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“It is not the transformation into Hive that makes me feel less human, but the reactions of fear from those around me.” Eris explained, sitting at the table in the Derelict’s galley while the Drifter cleared away dishes from the quick meal he’d made for them both.
“Yeah, I get that.”
“They are so full of pity, and guilt, and concern, as if there were any other way… And there isn’t. There isn’t any other way.”
“They're afraid of losing you, Moondust.”
“And yet it is as though they no longer see me, when I'm right here. I am right here, am I not? You see me.”
“I see you.”
“It feels, sometimes, as though you are the only one who does not react as though I'm already no longer human, fully transformed into a monster.”
“Takes one to know one I guess.”
She smiled wryly at him as he sat down in front of her.
“Is this why you wear so many layers upon layers of masks? So that others will treat you as human and you therefore become humanized though their perception of you? Is that what being human actually is?”
“Hey, before you get too wound up in your own head about this, I want to show you something. How much longer you got?”
“Half an hour at most.”
“All right.” He began to unbuckle the bracers on his arms.
“What is it?”
“A magic trick,” his eyes glittered, “But it does require me taking off your gloves and quite a bit of our hands touching… if you’re ok with that.”
She gave him a small smile.
“I promise it's directly relevant to this conversation.” He finished removing the armor from his hands and arms.
His fingernails were slightly dirty, likely stained from some sort of engine grease. He held out his hands toward her across the table.
“Very well,” she placed her gloved hands in his own and then watched as he deftly undid the fastenings and pulled her hands free of the sheaths which routinely surrounded them.
His skin was warm and gentle and she was still impressed that it was not as rough as she'd initially assumed it would be. Her own hands were not exactly beautiful in comparison, and she noticed with annoyance that she did, indeed, have Moon dust in the corners of her own fingernails
He seemed to see it at the same time as she did and his playful smile lit up his eyes in that way it always did when he was right and he knew it. Irritatingly endearing.
And then his hands began to move.
At first his touches were so light they felt like warm water trickling over her skin. She felt herself relaxing, it was so soothing. Drifter's fingertips traced from Eris' elbows to her wrists in a distracting swirling pattern.
She caught her breath. His smile widened. His fingertips danced around her wrists, lingering in a way that was unexpectedly intimate before sliding along the backs of her hands and then her palms. He laced their fingers together and put his elbows on the table, nodding for her to do the same.
His touch remained soft and light as he teased the palms of their entwined hands open so they were facing the table. Their knuckles were now alternating and aligned in a row between them, like a second table between their arms. He brought their hands together so her thumbs on both hands were touching in the middle and began to guide her knuckles between his own in a fluid rippling motion, as though making a wave on their platform of fingers. It flowed from right to left and then back again.
Eris gasped as a rectangular jade coin appeared from seemingly thin air and began to flip end over end across their knuckles.
Was this an illusion? How? She felt it, warmed with body heat and now slightly cooling as it tumbled all the way to the left, paused, and then changed direction and tumbled back along their fingers to the right again. It was real, physical, there. And then he slid their fingers in a quick motion she wasn’t able to follow and the coin was gone. She looked from their hands to his eyes. The laughter in them was contagious. She felt her smile widening.
She felt his thumb move under her right palm, it felt like a caress. Was he palming the coin or distracting her? Or was it just an excuse to touch her? She couldn't tell. Her eyes returned to their hands as another coin (the same coin?) flipped over his pinky finger and began its journey tumbling across the knuckles of their combined interlaced hands again. As it left his middle finger and flipped over across hers he briefly tensed his hand gripping her own to keep her from flinching.
The rectangular coin ignited with Solar energy, illuminating both of their faces as it continued to fall end over end from one side of their hands to the other.
“Your turn,” he whispered.
Eris pressed her lips together and the coin frosted over, dousing the flame. It sparkled with tiny Stasis crystals as it tumbled. It reached the end of their bridge of knuckles and teetered, almost falling off of the Drifter's pinky, but then his finger twitched and sent it back in the other direction, igniting it again.
Eris froze the coin. He lit it up again. She froze it. Back and forth they went, their laced fingers rippled together, continuously touching and moving in sync as the coin danced.
She looked up from their hands. He was staring at her. His eyes were gentle, but shifted to amusement as she realized he was watching her and her fingers fumbled against his, sending the coin off the side of her hand. He let go and caught the jade rectangle before it hit the table.
Then he held the coin up between them, twisted his wrist and fingers deftly and opened his now-empty hand, the coin nowhere to be seen.
“How? I was touching you the entire time,” she mumbled.
“Magic,” he whispered.
“I am an expert in magic and I still don't know how you did that.”
He held his hands out to her for inspection.
Eris took his hands in hers and began feeling along his skin, pressing against his fingers, his palms, the backs of his hands, his wrists, looking for some sort of hidden pocket or device. He relaxed and licked his lips with the tip of his tongue in obvious delight. At her confusion? At her touch?
“Where is it?”
