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“You’re staring.”
“Am I?”
Ten glares at Fourteen, who only offers a sharp-toothed grin. “Whaaat? Am I not allowed to admire you anymore?”
“Feels like you’re admiring my skin more,” Ten mutters under his breath. He’s starting to think he’s as insane as Fourteen; after all, what kind of sane algebralien would let a notorious cannibal stay in their house and lie on their bed?
Ten, apparently.
He didn’t even invite Fourteen inside, nor would he willingly seek them out to begin with. The other number broke in—again—and Ten, for some reason, didn’t kick them out. Well, he tried, but his resolve wavered concerningly quickly when Fourteen promised several times not to eat his skin again.
“Why couldn’t you just, I dunno’, knock? Like a normal person?” Ten is sitting on the edge of his bed, creating as much distance as he can from Fourteen. It’s silly how one algebralien can make him feel so unsafe in his own home.
“And let you know it was me?” Fourteen scoffs and sits up, leaning forward on their knees. “Would you have let me in?”
Ten’s answer comes easily. “No.”
“Exactly! Besides, your door was unlocked.”
“And you saw that as a sign to invite yourself inside?”
“What else could it be implying?” Fourteen asks with a tilt of his head. “Your own forgetfulness? Do you not remember what happened last time?”
Ten shudders and looks away from the other algebralien. “Ugh, don’t remind me.”
Of course they remember. It’s pretty hard to block out the very vivid memory of their skin being torn off. Their own screams still echo in their mind, not to mention the equally as vivid nightmares.
Fourteen, evidently, doesn’t share Ten’s discomfort over the whole ordeal. “Aw, why? Did you not enjoy it as much as I did?”
“No!” Ten exclaims, throwing their hands up. “You ate my skin, Fourteen. What enjoyment could I possibly get out of that? You wouldn’t feel the same if it happened to you.”
Fourteen shifts closer. Ten leans away, but the other number’s breath ghosts over his face. “Would you wanna’ try?”
Ten blinks.
Try? Try what?
It takes a moment to process Fourteen’s question, but once Ten grasps what they’re asking, he’s quick to push them away. “I- no? No! That’s gross! I couldn’t even imagine…”
His voice trails off. He could imagine doing that. Very easily, in fact. His thoughts derail faster than he can reign them in, and he can’t help but wonder.
What would Fourteen taste like?
Ten wants to berate himself for even pondering such a question, but curiousity overtakes his moral compass in that moment. What would Fourteen taste like? His eyes rake over the algebralien, who doesn’t seem fazed by Ten’s shove. If anything, they look amused. Like they know exactly what Ten is thinking.
Sweet is the first descriptor that Ten thinks of. Fourteen themself isn’t sweet—Math, they’re far from it—but their skin looks like it’d taste like that, or something close to it. Ten doesn’t know why; maybe it’s one of those…unexpected tastes? He could’ve went with the obvious answer, that Fourteen wouldn’t taste good, and he could have left it at that, but no, apparently his mind thinks that tonight is the perfect time to have freaky thoughts and delve into those thoughts while his morbid curiosity lasts.
Fourteen’s head tilts again. Their smile is enough to pull Ten out of his own head and raise his guard again. “Looks like you’re imagining it right now.”
“I was not,” Ten responds with a bit of a petulant huff. “I was actually thinking about how great it’d be if you left. You can bother, uh…Fifteen.”
Fourteen is quick to shake his head, tongue sticking out in distaste. “After she set me on fire? She’d probably do worse than that if I show up again!”
Ten blinks. “…She set you on fire?”
“Yeah, while I was divided!” Fourteen crosses his arms. “It hurt.”
Was fire not supposed to hurt? Ten thinks, lips curling in the barest hint of an amused smile. Fourteen takes notice and glares at him, prompting Ten to cover his mouth with one hand. “What?”
“It’s not funny.”
“It is kind of funny.”
“If you laugh, I might just have to eat your skin again!”
That gets Ten to force his expression into something more neutral, his hand dropping onto the bed. But the threat gets him thinking again.
“Why haven’t you?”
It’s Fourteen’s turn to blink in confusion. “Why haven’t I what?”
“Y’know.” Ten gestures vaguely. Fourteen only looks more lost. “Eaten my skin yet. Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Oh. No.”
