Ocaso's larynx gives beneath the satisfying pressure of knuckles on skin, which is all the fleeting contact Nicholas is allowed before Ocaso is able to torque both his arm and the current circumstances to his advantage.

He twists against the unrelenting momentum, the iron fingers around his arm and the vicious levering of a knee into his back and the sting of asphalt on his cheek.

"Fuck off," he snarls, jerking powerfully in the other man's grip, once, twice, in tireless repetition, skin burning against concrete as he tears and tears and tears and will continue to tear until he has torn himself apart beneath fingers and concrete and the horrible unyielding pressure, until with his free hand he can seize a switchblade and flip it open and jam it recklessly upward in the vague direction of the man whose entire weight has been yoked over him.