promptfic: s/d, teeth

[sword_logic]

cw: blood, minor injury

"You Hunters are all alike," Drifter says, as Shin walks up to the massive skull in the corner, his leer matching that bare grinning maw. "Always drawn to the sharpest thing in the room."

Shin lets out a snort. This junkyard mausoleum of a ship is full of things, sharp and otherwise, and Drifter's been trailing him like a shadow as he paces through each winding, kitbashed room and takes in all the scraps of irrefutable proof of all the tales he'd been spinning. Shin hadn’t had much reason to doubt him, but there’s something different about being able to touch an object so grotesquely exotic it cannot be anything other than fact.

The skull stares down at him, and Shin stares back. Whatever this creature is – had been – it doesn't resemble anything he's ever seen. The skull is sharp and sleek, bone thick and fluted for many eyes. Or other things. Teeth like knives, slim and sharp. Whatever it is in death, whatever it was in life, Shin feels no concern, no press of itching darkness. Much like the man he knew under a different name, this Dark-age drifter has no real interest in whispers or bones that hold too much promise.

Shin brushes a fingertip along the edge of one sleek fang, edged so fine it’s nearly translucent. His glove splits cleanly, immediately, the pad of his finger cleft nearly to bone. The pain doesn't hit for a full few seconds, and even then it's dull, clean, accepted, and the pulse that pounds in his palm is matched in counterpoint by Drifter's soft footsteps closing behind him.

"Predictable bastard,” Drifter purrs from over Shin's shoulder, breath stirring his cloak, voice mocking. “Go on. Prove me right again.”

Drifter's not wrong about sharp things, but he is wrong. This knife-jawed skull is not the sharpest thing in the room.

When Drifter reaches around to grab his wrist, Shin lets him. Bright blood rolls down Shin's palm, beading over Drifter's dark gloves, drawing a thick, shining line over his thumb as it curves, inevitable, towards each dip of pressure made by his fingertips. His presence at Shin’s back isn’t heat or cold or anything like it, just a vacuum of negative space, and his body wants to fill it.

Drifter brushes the edge of his hood back like he's brushing hair off Shin's shoulder, with a light and fleeting touch that's countered immediately by cool, gloved fingers sliding under his collar. Shin tips his head back and Drifter takes the invitation for what it is.

Funny, though, he thinks as Drifter's insincere smile presses against his neck, as Drifter's grip shifts in sluggish congealing blood, as he contends with another set of teeth against his skin. Sharp things get drawn to him too.