t hurt, really, it’s the surprise and the audacity more than anything that have her gaping at him in incredulity. She doesn’t know what to say, what to do. The nerve—no one else would ever dare, but Ekko, Ekko…Ekko has never been afraid to call her on her bullshit, to play her game as well as she does…to actually hit back. From anyone else it would be a sign of disrespect. From Ekko, it’s a sign of his esteem; a reminder of their even playing field. A willingness to meet her challenge and dole out his own. With anyone it would be enraging. Only Ekko can somehow make it hot. Everyone knows how dangerous she is, but he’s the only one who isn’t scared of her. He’s the only one who would hit her without any intention to harm.
She tries to school her expression into a frown and winds back her arm to hit him harder, but he catches her arm and slams it against the wall. He has her pinned again, her back flush to the wall, and his face is right there and his expression is serious but he doesn’t look upset. His eyes bore into her and she feels stripped naked. This is what she can’t ignore, the reason why they can play these games, why he can leave her frustrated and flustered and then flirt with her and it still work: underneath everything they see the rawest versions of each other and still share a bond that defies definitions. Their eyes meet and pretense falls away. He looks at her like that and she can’t keep her eyes from darting down to his lips and back up to his knowing gaze.
No one else is allowed to see her give in. She hears the needy whimper that falls from her lips as she reaches for him, but she doesn’t have the presence of mind to hate it when he meets her halfway. She can taste the fruit on his lips from earlier, and he smells vaguely of the charred sweet musk of burned shimmer. His hand rises to her waist and splays across her back and she melts into him. She doesn’t even register that his hand is moving her arm up the wall, only that he’s stroking her skin, and when the cuff clicks locked around her wrist again she finds herself more impressed than angry. He knows what he’s doing; she has to give him that.
She sucks his thick lip into her mouth and licks at it hungrily. God, she loves his lips; so thick and plush and kissable compared to her waspish pout. His hands encircle her waist—his hands—and he easily lifts her. She eagerly wraps her legs around his waist and pulls at her restraints, wanting her arms around his neck, but there’s something perversely divine about not being able to do as she wants. She moans softly against his mouth and feels his answering laugh.
“Shut up,” she says, separating their mouths just long enough to mutter the words.
“I wasn’t even gonna—”
“I said shut up.” She sucks his tongue into her mouth so he can’t respond.
Ekko groans low in the back of his throat and his hands climb her sides, fingers tracing the bumps of her ribs. He reaches her breasts and his thumbs slide under the fabric of her shirt—he swallows her sound of surprise, and the arch of her back only presses her skin further into his touch. The slow circles of his thumbs on her nipples stall her thoughts and leave her gasping into his mouth. Too soon his hands move on, stroking all the way up and back down her arms, her sides; they slide under her ass and squeeze. Once again she pulls against her restraints, and fuck, there’s actually something to this.
Fuck fucking fuck him. She is the goddamn Loose Cannon of Zaun, controllable by no one, including the Eye of Zaun himself. She’s stared down and taken down men thrice her size without breaking a sweat. She regularly slips in and out of silent rooms without anyone noticing she was there. She should not be writhing and mewling like a cat in heat just because one stupid boy chained her to a water pipe.
But then, he’s not just any stupid boy, is he? She muses idly that if anyone else had captured her like this, she would have thought before now to kick her way through the drywall until she found somewhere the pipes were loose or breakable. And now, thinking about it, he didn’t even take the spare lock pick she keeps in her sleeve. She could get out of this if she wanted to. But now Ekko is kissing down her neck and she doesn’t want to.
Fine. Fuck it. Apparently he’s right and she’s kinda very into this. He said something about wanting to tie her up once, didn’t he? Maybe she should look into that… Cotton candy. That’s what it is. This makes her thoughts expand into fluffy masses of cotton candy, sweet but devoid of any real substance.
