"I'm not her, you know."
Nyssa expects the words - is surprised, in fact, that it's taken this long for her to hear them. Shifting, Nyssa moves to lie on her side, leaning on her elbow, considering the naked woman who is staring resolutely back at her.
And it's not that this woman isn't every inch as beautiful as her Laurel was - because she is. This Laurel, no, Dinah, she likes to be called, is practically the mirror image of the woman Nyssa had considered (but never had got the chance to say was) her soulmate. But when Nyssa looks closer, she sees this woman's scars are different. When she gazes into the cold, hardened eyes of this familiar-looking stranger, she realises that Dinah isn't just Laurel's reflection. Dinah is Laurel's chiral, her flipped image - seemingly identical, and yet incapable of being superimposed onto anyone or anything else.
Sighing, Nyssa says, "I know." She reaches out, wanting to tuck Dinah's blonde hair behind her ear, but Dinah flinches instinctively, the way Nyssa used to when she was starved of touch. But then Dinah lets out a slow breath, murmuring her assent, and Nyssa extends her hand to Dinah's cheek, fingertips brushing against skin that is surprisingly soft. And she's not sure why, especially because Nyssa can still taste Dinah's sweetness on her tongue, but for the first time Nyssa feels on the edge of intimacy with the woman she is in bed with.
"So why are you looking at me like that?" Dinah says, and her voice is quiet, but try as she might, she doesn't succeed in sounding completely unfeeling.
"Like what?" Nyssa asks.
Dinah looks away bitterly. "Like I fucking hung the moon in the sky myself. Or whatever shit you used to tell her after you fucked her."
And Nyssa can't help but shake her head, because even with her coarseness, which only serves to make Dinah scowl more, she is still this ethereal beauty that Nyssa can't take her eyes off if she tried. After a moment, she doesn't know why, exactly, but she leans in for a kiss. Dinah's not expecting it, that much is clear, but it doesn't take much for her to kiss Nyssa back. When they come up for air and Dinah raises her eyebrows, Nyssa says, "I used to call her… taer jameelah. Which roughly translates to - pretty bird."
When Dinah automatically smiles, Nyssa's certain she didn't mean to, and sure enough, it takes a second but Dinah quickly tears her gaze away from Nyssa's.
It's too late, though - Dinah's humanity is showing, and they both know it.
"Whatever," Dinah says eventually. "That's not me."
"No, it's not," Nyssa agrees. "But that doesn't mean I don't see parts of her in you."
At this, Dinah smirks, tilting her head to one side as she reaches down, two of her fingers treading a slow path down the side of Nyssa's hip. "So, what, you made her scream too? Big deal."
But Nyssa is not deterred - she doesn't even skip a beat. Her hand covers Dinah's and it stills on her waist. "I actually meant… who she was as a person."
And instantly Dinah snatches her hand away. "Yeah, yeah," Dinah says, "I've heard it all before - I can change, redeem myself, even be this perfect guardian angel for Star City who never did anything wrong in her life."
"That's not true," Nyssa says softly.
And then Dinah seems to have had enough - Nyssa watches as she extricates herself from the comforter, moving to sit up in the bed, and looks on the floor for her clothes.
"I knew this was a mistake," Dinah mutters. "Here I was, thinking you were different, somehow - from the team, who all clearly hate me, except for my father, who thinks I can be better, and Ollie, who's convinced I'm his second chance -"
"- a chance he has never earned," Nyssa adds.
"A-fucking-men."
"Laurel -"
"Dinah," she corrects, not even turning her head as she pulls on her panties.
"Dinah… firstly, you must know that I don't think it possible for me to even dislike you, let alone despise you."
"Because I'm Dinah Laurel Lance, always trying to save the world, right?" Dinah says bitterly, finding her bra, and she puts it on, reaching behind her, but her hands are shaking and her trembling fingers don't quite manage to do up the clasps.
