Fighters

I wasn't sure what he had to apologize for, but I shrugged and took the drink. Usually I avoided hard liquor, for reasons that were. Well. I don't love not being in control of myself. But it was one drink, and Bren was here, somewhere, and honestly I really fucking needed it.

I guess the liquor was stronger than I expected, or I was way more of a lightweight than I remembered, because by the time I got the the bottom of the cup I felt fucking. I don't know. Fantastic? Delirious? I wasn't sure that I felt drunk, but I sure as hell didn't feel sober.

"You know," and there was that fucking voice again, the bartender back at my shoulder. Was he a devil? No, I thought, breaking into a grin. A guardian angel. "John's right there."

I snapped my gaze up and found him, dancing away. He had finally let someone wrap their arms around him, and his body was grinding against him in a sensual way that had my entire body out in goosebumps. Or maybe that was the music. Shit, when had music gotten so good?

"You could go to him." His fingers were on my neck; fuck, that felt good. Everything was good. Life was good. Why had I been so worried? I felt a grin begin to grow: the solution was so fucking easy. All I had to do was dance. "After all, he's what you want."

"Fuck," I laughed, pushing away from the bar. If the bartender said anything more, I didn't hear him, because I got lost in the music and the way it felt against my skin.

Fuck.

***

The lights were great, the music was bouncing, and there was a warm body pressed up against mine and fuck it all, I was on my way to forgetting about him for at least the little bit that I could manage. I was on the up and up and up and up and there was nothing -

I yelped as strong hands gripped my hips, pulling me away from the man who was just about to go in for a kiss. I had just a moment to register his disappointed face before my ass connected with a warm body; no, not warm, he was fucking burning up, and I yanked away but there was a strong arm snaking around my hips as a hand pulled away my hair, exposing my neck to blistering kisses. I moaned despite myself, losing myself in the sensation, and whoever it was that had me tightened his grip at the sound.

Fuck it. I arched my neck to give him better access and gasped when I felt teeth scrape against my skin. Yeah, now there was no way I was going anywhere, not when I could be here.

The lights flashed warm against my skin, in time with my heartbeat, in time with the music, in time with the gyrations of my body against the hard cock pressed up against my ass. Dextrous fingers were pressing into my hipbone, flitting over sensitive spots and applying pressure to places that shouldn't have been sensitive, but damn, now they were, and between that hand and the lips making their way up my neck I was in real danger of not being about to keep my mind steady or in place, and when those lips reached my ear and he growled, "Mine," my fucking legs just about gave out as I melted -

Wait.

I tried to push away from him, because it was him, it couldn't be anyone but him, but he held me so tight, that arm around my hips capturing me against him effectively and so naturally, it felt so good but what the fuck was happening here? I somehow managed to twist my body around so that I was facing him, my eyes meeting those fucking jade irises and that smile, those lips.

"What the shit -" I managed to get out, before his lips crashed against mine.

***

Fuck, he felt so good. Why hadn't I ever just done this before? What had kept me from reaching out and touching him, from controlling him, from making him all the things I needed him to be?

God, he was everything I'd dreamed. The way his hips bucked every time my fingers found a spot on his hipbones that held nerves near the surface, the way he tilted his head and moved his hair, fuck, his hair, it was thick and everywhere but somehow it didn't get in the way of my mouth on his neck, and god I loved the way I could make him come undone with just the smallest touch to his neck, who cared that he wasn't sober, who cared that he was reacting to the drugs as much as he was reacting to me, this was fucking fun.

I don't know when he figured out it was me, because he definitely figured out it was me. Maybe it was the way I'd held him, controlling him like I'd always wanted to do. Maybe it was the smell of me, or the little gasps I was letting out. Probably it was when I let slip that word, "Mine," growled it into his ear before I'd had time to think, before I'd thought about what that meant, what it might do to him, and I'd felt him melt for all of a second before he'd whirled on me.

He'd started to say something, I think, but god he was facing me then and his eyes. His face. His lips.