Her head falls back against the wall and her eyes roll back in her head as Ekko’s mouth sucks kisses further down her body, until he can shove aside her top to free a breast. She gasps sharply as he latches on, mouth open wide around her and sucking the imprint of his teeth into her skin. It’s a lot, almost too much, with the way his tongue is teasing her nipple. Normally she’d be tempted to shove him off, he knows how sensitive she is, how thin the line is between “Fuck, that feels good,” and “Just don’t fucking touch them.” Right now all she can do is squirm in his arms and trust him, and then smile to herself when he pulls away before it becomes too much.
He pulls back and when Jinx blinks her eyes open he’s staring at her with hooded, glazed eyes. “You look wrecked,” he says, his voice low and hoarse, and if he’s saying that, Jinx wonders how bad she must look.
“You should see you,” she pants, earning her a smile. She tries to pull him back in with her legs but Ekko only fixes her shirt and starts to put her down. She whines wordlessly and pouts at him in complaint. Her feet hit the floor and she catches just a glimpse of Ekko’s smirk before he grabs her hips and spins her, and then he’s crowding her against the wall.
There’s an unmistakable throb between her legs now, one that only grows when she presses her ass back against Ekko, and she breathes a low moan when she feels his erection, so hot and hard already. Ekko’s hold on her hips tightens and he grinds into her with a stifled groan. She responds with a breathy chuckle.
“I think you might be the one who came here for a hookup.”
Ekko drops an open-mouthed kiss to the back of her neck and her whole spine liquifies. Her mouth drops open and she rests her forehead against the wall. “I came here to repair a hoverboard.” His next kiss is lower, but still in that stretch of her upper spine that’s so, so sensitive. The gasp shakes out of her. “This was all just a happy accident.”
Her breaths come short and shallow as he laves kisses over her spine, under her shoulder blades, sending shivers and trills of electricity up and down her back and radiating through her stomach to the ache between her legs. She pulls against the cuffs, more as an outlet for her desperation than an attempt at escape. “Really?” she manages. “Because you’re the one who had the handcuffs.”
His laugh is hot against her spine and her eyes roll back into her skull. He’s really not playing fair; he knows what this does to her. He knows kissing her back like this is a shortcut for instant arousal and it’s working. Her patience is gone and now she just really needs him to fuck her. She can’t ignore it anymore. He can do it right here, with her still chained to the wall if he wants, she just needs that big glorious dick of his shoved inside her right now. “I thought you might like them. It looks like I was right.”
“And clearly today is all about what I want.” His hands rub down to her inner thighs, squeezing and stroking so close to where she needs him. She bites her lip against a whine. God, she wants to knock his teeth out.
“I know you’re being sarcastic, but it really is. I think I’m just getting really good at knowing what you want.” His voice is a low, husky thing against her neck and fuck, if her hands were free she’d have his pants around his ankles and his cock balls-deep inside her already. He teases the brush of a finger between her legs and she whimpers. God, if he doesn’t touch her soon… “Something you want, Jinx? All you have to do is ask.”
Her pride won’t let her give in that easily. “I thought you were so good at knowing what I want.”
“Tch.” Another teasing brush, just the ghost of pressure. “You’re making this so unnecessarily hard for yourself.” Well, yes; on some level she knows this. On some level she knows that’s the point.
“Something, something, joke about hard for me, on me, ‘s in there somewhere.”
“The whole point is to use your words, Jinx.”
“Fuck you.”
“Only if you ask nicely.” His fingers pinch between her legs, and fuck, that’s what she—but his touch is gone just as quickly and she wails in frustration.
“Ekko!”
“Can I help you?”
She grinds her teeth together. “Fine, if you insist on being so obstinate about this,” she growls, “and need me to spell it out for you; give you step by step instructions on how to do something we both know you already know how to do. Even though you want to claim to be some kind of an expert on what I like—” His teeth scrape against her spine and she sobs. “Fuck! Fine! Touch me! You fucking dickwaffle, this is the part where you stick your fucking hand in my pants—”
He obliges, shoving one hand past the waistband of her pants and her underwear and pressing hard on her clit. She bites her lip and moans her relief into the faded wallpaper. He starts rubbing hard, in the way he knows drives her crazy, and she’s already so strung out it takes no time at all for her orgasm to start building. “Yes, yes,” she pants, relief finally in sight, she’s so close—and then Ekko removes his hand from her pants entirely. “Ekko!” She kicks the wall and tries to glare at him over her shoulder. “Ekko, I swear to every god out there, put your fingers back right now or so help me, I will cut them off and take them with me!”
