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It's dark. It's late. Trinity stumbles a little as she moves backwards, arms locked around her partner's neck, lips bruised and moving fiercely, messily, against each other. Whether it was the drinks that had her tripping, or the lump choking up her throat, she can't tell.
She doesn't know how she got here— can't remember anymore. It doesn't matter.
It's happening.
It's fucking happening. She needs to just let go, enjoy it, cherish it.
She's trying to.
Samira bites at her lip, a little too hard, and Trinity's eyes sting behind her eyelids. She scrunches them tighter. The hot, fierce pressure punishing the backs of them, threatening her eyes, flushing her head, makes everything feel too fucking intense.
She forces a pleased hum, arches like she loves it, and tries not to think about anything at all.
She's still being walked backwards, one shuffling step at a time, and she keeps her hands desperately on either side of Samira's neck to keep herself upright, keep her here, keep her sane. She knows Samira, trusts Samira, she's fucking in love with Samira. She should like this.
The hands on her waist push backward, curl into the small of her back, and keep her pressed close. Samira keeps going — barely flinched when Trinity stumbled — just keeps her lips moving against Trinity's, strong and hungry.
She feels like she's being suffocated. Drowned in a burning world. She keeps trying to breathe around everything caught up inside and strangling her throat, but each breath only brings searing pain, a hot flash, more pressure and more pressure and more pressure and she can't breathe.
A hand has travelled up to the slope of her neck when Samira finally pulls back a little, staying close. She breathes with her whole body: each inhale sways her, each exhale is cloyed with alcohol. Its scent is a sharp reminder.
Samira got drunk. Samira needed comfort and a night out. Samira needed to forget him. Trinity was there, trying to help.
And now Trinity is here, getting everything she's ever supposedly wanted, and all she wants is to curl into the tightest ball she can and scream.
Each touch burns, and not in a good way. Samira's looking at her, eyes big and dark and soft, which should be amazing— Trinity's wanted Samira to look at her with something like love for who knows how long — but as soon as Trinity meets her gaze, the illusion shatters into jagged little daggers. Each one rips open a fresh wound; she feels like her whole body is scarred and bleeding. Samira is not looking at her like she loves her. Samira is looking at her through a haze of drinking and heartbreak and adrenaline, and she's seeing an escape. Trinity is just the only available port in a storm, and yet she still can't pull herself away.
Samira's thumb brushes against the side of Trinity's neck, almost gentle, as she leans back in. She kisses like Trinity's solid and real and needed, so with the achingly gentle touch, Trinity tries everything to get lost in it. She's long wished for Samira to kiss her soft and loving, long held close the image of them together after a long shift, all sleepy smiles and safe arms, and she wills herself to see that now.
It's hard when the force blooming in her head is so acutely present, and with each movement of Samira's lips she's reminded that this kiss is taking, not cherishing. She tastes metal. She can feel a noose on her neck, drawing tighter the further she goes. She kisses Samira back with everything she has and pushes all of that away.
This time, when Samira pulls back, she almost looks truly present, like her Samira. She starts searching Trinity's face, so Trinity starts moving. She tries to stroke and pull in any way that will distract Samira from seeing what's happening behind her splitting mask. Samira only pulls back a little more, braces her thumb on Trinity's jaw, and asks, "You okay?"
Fuck if that doesn't make it hard to breathe all anew.
Trinity nods, fast and sure, tugging on Samira's neck to get her to stop looking, and hopefully stop her from seeing. It works, and the kiss continues, messy and big, hips pressing hard against hers, until it stops again and Samira's looking at her with a crease between her brows.
"You're sure?"
Everything bursting and screaming in Trinity's head doubles. She can't handle this— Samira can't do this. Samira can't treat her like she cares, like this will go anywhere other than making her feel better just this one night. Something in Trinity's chest is cracked open and raw, entirely vulnerable. The sting in her eyes threatens.
Trinity may not want this, may not have ever truly wanted this, but she knows how to do it. She knows damn well how to satiate and please and smile like she's never been more into it. She wants Samira, and if Samira wants this right now, then she should want this too. Should enjoy it. She's meant to be ecstatic.
Fuck.
But she can't have Samira. That’s a fact she's long since known, but she's always known she would do anything for her. Including choking down this torment. And, if while Samira’s kissing her, she can almost believe that little extra parcel of care and affection is truly hers to hold, she'll keep trying to hold it. Even if she can't quite believe the illusion, she can't let it go. She'll probably hold onto it until it comes away with riddled with claw marks, despite knowing it's nothing good for either of them.
At least with Samira's lips on hers she can pretend she's forgotten everything else.
She keeps her chin down, far down, her voice small in the silence when she replies.
"Please just kiss me, Samira."
Her voice, thank god, doesn't crack, but there's a barely-there waver. She blinks sharply a few times to push back the tide of grief before daring to look Samira in the eye.
Her pupils are blown, but she looks concerned. Trinity can't handle her being fucking concerned, or caring for how she feels right now. That will just break the dam she's currently scrambling to build.
She knows how to give Samira what she's wanting, at least. She leans in close, ghosts her lips across Samira's, whispers her presence across her cheek, counts every hitched breath. She teases her nails over the small of her back, and hovers near her ear, traces each twitch and shiver under her touch. Trinity keeps the contact light and consuming, keeps the little space between them burning. She knows how to make someone want so much that they forget to consider her at all.
"Please," she repeats, thumb stroking Samira's jaw, the words landing softly on the shell of her ear.