And so I kissed him. I kissed him with all the things that had been sitting right behind my tongue ever since I'd first seen him, all the scenes I wanted to play out with him under me, on top of me, beside me. Mostly under me. A few, actually, inside of me. All the times I wanted to watch him come, screaming my name, how I needed him to feel pleasure at my hands and how much more I needed him to know that I controlled it. How fucking badly I needed to have him. Needed. That was the word. I poured all my need into that kiss, turned it into smoke and passed it from my lips to his and made him inhale, made him take it in until it was the only thing in his lungs.

I don't really know how we got off the dance floor, but I was glad we did. When his back hit the wall he let out a small noise into my mouth and I bit his lip in appreciation, turning that noise into a moan. I liked him here, pressed between me and something hard and unforgiving. My hands traced down his arms and found his wrists, pinning them loosely to the paneled wall.

At the sharp inhale of breath that caused, I broke our kiss. He was looking up at me with such a look, such a mix of things, but I couldn't unpack that now. I was giddy, giddy with proximity and dancing and light and music, and most of all him, and all of it crashed down on me to cause me to smile lightly and squeeze his wrists in my hand.

"Hey," I almost laughed. "What's your name?"

***

Fuck, that kiss had been. I mean.

This man could kiss.

It was nothing like the kiss he had given me before, so filled with things I barely understood and desperately needed to both not and to. This was filled with things more close to home, with need and desire and fire and god, if he wasn't going to set me ablaze with all the heat he was packing I was going to die anyway. I felt like his body was going to melt me, if his hands and words and actions didn't first.

"What's your name," he was asking, his voice too light and I was barely processing it. He had me up against a wall, my hands pinned wherever he wanted them. I could have gotten away, I guess, if I'd wanted to.

I didn't want to.

"My name's Cooper." One of my wrists was released as his hand came up to touch my face, pushing back my hair. I moaned into his touch; god, how could he make me feel like this with just the simplest of touches? His hand sunk deep into my hair and I moaned again as he tugged at it gently. "God, I fucking love you hair. Did you know that? I feel like you must know that."

How could I have? I didn't know anything. I barely knew that this man had wanted me, let alone that he had feelings about any one part of me.

Even as I enjoyed his touches, his voice, I was confused, my mind spinning through the last few moments. Something was wrong here. He must have seen me pop all those pills. He must know I was high; he always did. Why had he stopped caring?

Part of me wanted to just shut up and go with it - a large part of me, plus the part of me that was aching, hard, and pressed against the fabric of my suddenly annoyingly tight pants. Holy shit, this man turned me on. But something was wrong here, and I couldn't ignore it. Something was really -

"I think I might love you," he continued suddenly, causing me to freeze. "But also it might be too early to tell." His fingers were still dipping through my hair, shaking shivers down my spine and sending them to rest in my rapidly dropping stomach. "I definitely love your hair, though."

My mind was screaming. My body was screaming. Something was wrong, this couldn't be happening, what the shit was going on? Parts of me were singing, parts of me were running already, and I didn't know what the fuck to do. He pressed his hot, like, physically too-warm body up against me and sighed.

"Fuck, it just feels so good to touch you, you know?" His eyes were flitting everywhere, all over my body but also the wall behind me, his own hand. "Like you're fucking velvet." His eyes were on fire, they were setting me on fire, I was going to burn...

He leaned in so close to me, his fingers tracing down my neck. "That's what they say the inner walls of the ass feel like, you know." A bite that was on the right side of rough landed just below my ear, and I made some sort of noise that I couldn't control, didn't recognize. "Will you be that for me? Is that how you'll feel when I fuck you?" His lips brushed my ear. Fuck, my body was threatening to shake apart under him. "Will it be like fucking velvet?"

I shoved away from him, undone and unwilling to become nothing in front of him, to become the pile of molten, melted nerves that he was reducing me to. As he stumbled away from me I caught sight of the expression on his face, the idiotic grin mixed with just a hint of surprise and it just hit me. It hit me so fucking hard, and I don't know why I was so hurt, I don't know why it felt so shitty, but it was like every piece of my soul dropped out from my body at once.

"What the fuck," I exclaimed, pain making my voice sharp. "Are you fucking high?"

***

CH 10

***

Oh, fucking. Shit.