"Let me?" Nyssa asks softly. Dinah huffs a sigh of frustration, but then her hands drop to her side and she nods. As Nyssa clasps her bra into place, she can feel the tension in Dinah's body, like Dinah is holding her breath, and when she looks closer she can see the half-healed purple bruises that decorate the small of her back. She doesn't ask about them, though. Instead, while her fingers trace faint circles around bumps and broken skin, Nyssa continues, "And secondly… I never said my Laurel was perfect. She wasn't. She got angry, blamed people, made ill-advised decisions that fractured her family almost beyond repair."
There's silence. Dinah stills. Nyssa's hand goes up to sweep Dinah's hair over one shoulder. Then: "Really?"
"Really," Nyssa says. Silence again. It's only broken by the tiny sound of Dinah's teeth chattering, and Nyssa immediately reaches for a blanket without a word, draping it over Dinah's shoulders. Nyssa doesn't really expect a thank you, and she doesn't get one. Then Nyssa gets under the covers herself, feeling a slight chill in the air.
"How come you loved her anyway, then?" Dinah blurts out, seemingly without thinking. Nyssa gives her a second, in case she wants to take the question back. But Dinah doesn't. In fact after a moment she turns around and finally meets Nyssa's eyes, regarding her expectantly.
"Because she loved me anyway," Nyssa replies simply. "More than that… she showed me not only that I could be happy, but that I deserved to be."
"Even after everything you'd done?"
"Yes. Even when she knew I was inadvertently responsible for her sister's death, and after kidnapping her mother and ordering my men to poison her."
"Then she was soft," Dinah says. "She was soft and naive and stupid, and that's what got her -"
"Perhaps," Nyssa interrupts. "But that very same softness, naivete, vulnerability, whatever you want to call it, was also what enabled me, as daughter of the Demon himself, to be led to the road of forgiveness. She saw the good in me years even when I insisted there was none. And if there is hope for me, then of course there is hope for you, Dinah. And maybe if you stopped viewing your counterpart on this earth as someone to compete with, you might be able to see that in yourself."
Dinah sighs. "Kinda hard when everyone and their mother is telling me how great she was."
Nyssa sighs, nodding in regret. "In truth, that is more because we failed to praise her enough in life, and we only realised how much she meant to us once we lost her."
And Nyssa barely even realises it when a solitary tear trickles down her cheek. Suddenly it's all too much, having this strange woman in her bed in this semi-decent hotel room who simultaneously looks exactly and nothing like Nyssa's soulmate. She looks away quickly, turning on her side so her back is to Dinah. Quiet falls on them again, just as Nyssa expects.
What Nyssa doesn't expect, though, is the faint groan of the mattress and the rustling of the blanket as Dinah slips into the bed behind Nyssa. They're not touching, not quite, but when Dinah speaks Nyssa can feel the kiss of her breath against her naked back.
"I'm sorry for your loss," Dinah whispers after a moment.
"As am I," says Nyssa with a sigh.
"Tell me something, Nyssa - does all this… us sleeping together, has it made it easier or harder to look me in the face?"
"Both," Nyssa answers. "For once, it's both."
"I'm sorry," Dinah says softly.
"I did not think it was in your nature to apologise for the same thing twice."
"No, I mean - I'm sorry if being with me has caused you pain."
Moving so her back is no longer to Dinah, Nyssa sits up a little, fingers splaying across the comforter where it's covering her knees.
"It is more an ache," Nyssa admits. "And it comes and goes."
Unexpectedly Dinah's warm hand covers Nyssa's, their fingers lacing together like vines.
"Can I do anything?" Dinah breathes, sitting up. She's quick to add, "I mean, I'm not gonna change, or anything. And I'm not gonna be her."
"In fairness, I did not ask you to do either of those things."
When Dinah meets Nyssa's eyes, Nyssa's expects to see that razor-sharp glint of anger in her lover's irises. She wants to see it, wants to drown in all that terrible beauty and darkness. Instead, though, her eyes are glittering with clearly unwanted emotion - except this time she doesn't try to hide it as she lets the blanket fall off, revealing her lacy black bra. Nyssa feels the goosebumps erupting on the back of her neck and her arms, and she shivers involuntarily.