And of course it works, because Trinity knows this. Everyone expects her to know this, to only think about this. Samira gasps a breath and her eyes are wide and she crashes to her like a woman starved. And Trinity takes it— takes it all —and turns it, gives it softly back. She keeps her going with every touch. She hums at just the right times and moves like she's desperate for it, but when the pressure in her head keeps growing, a hot tear tracks down the side of her cheek heedless of how fucking hard she's trying.
She's tearing herself apart.
Everything is so big and so pressing and so searing. She's going to burst at the seams. Instead, Trinity spins them around, starts walking Samira back the way she had been directed, and leaves kisses hot and distracting on her jaw, hides her face in her hair, and uses the reprieve to wipe the hot track away without it being noticed. Each sobs gets choked back and swallowed before it can make it out, before anything can wrack through her body.
Why can't she just enjoy this. Why is it killing her. Why does she want to run when a hand slips under her shirt.
Trinity knows her own reputation. She can make it real if she needs to.
This will be the only time Trinity gets to have her, and it's not what she dreamt of, but it's something. Passing that up would be crazy.
Tomorrow will be the same as any other day: Trinity will watch Samira live, and talk, and move, with butterflies in her stomach and stars in her eyes; she'll want, and crave, and need Samira to look at her in a way she never will; and Samira will continue to think about him. She'll laugh with Trinity a bit, run a hand over her shoulder as she passes, but she won't leave thinking about nothing else but her until she falls asleep.
Trinity will think about Samira, though. Just like every other night. Except, now, she'll know the way Samira's fingers feel caressing her neck, that her skin is just as soft as it looks, that she can kiss so sweet and focused that you forget anything else exists. Most importantly, she'll know that Samira Mohan never even wanted her.
But Trinity can't stop.
Samira wants this right now, and what has Trinity ever been able to do other than what she wants? Maybe, if she just holds on for long enough, she'll believe the illusion she's desperately crafting. So she hides her trembling lip in a kiss that has Samira curling into her, and aligns her juddering inhales with the fingers dragging along her spine, and when they reach the couch she keeps pressing closer til Samira drops onto it.
Trinity doesn't let the move separate them; she keeps the blaze pushed away by the force of the hands digging into her waist and the feel of Samira's hair running through her fingers as she brushes it back from her neck. Placing a hot kiss there, she slips onto her knees either side of Samira's and catalogues every gasp below her. Fingernails dig in her back and a heartbeat throbs under her tongue. Samira's shifting restlessly, soft, cut-off sounds escaping her mouth at Trinity's ear.
Trinity stomach churns— this shouldn't be hers to witness, or have —but each moment finally doesn't feel as if it's pouring acid over raw wounds. She's split: part burning and nauseous, crawling under her skin; part floating, numb and hollow, hovering somewhere behind her. She can feel the repetitive tug on her sternum trying to pull her completely away and out, leaving her body far behind and hiding where she used to all those years ago.
She shouldn't have even come tonight, this never would have happened. What was she thinking? This is just one more mark to add to her ledger: Trinity Santos lies. She takes what she shouldn't, can't say what she needs, can't give what she wants, and she lies to the people she loves.
Fingertips and a hot palm slip onto the skin of her stomach. Trinity flinches like she's been speared, everything tensing. She careens back to herself — the pain, the longing, the war, the burn, all overtaking her immediately. She wrenches her face away, digging her chin into her far shoulder and scrunching her eyes tight, bearing down on her lip between her teeth. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. This is Samira. Samira. She can't handle this. Her chest is trapped, squeezed so tight she can barely force any air in. The sting of her nails in her palms isn't loud enough for her to follow it back to the present. She's reeling in the inferno, agony, shame and anger chaining her there, metal burning white-hot from the heat, painting her with scars.
Something muffled sounds somewhere out of sight. It ripples through the cacophony, barely reaching her ears.
A thumb alights on the side of her face, trying to coax her around, startling her over again. Her shoulders are taught around her ears.
Slowly, with all the dizziness of a newborn deer, Trinity resurfaces. Everything still roars and screams just outside this moment, barely on the other side of her mind. It drops down in her chest, rips at her ribs, claws at her throat.
"Don't you want this?" Samira asks.
Samira's face swims into focus, blurry at the edges, looking at her with a crease between her brows.
The shame comes up and clamps Trinity's mouth like a muzzle, stopping anything she wants to say from making it past her teeth. Samira's so close. Her hand is still on Trinity's cheek, Trinity's still straddling her lap. It's all too much. Too close. Whatever hasty buffers she had erected to keep the reality of what was happening from consuming her are ripped away in the onslaught.
Of course Samira thought Trinity wanted this; Samira thinks she's detached, aloof. She thinks that she plays, and takes, and breaks hearts, that she doesn't flinch at the aftermath, and shrugs off anything more like a fly. Samira's one of the closest people in the world to her and she doesn't even know how wrong that is. She doesn't know how deeply Samira's eyes on hers affects her, that each shared smile fans these flames and draws something so incredible— so overwhelming —to pour through her and light up every nerve, how she craves something tangible and true between them the way her body needs oxygen. Samira thinks Trinity doesn’t care, just like everyone else has thought.
Trinity stumbles off her, hands flinching up between them to placate and apologise, guilt and humiliation throbbing in the front of her mind.
"Sorry. You're drunk. I shouldn't have…" The words are tripping out of her mouth, and she can barely see Samira's wide eyes through the tidal wave of remorse that's just crashed her under, robbing her of air and leaving her to flail under the weight of the salty water. "Sorry."
And it's over, but the ghosts of each touch burn like ice on Trinity's skin, not allowing her a moment of relief. One could argue that there's respite in a different kind of pain, but pain is pain, and the look on Samira's face is seared in her mind.
Trinity turns and rushes out of the room, ignoring the hazy sounds of "Trinity, wait-" from the couch behind her.
She doesn't look back.