“So demanding,” he whispers, but he does as he’s told and soon he’s stroking her to the edge again.
She leans into his touch. “See, was that really so hard—ah, ah, ah! No!” He leaves her hanging right at the edge again and Jinx thinks she might actually start crying. “Ekko!”
His free hand grazes shapes across her stomach. “I told you to ask nicely.”
“You’re lucky I asked at all.” Her voice is starting to go hoarse. Ekko just sighs like a parent waiting for a child to behave. Jinx’s whole body is shaking. “Fine, fuck, please touch me, just, please!” His fingers are slow but they move, and even though he’s touching her, he’s going so slow, so light, that even when she feels him dip a finger into her wet heat it’s not enough to get her back to where she’d been. She whines and tries to grind down on his finger, against his hand, something, but the way she’s strung up she can’t get the leverage. She tries to stomp on Ekko’s foot but his steel-toed boots ruin the effect. “I fucking said please!”
“So you did.” He dips his finger in fully and curls, and oh, that burn starts building again, and he presses on her clit and she’s so, so mercifully close.
“Ekko I’m gonna fucking kill you!” Again, he did it again. “I’m gonna strap a fucking bomb to your balls and blow you to pieces starting with your dick!” Her threats don’t get his fingers moving again.
“Jinx,” he says, infuriating calmly, “Is there something you need from me?”
She’s shaking, seething. If he was anyone else she’d have pulled herself up, wrapped her legs around his head and snapped his neck. “I fucking said please, you smug piece of shit—”
“Yes, you asked me to touch you and I touched you. Was there something else you needed?”
Her voice is shrill and breaking. “Fuck you, I hate you so fucking much, I’m gonna take that board and smash your face in with it—ahh!” He curls his finger again and her whole body jolts. She’s going to actually start crying, she can feel it.
Ekko’s deep voice in her ear both turns her on and makes her want to rip his guts out. “You decide when this ends,” he whispers. “All you have to do is ask.” His finger starts stroking her again, and for once she almost wishes he didn’t, because she knows what’s coming and bites her lip in anticipation. Sure enough, right when everything is twisting the tightest, burning the hottest, his fingers go still and the wave crumbles instead of crashes.
“I shouldn’t have to ask,” she bites out. “Stop fucking teasing me. Make me come or I will strangle you with my braids!”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” he mutters, but he gives her a second finger, and the way he’s pumping them now she can see the end in sight. Edging’s nice for the way she gets to feel that delicious burning tension as she gets close over and over again, but the sharp drop off, especially this many times, can make her question if the journey or the destination are worth the trouble.
“Oh yes, yes.” There are tears in her eyes now, she’s so close, she knows when it hits it’s going to be all-consuming. “Oh, fuck, Ekko, yes—” No!
She’s going to kill him. The tears start spilling now as she slumps against the wall, furious but defeated. “Ekko, I can’t fucking take this!”
His lips press soft kisses against her ear, her cheek; she turns her head to the side and he kisses away the tears running down her face. His voice is so gentle. “Am I asking too much of you?”
Something in her chest loosens, because he asked. As mean as he’ll be, as far as he’ll push her, she knows he’ll never cross a hard line. “No, just…tell me what you want.” Her bottom lip trembles and Ekko peppers her cheek with sweet kisses.
“You ready for me to make you come?” Jinx nods, too strung out to be self-conscious about it anymore. “Then you know what to do.”
She sniffles. He’s never actually made her cry like this before, and she hates that she doesn’t totally hate it. “Please.”
“Please what?”