"I know you didn't," Dinah says quietly. "But I still want to…"
"You want to what?"
Dinah's mouth opens and closes, but she doesn't quite manage to get the words out, so she leans forward, kisses Nyssa instead, letting out a tiny sigh as her hand goes up to the back of Nyssa's neck. Pushing the comforter and blanket out of the way, Nyssa pulls Dinah on top of her, and it's more than a little unceremonious, especially when their noses bump and Dinah's teeth scrape at Nyssa's lower lip, but Nyssa's past caring - all that matters is the hum of Dinah's moan against her mouth, the warm weight of her on Nyssa's lap, the palm that starts off on Nyssa's abdomen and moves up to the stiffened nub of her nipple.
"Dinah," Nyssa says, her forehead against Dinah's, and she can feel the burning heat of arousal building up between her legs.
"Yeah?" Dinah murmurs.
"Tell me what you want." Nyssa's aching for her, but goddamn it, she wants to get Dinah every bit as hot and wet and bothered as she is.
At this point Dinah's cradling Nyssa's breast, her thumb moving in a circle before settling on her nipple. When Nyssa speaks, Dinah halts in her motions. "Earlier, everything happened so fast… I didn't get to - taste you properly. And I want to. I want to fuck you with my mouth. I want to make you come as hard as you made me. But -"
"But what?"
"Do you - do you really want me to?" she asks uncertainly. "Because I may look like her, but I'm not -"
"I know who you are," Nyssa interrupts. "And I have known from the beginning. And I accept you for who you are, not who I wish you were." She reaches down and finds Dinah's hand, guiding it between her legs. And there's something so softly beautiful about Dinah's resultant groan when her fingertips glide into Nyssa's entrance and become wet that it's impossible for Nyssa not to kiss her.
All too soon Dinah's pulling away, and Nyssa watches as she ducks her head. Nyssa parts her thighs, and Dinah wastes no time, easily bearing the weight of Nyssa's legs over her shoulders as she plants a kiss at her entrance. And Nyssa expects Dinah to go hard and fast, just like Nyssa had with her earlier, but Dinah seems to be savouring this moment, and when Nyssa finally feels the slight roughness of Dinah's tongue on her walls she practically falls apart right there.
The pleasure is so sharp and tortuous and visceral that it almost hurts. For a second Dinah slows somewhat, and Nyssa reaches down, stroking Dinah's jaw, assuring her that it's okay, she's usually this quiet, and her Laurel wondered the same thing their first time.
So Dinah goes back to what she was doing with her tongue, and Nyssa can feel her clit throbbing for her every time Dinah's tongue flicks against it, as she laps up her slick wet heat with such thirst that it only serves to turn Nyssa on even more, tipping her over the edge into her climax. This much Nyssa can feel, in the white-hot rush of liquid warmth that drips into Dinah's mouth and onto her lips and chin.
Nyssa closes her eyes, for her head is spinning, and for a minute she's so dazed by the sudden force of her orgasm that she finds it hard to string a sentence together. When she does open her eyes, Nyssa sees Dinah's mouth is still shiny, her cheeks pink, eyes alight with desire and something else that Nyssa can't quite place. And in that moment she doesn't just look like Laurel - she is Laurel, Nyssa's Laurel, her taer jameelah.
The words are out of Nyssa's mouth barely before she realises. "I love you," she says softly, reverently, and it hits her, that she's doing the very thing Dinah feared. An apology is already being formed in Nyssa's mind, but to her surprise, Dinah seems to understand, nodding slightly, and while the fire in her eyes dulls a bit, it doesn't disappear altogether.
Nyssa says sorry anyway, without speaking the words aloud - she mouths apologies into the crook of Dinah's neck and the inside of her thigh and on a spot just above her breastbone, where her heart is. And when Nyssa buries her face into the crux of Dinah's thighs, feeling the heels of Dinah's feet dig into her back and small hands fisting through Nyssa's hair, she has a feeling it's Dinah's way of saying apology accepted.