I stared down at the man pressed up against the wall. He'd surprised me with the pressure he'd enacted on my body; or maybe pressure itself was a surprising thing. I mean, the world was so soft. I was the hard thing, how could anything else push back? Everything was good.

Oh, my brain went again. Everything is good. That thought pinged around, and it didn't feel positive.

"You are, aren't you."

"I." I passed a hand over my face, feeling every molecule my rough palm disturbed on its path. The music, I thought. And the lights.

I looked back at the man staring at me with such accusation. And this.

I knew this. I knew this too fucking well, had been here so many times. How had I not realized earlier? How could I be such a fucking idiot?

"Fuck," I voiced aloud. I didn't really know what else to say. The room pulsed around me still, but now that I knew that it wasn't organic, I almost felt like I could control it. Less like I was in some womb, that I needed the music for my nutrients, that the lights were a vital part of my development, but shit, no, I think I still needed that, or maybe I.

Oh, shit.

"What the shit did you take?"

Fuck, I thought, trying not to laugh. What a role reversal. How fucking funny. Except, of course, that it wasn't at all. Except, of course, that this was the one thing that I never wanted to feel again. Panic was building in my chest even as my body refused to acknowledge it. It just sat there, nowhere to go, as I'm sure I grinned like an idiot and passed my hand over my face again and again.

How the shit had this happened.

Oh, I thought, remembering the drink the bartender had given me. Fuck.

"I think I've been drugged," I heard myself voice. I didn't remember giving myself permission to say that, and yet say it I had. "I think I've been drugged."

***

He didn't seem to be able to stop repeating that phrase, or stop passing his hand over his face. When he said, "I think I've been drugged," for the fourth time, I grabbed his hand and stepped close. He immediately froze, his body tensing at my proximity.

"Fuck," I heard him whisper. I saw something in his eyes, some pressure waiting to break and I hated myself for being so harsh with him. I mean, shit. The guy didn't even know. It wasn't his fault. Had he ever even been high before? I pushed away my own pain, the way my stomach sunk, and laced my fingers in his.

"You're going to be okay," I told him, not sure where my need to comfort him came from. He looked down at me, eyes searching, and I hoped to god he found what he needed in my face because I didn't know what to do, or say.

I mean, shit. This was not my area of expertise.

I guess I do have a bit of a window into the whole, high as shit, no one around to comfort you experience. How many times had I been eating my toes in the back alley of this very bar?

"I think I've been drugged," he repeated again, and I squeezed his hand, feeling a sigh come from my chest. No one deserved this. No one needed this thrust upon their nights.

Especially not him.

I felt his hand squeeze back. Then there was a rustle of clothes as his body slid closer to mine.

"Hey." I looked up, confused, and found those green eyes dripping with everything I'd been struggling with right under my skin. Desire. Lust. A month of waiting butting up against way too much chemical influence to make this feel anything but fantastic.

"Shit," I think I whispered, and I swear to god he muttered, "fuck it," before leaning down and kissing me again.

God it felt so good. God, it was so wrong, but it was the most right I had felt in years and I wasn't ready to give it up, my body wasn't going to fight it and my brain wasn't able to, not with the way he was kissing me. Somehow he got my hands up above my head, both my wrists trapped in one of his hands, and I moaned my approval and rocked my hips into his and he growled, swear on my mother's grave that was the sound that came from his throat and from anyone else it would have made me roll my eyes but from him, him, I nearly came right then.

Meanwhile, some part of my brain kept up a steady beat of wrong, wrong, wrong, in time with my heartbeat. The faster my heart went, and it was going very fast, the louder the voice got.

His hand was passing over my chest, sliding down the tight green shirt I'd chosen, feeling my skin just on the other side of the thin fabric. When he reached my midriff he dipped his fingers below the fabric, and I could feel his fingerprints on my skin, wanted them to leave indelible marks, never wanted them leave but Wrong! my body shouted, and I gasped, wrenching my skin from his fingers in a motion that slammed my back against the wall and drove my forehead into his chest.