The words come spilling out of her. “Please just get me off already. I can’t do that again, please.”
He places the most tender kiss against her temple. “Good girl.” And that shouldn’t push her as close as it does, but she throbs at his words and then both of his hands are in her pants, three fingers are pumping in and out of her at dizzying speed, while the heel of his other hand saws against her clit in that way that has her seeing stars when she can squeeze her thighs tight together like this. The build is going to be so fast she won’t get to enjoy it for long, but there’s no way he’s not serious about it this time and she’s crying openly and she doesn’t even care.
“Please, please, Ekko, please,” she begs, unwilling this time to take the chance that he’ll deny her.
“There’s my girl.” His fingers curl inside her and she feels the burn rip up through her core into her clit and her vision blacks out as she’s consumed by the rhythmic pulse of relief, of pleasure, of a full-body release of tension. Her cry is nearly a scream, and Ekko doesn’t stop moving his fingers, his hand, until he’s pulled her all the way through every intense second, through what’s either the strongest aftershocks she’s ever felt or possibly just a second orgasm altogether, she can’t even be sure. All she knows is that was the best orgasm of her life, and that she maybe doesn’t want to kill Ekko anymore.
She slumps into Ekko’s arms, her whole body going limp, every muscle useless. He’s so careful to catch her, to hold her up while he uncuffs her. Her arms fall and Ekko catches her before she completely collapses to the floor. She’s vaguely aware of him picking her up and carrying her, and then both of them sinking into a familiar expanse of shaggy softness. If she could catch her breath she’d laugh. The cozy embrace of Big Oscar. Did she black out? She thinks she may have actually blacked out. She’s not sure she’s ever going to catch her breath and get enough oxygen back to her brain to restore her full powers of perception.
Her head still feels all floaty and light, like she’s dissociating but in a good way. She’s aware of Ekko carefully massaging her wrists and hands, easing the way they shake and prickle as blood circulation is restored. He cradles her whole body with his own, both of them sunk into the sagged-in comfort of the couch. His head is next to hers, and he’s softly kissing her ear and her cheek, occasionally whispering sweet nothings. She likes this coziness. But with the way their bodies are aligned she can feel him still very much rock hard against her ass, and even with everything that just happened it sends a shiver through her. She grinds back against him, and maybe it’s just overstimulation, but she feels a twinge between her legs at the throaty moan he lets out.
She bites her lip and continues to roll her hips against him. His breath goes ragged next to her ear and his hands start roaming her body, groping and squeezing. Jinx tries to tilt her hips to get him aligned between her legs but it’s difficult at this angle and before she can manage it Ekko’s hands are on her hips, stilling them. She makes a little noise of complaint but then Ekko’s murmuring into her ear. “You want more?”
A shuddering sigh. “You’re still hard.” She struggles to swallow, then struggles more to speak. She feels almost drunk. “I’ve never come that hard in my life and I’m so fucking wet.” She grabs her waistband and starts shoving her pants and underwear down her thighs. Ekko slips his hand between her legs and swipes a finger through her folds, and fuck, she’s still so sensitive.
“Fuck,” he breathes, and then his hands are taking over, pulling her pants down to her ankles and then shifting her just enough to be able to get to his own belt and pull his clothes out of the way. His knees part hers and spread her wide, and she watches through hooded, hazy eyes as he plants his feet, lines himself up and thrusts into her hard and fast. She yelps and grabs his arms, trying to find stability, but he doesn’t give her time to recover before he’s pumping into her steadily. Her head falls back and her mouth falls open. His thrusts aren’t as deep as she likes but they’re hard and his speed is creating the most beautiful friction. Ekko’s hand is around her throat and he pulls her forward, just enough that her face is next to his, looking down the length of their bodies to where they connect.
