[kiss prompt] shindrift - lips

[tanyart]

There isn’t much courtesy Drifter was willing to offer when it came to dealing with Shin Malphur. So when he rings up the ol’ renegade, he opens the comms with vitriol in his voice and a mean leer that would’ve made it easy for Shin to picture.

“Hey, hotshot. You on your ship?”

Shin already sounds irritated. “Yeah. I’m busy.”

With a curt answer like that, it actually sounds like the truth. Shin only ever admits to being in his ship if he’s not harassing Drifter or scheming on his own. Drifter takes one more look at his own familiar surroundings — the Derelict’s perpetual gloom, the icy vines and crystalized flowers, the mess of datapads across his worktable. The aquarium. The portal down to Reckoning.

“Transmat me there,” he says, rubbing his temples.

“I’m busy,” Shin repeats, but now he’s wary. The transmat request comes anyway.

A couple of seconds later, Drifter’s on Shin’s ship. The air is warmer, the walls closer and the space small. Drifter’s skin itches.

“Would’ve figured you had lots to do instead,” Shin says from the cockpit. He turns, just slightly, but Drifter can see multiple projections across the ship’s interface. One of the screens shows what he already knows — a map of the solar system, and the black triangular ships that surround it.

“Yeah?” he says, taking a step closer, acutely aware of Shin’s space. There’s a knife hanging above the controls, a pistol strapped discreetly beneath the console, a locked glove compartment beside Shin’s knee. He’d imagine Shin’s ship would’ve smell like ash and smoke. It doesn’t. “Hah! Is that what you think?”

Shin’s gaze slide towards the projection, the reflection of the black ships in his eyes. So the Man with the Man with the Golden Gun’s got some concerns about the real Darkness. Not just the poor schmucks that decide to play with some diluted version of it. Color Drifter surprised.

“What do you want?” Shin asks, looking back at him.

Funny question. Like Shin thinks Drifter will need his help with this whole upcoming cataclysm, this doomsday to come. But here’s the thing, the plain truth of it — Drifter’s already spent the last couple of centuries doing everything to prepare for the armageddon, and then some. He’s gotten the visions and the nightmares long before he’s ever heard of the Man with the Golden Gun. With everything set in motion, there is very little left that Drifter needs to plan — Gambit and the Reckoning and everything else. Done.

Now he’s sitting on a stockpile of Darkness and Taken, dragging a giant ball of ice behind him like a chained weight. The whispers have gone quiet. The Emissary never shows up anymore, and Drifter almost wishes they would, but the Nine have long left the system, taking their cryptic mysteries and meddling visions with them.

Drifter reaches over, pass Shin’s shoulder, and swipes the projection off. If he’s being honest, there this morbid gratification about the whole thing — that it’s finally here, but it’s mixed with the maddening frustration that for all of his plans, the only thing he can do for now is wait.

And he’s been waiting for so goddamned long already. The visions are gone, brought to life at last. He stews in his own anticipation, and pretty soon he knows it’s going to boilover.

“Distract me,” Drifter says, bracing one knee against the edge of Shin’s seat as he forcible turns the pilot’s chair. He leans over him, and Shin looks unbelievably disarming like this, no armor or cloak, just dressed in sweats and shirt that shows the shallow curve of his collarbones. (Though, there’s still the knife at the side, the hidden pistol, the glove compartment. The air doesn’t smell of smoke, but it’s metallic and recycled and stuffy enough to make the back of Drifter’s neck prickle with cold sweat.)

Shin’s hands are loose over the armrests, and his eyes are staring into Drifter like he’s trying to see some other angle.

“What’s the matter?” Drifter continues, tipping forward. It feels like he’s about to take a very long and endless fall. “You’re always doin’ it on my ship.”

He hates to admit it, but it feels better to surround himself with the familiar uneasiness that he has with Shin Malphur. He can untangle this type of simmering fear and suspicion, shaping it into how he wants — by leaning in until he can feel the heat of Shin’s skin, the way Shin looks up at him, and the burn in his gut when Shin finally puts a hand at his waist.

“I distract you?” Shin asks, with the barest hitch at the corner of his mouth. He shifts his legs, inviting.

“All the fuckin’ time,” Drifter allows, settling over Shin’s lap. Whatever strokes Shin’s ego and gets him moving. He lowers his head, and he can tell he’s close to getting what he wants when Shin’s gaze goes dark.

When Shin kisses him, it’s only a brief touch, his closed mouth pressing once against Drifter’s. Drifter almost reels — forwards or back, he can’t say, and he can’t move anyway because Shin’s hand has him by the jaw, though it’s only his fingers at first, just touching.

Drifter suddenly regrets leaving the Derelict. Shin’s ship is too enclosed; it’s small and claustrophobic, and he doesn’t know what’s beyond the cockpit or what’s in that damned glove compartment his paranoia has fixated on since the moment he’s stepped onboard. Shin’s brow is furrowed, and his worried expression gnaws like an infestation in the back of Drifter’s head.

“Shin,” Drifter says, and he knows exactly why it sounds like a warning in his mind but a plea to his ears. Shin’s palm is warm against his cheek and Drifter feels disingenuous for sinking into it like he’s been starved for something he’s never claimed to want.

“If it’s just a distraction you want,” Shin challenges, because he always has to be like this.

Drifter shuts his eyes. He can’t find it in him to say anything. Instead he leans in close for another kiss, hand circling around Shin’s wrist to keep it still, and lets Shin meet him halfway. This is a cataclysm that he’s made all on his own, with no visions or cosmic entities to warn him about what’s going to happen.

“Not a distraction,” Drifter eventually says, and his admission wrings out a grudging, bitter smile as Shin pulls him down. “Just speeding things along.”