Chapter Text
When Mirage has finished spitting filth from his mouth, he slumps back, encouraged by Drifter's arm around him. He's limp, too weak to tense up, let alone resist. Drifter likes him like this. It’s a nice contrast to his usual strength. Makes him tangible. Unbearably touchable.
Oppressive as much as protective, Drifter settles hard up against him. It can’t be comfortable for Mirage, who is almost completely enveloped where he sits between Drifter’s legs. Comfort is already so far out of reach for him right now that it doesn't seem to matter.
Mirage drags a gloved hand over his mouth and beard, using the expensive material to clear his face of grime. It ruins the previously pristine, hand-crafted accessory, but serves its purpose, cleaning most of the mess. He lets his hand drop, but Drifter catches his arm under the tricep. It’s a loose grip, lifting Mirage’s limb with one massive palm rather than a proper hold. And yet, Mirage obeys the unsaid instruction, keeping his arm extended out.
Drifter slides his hand down, under Mirage’s elbow, along his forearm, to circle loosely around his wrist. He drags his fingers back up slowly, trailing over Mirage’s glove until they catch on the golden trim of his coat sleeve. A pause, both of them watching, waiting for the other, before he continues. Working quicker, rougher now, Drifter rucks the sleeve up to the elbow, baring Mirage’s arm to the tepid night air.
He runs the claw of his index finger over Mirage’s wrist, petting over taut tendons, veins, and thick median nerve. Tracing the line of them until he touches the edge of Mirage’s ruined glove, he pushes two fingers inside, letting out an appreciative purr the moment skin slides against skin. Now that his index and middle fingers are flush against Mirage’s heated flesh, he can feel the thrumming pulse. He’s hyperaware of the wicked, wet beat of it.
Despite the mess, the moment his fingers drag over the soft, sweat-damp of Mirage's palm, they both sigh. From Drifter, it's a sound of pleasure. From Mirage, it's surrender. He doesn't fight back anymore, and Drifter makes more room for himself, forcing his fingers in harder, more demanding. He starts working the glove free, pushing it off of Mirage’s hand and letting it drop to the ground.
It's just his hand, but Drifter is transfixed now that he’s made it bare. He studies its angles, the short scar over the thumb, and the imperfections of the skin. How the knuckles work when Drifter laces their fingers together. The exact size difference between them. Mirage is not a delicate man, but his hand looks like a doll’s under Drifter’s stained, sigiled paw. It would be so easy to take one of his fingers. Just one. Drifter could ask for it. He knows, he knows Mirage would give it up for this deal, as long as it didn't hinder his ability to fight.
Oh, but then, what Drifter wouldn't give to take his trigger finger.
Drifter notches his teeth against Mirage's neck, just below his ear, applying only enough pressure to let them rest there without breaking the skin. As if he’d be allowed to go that far anyway. Mirage doesn't pull away, but he doesn’t bare his neck and make himself more vulnerable, either.
"My blood?" Mirage asks hoarsely, words as sour as his breath. "Take it. Hurry. You must hurry. If she is, is hurt, if she is lost, any deal is, ah…" He struggles for a moment, breathlessly trying to piece the sentence together. "It's worth nothing. Forfeit."
Drifter considers the offer, but his tongue curls at the very memory of the burning blood, inadvertently licking over Mirage's neck. It feels good, especially when Mirage's shoulder jumps in a reluctant flinch, but Drifter has no desire to taste more than skin. He won't reveal the effect Mirage's blood has on him, no. Not yet. He'll keep that to himself.
He releases his teeth, but keeps his lips pressed to the wet mess he's made over Mirage's throat. "Close. So close, but, mmn, try again."
"This is not time for your games." Finally Mirage sounds desperate. Strained. "We can agree on a deal later, if you are just going to—"
"And I'll say it again, just fo' you: you don't got much of a choice." Drifter's teeth graze, a threat without promise. "You got everythin' to lose, an' what do I have to gain?"
"… Protection. The Djinn—"
But Drifter cuts him off again. "Ha! No, no, come on, now. You were closer before. Y'already know I want you."
"I've noticed your fixation, yes. Your violence." Mirage's resentment is washed out by his resignation. "I cannot give you that. My life, I am— It's promised to Nashala. I suppose, during the ritual, if it doesn't affect our chances of winning… I could allow, I can, hm, I could let you. One time."