“Look,” he tells her, his voice strained by his exertion, “Baby look how good we look together.” He moans into her neck and his legs shift, trying to find a better angle. There’s not much Jinx can do in this position to help him. “Oh fuck, wait.” Ekko stops thrusting to grab under her thigh and haul it to her chest. “Hold this here,” he orders, his voice low and raspy and perfect. He pulls off her boot and then pulls her pants and underwear off her leg entirely. She holds her leg in place as ordered, but when he makes an experimental thrust that rattles her teeth her arm falters. She adjusts her grip to better hold up her leg but Ekko grins against her ear and says, “I have a better idea.”
“Oh.” It’s all she can say when he starts to wrap one blue braid around her arm and thigh, tying them in place. He carefully maneuvers them both back until they can rest their heads on one of the throw pillows so she doesn’t have to work so hard to keep her head up, something she’ll need to do now that there is so little slack in her braid. His breath fans against her cheek.
“You good?”
She turns her head to look at him. “I fucking hate you so fucking much.” But her sly smile and the way she lifts her other leg tell him the truth. He holds her gaze as he takes her other braid and secures her other arm and leg. He keeps looking at her, his eyes so dark and so full of need for her. He plants his feet closer for better leverage, and his next test thrust has them mirroring each other’s stunned expressions.
“Oh, that’s it,” he pants and she nods in wordless agreement. He slips a hand around her throat again to force her to look back down while the other he hooks under her ass. “Fuck, look at you.” She does, watching in a fucked-out daze as he pounds into her. She watches how she stretches around him, how his shaft glistens with her wetness when he withdraws, and how his balls smack into her skin as he bottoms out with each stroke. Ekko makes a strangled noise next to her. Beneath her? Fuck it, he’s right there with her. “Look how well you take me. Look how good I look going into you.” She whimpers in reply. She loves the way they look together. She loves the contrast of their skin tones. Loves how Ekko gets as overwhelmed as she does when he lets himself let go. She thinks that’s why she can give him control: she may be the one tied up but he’s as powerless right now as she is.
She loves the way this feels. She’s still so sensitive, and her restricted movement—with her own hair no less—has her tuned up so high she knows it won’t take much for her to come again. Ekko groans and picks up his pace, really slamming into her now and punching every breath from her throat. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m gonna last very long,” Ekko says, his voice tight, “I think I drew this out too long, and I nee-I need—”
“It’s okay,” Jinx gasps, her world currently one of muted thoughts and vivid sensation. “I’m close.”
Ekko answers with a shaky moan and wraps his arms around her waist. He curls in around her, his hips slam into her with bruising force. Jinx feels herself teeter, tries to reach for her clit but can’t move her arms—she keens and Ekko’s right there to take care of her, his fingers reaching down, pressing and—paradise, instantly.
The way her whole body convulses must be enough to pull him over too; he speeds up, desperate sounds in his throat, and then buries himself in her while he rides out his own full-body shudders.
Eventually his body slackens and he can untie the braids from around Jinx’s limbs. She feels him flop out of her as she lets her legs down, and the rush of mess that follows. Like earlier she finds herself softly floating while Ekko’s gentle caresses gradually pull her back down. God, he gets her out of her head in the best possible way. She wouldn’t have thought it was possible.
There’s a cloth from somewhere he uses to clean them both up as best he can, and generally a lot of whispers in her ear of compliments and promises and oaths he probably won’t even remember making later, once the post-coital bliss wears off. He keeps littering chaste kisses anywhere he can reach, even on her hands and wrists, over her gloves.
When Jinx finally pulls herself close enough to reality she opens her eyes and tilts her face to look at him, and finds his exhausted expression one of unspeakable fondness.
“Hi,” he says softly.
Her smile spreads across her lips in spite of her. “Hi,” she responds, shy.
“You okay?” He takes one of her hands and threads their fingers together, the other hand rubs absently at her cheek.
She just looks at him for a moment, trying to remember how to put words together. “I’ve never come that hard in my life,” she gasps. “You only fingered me and I came harder than I have any of the times you’ve fucked me.” Ekko’s brow twists in confusion and she nods. “I know, you’re really, really good at fucking me,” she says, breathless still.