The reply is so simple that Ten looks surprised. “…No?”
“No,” Fourteen repeats with a casual shrug that…honestly, doesn’t look as dismissive as Fourteen wants it to be. “What if I just wanted to see you?”
The notion is enough to make Ten scoff. “Right, because a cannibal visiting one of their victims and only wanting to, what? Hang out? Isn’t suspicious at all.”
“Why haven’t you told me to leave then?”
“I have! Multiple times!”
“But you stopped.”
“Because you promised that…oh.”
Ten frowns, their cheeks darkening. They loosely cross their arms. “Well, it’s kind of hard to believe that you wouldn’t try anything. You’re, like, a skin-eating connoisseur.”
“Well, that’s not all that I do.”
“Well, that’s hard to believe.”
Fourteen rolls his eyes and presses his back against the headboard, pulling his knees up to his chest. “I wasn’t staring earlier because I was thinking about eating you. But you were.”
Ten hesitates before pushing his lingering fear aside and moving to sit beside Fourteen. “…I was,” he quietly agrees, despite his earlier denial. “But either way, I wouldn’t actually do it.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“No. Not even in a life or death situation.”
Fourteen looks at him again, their gaze piercing. “Not even with that Thing? Not even if we were stuck in that cage forever?”
Ten finds himself hesitating again. He bites his lower lip and can only muster a one-shouldered shrug as a response.
Silence settles over them, the air thick with unspoken words that neither algebralien can muster up the courage to say. Fourteen has gone back to staring at Ten again, but he finds that he doesn’t mind the quiet observance as much as he initially did. That, he supposes, is another silly thing. He always thought of Fourteen as this one-dimensional being; they always know exactly what they want—that being skin—and, maybe it was a bit insensitive on Ten’s side, but he assumed that that’s all Fourteen ever thought of. Could ever think of, really.
Ten pulls at a loose thread from the blankets and replays all of the night’s events in their mind. Fourteen, for all of his sharp claws and even sharper teeth and overall demeanor, never actually verbalized his desire to consume Ten’s skin again. He wasn’t even thinking of it, he said so himself, while Ten briefly grappled with frankly uncharacteristic thoughts of wondering what Fourteen would taste like. Those were thoughts that would best belong in Fourteen’s head about the other algebraliens, about him, along with whatever else he thought about, and whatever he’s thinking about right now as his eyes flick over Ten’s body.
In the end, Ten is the one to break the silence. “For, uh. For what it’s worth..I think you’d taste sweet. Maybe with a bit of an aftertaste, too?” They don’t look at Fourteen as they speak; their head is a current whirlwind of calling themself stupid for even speaking again in varying degrees of intensity.
A sudden against his side makes him flinch enough to jostle Fourteen’s body. He slowly looks up and stares. Fourteen stares back.
“That’s more than anything anyone’s said about me,” Fourteen whispers, and his voice is so soft, almost vulnerable, that it takes Ten for a loop.
He doesn’t push Fourteen away. Doesn’t think he could. Fourteen relaxes against him, just slightly, but enough for Ten to feel his muscles unclench. Has he been tense this entire time?
“Well, I’m glad I could be the..the first?” Ten stammers, offering an awkward smile. “To, uhm, compliment you. I guess?” Could that even be considered a compliment? Maybe for Fourteen, it’s the closest thing. “A-Anyways, you said you did more than just eating skin? Like what?”
Fourteen grins, and, more than his other smiles, it looks genuine. “I like pranking the others! Maybe I can show you?”
“Maaaybe in the morning? I’m getting kind of tired, anyways.” Fourteen huffs but doesn’t argue, mumbling something about Ten being no fun. Ten playfully rolls his eyes, subconsciously wrapping an arm around Fourteen. “Sorry that I don’t feel like running around in the middle of the night.”
“C’mon, you get used to it after a while!” Despite their words, Fourteen their his eyes and lets Ten pull them closer.
Ten smiles warmly. “Good night, Fourteen.”
“‘Night, Tenny.”
Tenny. That nickname previously made Ten shudder—it came from Fourteen, of all algebraliens. But now? Now, it makes his chest flutter. He closes his eyes as well, Fourteen whispering something against his skin that goes unheard as sleep claims Ten.