It was too much, his hand on my skin, his breath against mine, that stupid fucking correct voice inside of my head. I panted, trying to understand which way was up, trying to bring some semblance of the control he was supposed to be back to this environment. Stop, I whispered, or thought, or existed. My hands were still captured in his, my head resting lightly on his chest, my breath pooling in the fabric of his shirt. I couldn't see for the hair falling down all around me, and I was thankful for that. I needed the shield. I was falling apart. I was falling apart, he was ripping me apart, I would fall to nothing and it was his fault and in the morning he wouldn't remember or, worse, he would hate me for letting it get that far. Or, worse still, he would hate himself.

Fuck it if he hated me. Everyone hates me. But if he thought of himself the way I did me?

I turned a sob into a cough and ripped myself away, pressing my face into the wooden panels of the wall.

"Hey." His voice was still so light - how could he stay so light? "You okay?"

I hated that question, hated that even now he was looking out for me. Hated it even more as I felt his questing hands trickle their easy way down my spine. I let them, for a moment. Hated myself for loving the way I was comforted. Pretended that he meant it as that.

But when his fingers dipped up under my hem again, skimming on the sensitive skin there, it was my turn to grab his wrists.

"Stop!" I said forcefully. I still wouldn't look at him, couldn't take in those eyes that I knew would be blown out, a reflection of all the things I was feeling. I stared instead at the hands I held pressed against his stomach. "I can't. You can't."

"Why not?"

He almost sounded hurt. My gaze was pulled to his without my permission.

At the sight of his eyes, I pulled it away just as quick.

"I want you," he whispered, and my entire body shuddered. "I need you."

I took a deep breath. "I don't think you want the same things from me as I need from you."

Without waiting to see if he had heard, I pulled him toward the booths.

I had clocked his friend when they had come into the bar, had watched him and that big bear claim one of the booths. I just hoped they were still there, and not out on the dance floor. I didn't know what would happen if I got us out in front of the speakers again, with the way our bodies were, with the way my skin was threatening to break and let out all the things I was holding back so barely, so carefully...

When I reached the booth I barely looked, I was so caught up in all the things swirling inside my gut. I needed him to touch me, and here he was, and he could, but why did he only want to do it when he was like this?

I tugged him, hard, causing him to crash past me into the booth. The friend, who had been straddling that bear guy, fuck, what were their names, who even cared anymore, who could care about anything when this was happening, he jumped about a foot and stared at us.

"Your friend," I told him, hearing all the edges in my voice and knowing how that meant I'd already shattered but fuck it. Hadn't I wanted to break myself on this man? Isn't this what I fucking deserved? "Is high as shit."

There was a moment of silence as the two men in the booth, shocked out of their whatever they'd been doing, stared down the the two men standing before them. Then the little guys face clouded over.

"What the fuck did you do."

"Me?" My voice was shrill; I was not in control. Fuck it, fuck me, fuck him. Fuck me again. "What did I do?" I lifted the hand I still held, felt the limpness of his arm and something inside of me keened. I hated that feeling, hated knowing how he must feel. "Do you think I want him like this?"

I closed my mouth and looked away as I heard my voice break. I couldn't keep breaking for him. I couldn't turn into the pile of nothing I was so close to becoming.

I dropped his hand and backed away. "Just. Take care of him."

I fled, before my mind could betray me and tell me why my entire being hurt so fucking much.

***

I felt him throw me into the booth, heard him talk around me. I don't know what he said. I didn't care.

How had this all gone so wrong?

"Coop?" Bren, Bren was there. He had a beautiful voice. "What's going on?"

"I think I've been drugged," I told him. I vaguely felt like I'd mentioned that before. To the guy, my guy. Shit, I still didn't know his name. "Do we know his name yet?"

"The guy who drugged you?"

I frowned. I knew who drugged me; I didn't care who drugged me. "No, the pretty man with the braid."

There was a moment of silence. "When's the last time you were drug tested?"

"Oh." Fuck, I thought. Fuck fuck fuck. "Like, right before my last fight?"

"When's your next fight?"

And where had he gone, the pretty man? And why hadn't he let me touch him, why had he been so upset. I scanned the bar but it was so fucking distracting, the lights, the noise. I couldn't really see anyone through all of it, let alone a specific person. "Did I do something wrong?"

"Cooper." I felt Bren take my hands and pulled my gaze back to him. "I need you to concentrate."