“That wasn’t too much, was it?” he asks, brow creased in concern.
“No.” She squeezes his hand and lets her head fall back against his shoulder with a sigh, her breathing finally evening out. “You were pushing it, but you knew when to stop pushing.” Warmth blooms in her chest and pushes her lips into a smile. “Fuck. The things you do to me…if you were anyone else you’d be dead, you know that?”
“Yes, I do.” She looks up at his firm tone. His eyes are so soft, but the set of his brow tells her he’s deeply serious about what he’s saying. His fingers trace her jawline. “You don’t have to be embarrassed about it, you know. Wanting to give me control. Liking it.” The warmth in his gaze has her captivated and she doesn’t know how to answer. Ekko smiles softly. “I know you like it. Well, you hate it. You hate that you like it.” He’s right, and she drops his gaze for a moment, feeling that strange shyness she only gets with him. He nudges her chin and she looks back at him. “I know that I get to see a side of you that no one else does. And I want to make sure that you know that I respect and appreciate how much trust it takes for you to let me. I always want you to feel safe giving me as much or as little as you want.” He nuzzles close until their foreheads touch. “I never want to take this for granted. Or push you too far. I…” he trails off into a light chuckle. “I only like to push you like this because you let me. I wouldn’t do it if you told me you didn’t want it.” His smile slips just a bit. “I think…we may be due for a conversation about safewords though.”
Jinx is still half dressed but in Ekko’s embrace she feels completely exposed. Basking in that look of care and concern and something deeper she doesn’t want to name, she feels naked, stripped down to her most essential parts. The fortress around her heart is suddenly made of paper, and she falls through those walls so easily and into emotion that makes her whole chest ache. Her skin is peeled back, her chest cracked open, her beating heart on display for him to take; keep or crush. She feels so much and so intensely, but she doesn’t know how to put any of it into words she could actually tell him, so she lifts her lips to his and tries to kiss her love into him.
He kisses her back hard and she tries to focus on that, ground herself in something other than the realization that she’s falling harder and faster than she thought she would, and that can’t possibly end well. She pulls back from his mouth and pulls those walls of paper up around her fragile heart. She looks away and focuses on the awkward shuffle of both of them trying to fix their clothes without actually leaving their embrace.
As they settle and she snuggles into his arms she has a sudden realization. “Oh my god. We’ve desecrated Big Oscar.”
“Actually my coat caught the mess, Oscar’s fine.”
She slaps his chest lightly. “You fucked me on Big Oscar. I can’t believe you fucked me on Big Oscar. We fucked on Big Oscar!” She giggles. “Wow, that would sound really terrible out of context.”
“It sounds pretty terrible in context.” They both fall into laughter and Jinx has to admit she maybe likes this the most, maybe misses this the most. It’s mid-afternoon now, and the glow of orange and yellow lights from outside enter the dusty windows in such a way as to almost feel like actual sunlight. “Do you have anywhere to be, the rest of today?” He sounds so hesitant to ask.
“Not really,” she replies, nuzzling into his chest. “Unless there’s something going on I can pretty much come and go as I please. As long as I check in every other day or so. Let everyone know I’m alive.” She feels Ekko’s nod.
“I need to get back at some point, especially after what happened this morning. But no one will really be worried if I take a while. They know I’ll have had to stop somewhere and fix my board.”
Jinx dares to let a smile prickle her lips. “Are you going somewhere with this, boy wonder?”
Ekko takes a deep breath and buries his face in her hair. “I was just thinking…a nap sounds really nice right about now.”
“Yeah?”
“And then…I dunno, Big Oscar isn’t getting any less desecrated, so now that the sanctity is broken—”
“We’ve deflowered Big Oscar.”
“The metaphor has now gone off the rails, but sure, yeah.” His laughter shakes his whole chest and her by extension. “I mean I’d be down to desecrate Big Oscar some more.”
Jinx hides her too-wide, too-hopeful smile against his chest. “Yeah,” she says, “Now that sounds like what I came here for.”