He took one of her hands in his, flipped it over, palm up, and began massaging his fingers in a circle once, twice, and then after the third he tapped the middle of her palm and the coin which was now nestled there made the faintest muted “Ding.”
She drew a sharp breath of annoyance
He grinned, his eyes sparkling again. Playful. Smug.
He leaned in close to her, taking her other hand and pulling her to the center of the table
“How?”
“Well you see,” he whispered as he made slow sensual circles with his fingertips along the insides of her wrists while staring into the glow of her three eyes through the cloth that covered them, “I'm very good with my hands.”
She tensed and smirked at the innuendo
“Oh oh, Moondust!” He laughed gently, still holding her hand, their elbows on the table. “I didn't think that'd make you blush.”
“I am not blushing!”
“Sure you're not.” He reached up and trailed his fingertips across her cheek, deftly avoiding her perpetual paracausal tears.
His fingers were cool against her cheek.
The fingers of his other hand were warm.
Her own fingertips reached up to verify how warm her cheeks had become.
He smirked but it softened into a smile right away.
His fingers lingered against her face, gentle. His hand turned ever so slightly, just barely tugging her face closer as he leaned in, pulling her towards him with her other hand until their noses were almost touching
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Asking if I can kiss ya,” he whispered back. “Say yes.”
He waited, his lips so close but not touching her.
Eris slid her hand behind the back of his neck and pulled him into a long slow kiss.
“Yes,” she whispered after their lips parted.
He opened his mouth to speak and she immediately closed the distance between them again, the second kiss far less gentle, hungry. He sucked in a breath through his nose and closed his eyes as the tip of her tongue pushed between his lips, opening his mouth to hers. They said nothing for several minutes. When their mouths separated next it was the Drifter who was blushing with a gentle laugh.
“Whoa,” he whispered
She cupped his face in both her hands
“Are you attempting to seduce me?”
“Attempting?” He laughed.
She kissed him again, leaning back slightly. He followed, leaning forward, letting her pull him partially across the table. The chair he was sitting on tilted and he had to put both hands flat on the tabletop to keep his balance.
“I think,” he said as they stopped to breathe, “that at the point in which you put your tongue in my mouth, we are well beyond attempting anything. Damn!”
“Hmmmm,” she caressed his face in her hands, her elbows still on the table. He turned his head and kissed the palm of her hand.
“So,” he asked, nuzzling her wrist as her thumbs brushed along his cheekbones, her fingertips buried in his beard.
“Do ya feel human now?”
She gave a short laugh and kissed him again, smiling into his mouth with her own.
“Yes,” she spoke into his lips and then teased his mouth again with her tongue for several minutes before releasing him to gasp for air.
“Hot damn, Moondust.”
She ran the fingertips of one hand along his ear.
“Such a wicked creature. What have you done?”
“I mean, I kissed a god just now, for one…”
“Hmmm…”
“But also, I am not a wicked creature.”
He kissed the wrist of the hand caressing his ear.
“I’m your wicked creature.”
All three of her eyes flashed.
The chair he had been sitting on fell over with a clatter as he had to stand and lean over the table when she pulled him into another intense hard kiss that left him moaning softly into her mouth.
“You keep pulling me across this table,” he said between shaky breaths, “and I’m gonna end up in your lap, and then we really will be in trouble.”
Her shoulders slumped and she released him.
“I cannot stay,” she said quietly.
“I know,” he pulled away from her and righted his chair, then sat in it and began to slide her hands back into her gloves. “But you can come back, and I can come to you, and we’ll keep stealing little bits of time to ourselves… like thieves, another skillset, I, incidentally, am quite good at.” He smiled and tightened the buckles before pulling her other hand back into her second glove.
“Now,” he took her second, now-gloved hand in both of his, holding it palm up and rubbing circles into her palm again. “Next time you feel less than human,” he tapped against her palm through the glove.
She felt his fingertips hit the coin which had appeared inside, somehow now pressed flat against her palm. It made no sound, but it was there, in her glove, next to her skin. It was not there a moment before when he’d been massaging her hand. She knew it.
His eyes glittered.
“Gotcha.”
“How?”
“I guess you’ll just have to come back to your wicked creature to find out, now won’t you? I musta hidden it somewhere, right?” He spread his hands out into the air and leaned back with an impish grin. “You’ll just have to… I dunno… search me.”
She looked away from him and bit her lip.
“Now, you need to get up and walk your own self out my door, while I keep my ass in this chair on the other side of this table, because we both know if I get up and go with you to see you out, we are probably going to tear each other’s clothes off. And you can’t stay tonight.”
“I cannot.”
“I know. So I’m going to sit here and behave myself, which you know damn well is very difficult for me to do in any context.”
She laughed.
“And you’re going to walk out that door and go be a Hive god. And you’re going to keep that coin, and remember just how human you’re feeling right now. And… probably call me within the hour if I don’t call you first… Because let's be honest we both can't get enough of each other right now and we know it.”
She took a deep breath and stood.
He nodded at her, smiling. “You got this, Moondust. Go kick ass.”
She nodded back, then turned and walked away, her hand forming a fist around the coin, holding it close.