Only now does Drifter realise how much Mirage has missed, ignorant of the undertow that drags them towards a different depth. He's offering his body to Drifter, but in death. It's not entirely inaccurate to Drifter's wants, and the fumbled offer does light the fuse of his attention. It's persuasive because, well, of course Drifter has thought about killing him. He has fantasised about a reality where they were on opposite sides in the ritual. Planned and pictured it in exacting detail, so vivid it could be memory:
Mirage, running and dying and being put back together so they can do it all over again.
Eventually, after marking Mirage and hunting him down through the streets, Drifter would find his way in. Find the right time, the right place. Disorientate, displace. Get rid of the Djinn. Drag Mirage away into one of the hidden, veiled rooms. Split him open on his cock, fucking him full, and then draining him. Nice and slow the first time. Drawing it out. Making his body enjoy it, making him cum, just so it haunts him. Just so it can infect beyond what resurrection can cure, and leave a proper scar. Then he'd chase Mirage down again, and again, and again and again and—
Drifter thinks about this, and he thinks about wishes.
Beneath him, Mirage grunts, his head dropping forward. He's shaking, trying not to fall forward into his own sick. Drifter's been pressing down harder without realising, too lost in thought, slumped forward and grinding against his back.
Oops. This open secret's out, then. If Mirage didn't know before, he sure has to feel it now. Drifter doesn’t stop. He shifts, slowing down, and gives a more purposeful grind, waiting for the moment Mirage puts it all together.
Except, Mirage doesn't panic.
He doesn't panic or shut down, doesn't fluster. He just takes it, shifting to accommodate, unsurprised. Surely he can't still, now, be ignorant to Drifter's intentions?
Just as Mirage crumples forward, unable to hold himself up under the extra weight, Drifter drags him back. He hauls him up with the arm still hooked around his middle. It makes Mirage gag, struggling weakly, injured organs and weakened stomach no doubt suffering from the hold. Drifter isn't bothered by the miserable noises and poor escape attempts, getting to his feet and carrying Mirage further into the alleyway.
A bare hand glances against his jaw, hot and alive. If Mirage is dying, he's going down fighting and feverish.
Drifter can't help himself. He snaps his jaw around the side of Mirage's hand, teeth digging in but prevented from piercing. It was meant to be a warning nip, but he keeps his hold once he has it, rumbling a pleased sound around his catch. He can feel the threads of his lucidity pulling taut, that other part of him growing more desperate to front, to be permitted touch, to take. When Mirage tries to tug himself free, Drifter punishes him by tonguing at his hand.
Mirage rasps something urgent and soft, but Drifter doesn't manage to catch the meaning.
Once they're at the back of the dead-end alleyway, he sets Mirage down on his feet and unlocks his jaw, letting the hand and the man drop. Mirage buckles immediately, even with his back pressed against the wall, so Drifter pins him upright with the line of his body.
The rough treatment jostles Mirage enough to make him groan, but he still looks up with a miserable, defiant glare. He has to tilt his head all the way back to look up at Drifter, and the shift loosens the tie in his hair. Grey-streaked brown hair falls in a mess, shorter than Drifter had thought it would be. Still long enough he could bury his hand and hold an easy fistful, though.
It takes a dozen aching seconds for Mirage to collect himself. Does he still have the capability for strategy? Is he still a soldier?
Would he like it rough?
"Do it quick, then," Mirage says, resigned like he thinks he's giving in. No more moves to make. No denial left to give. He sees this as Drifter's counteroffer, a demand for here and now. Submitting himself to death. Doesn't he know it's impossible?
Fuck, he doesn't know. He's supposed to be clever, but he doesn't know, and he is afraid. That is fear that Drifter can smell from him, isn’t it? Fear of death, of pain? It has to be. What else is there to be scared of right now? For Nashala, maybe, but this position has made the fear worse. So contradicting, because despite that, he gives in now like it's easy. As though he hasn't fought against Drifter at every step of the way. How much contradiction can one man fit inside himself before it tears him apart? Drifter knows now that Mirage is the kind of man that breaks in bursts. Splinters. Not all at once, and never in totality.
Drifter is staring. Eyes wide, shining such a bright red that he can see the reflection of their glow in Mirage's glassy gaze. He realises then that he wants to see remnants of himself on Mirage from now on. The thought makes him twitch.
"Offended you think I'm that much of a quickshot." Drifter tries for teasing, but his teeth are catching his own lower lip with how he mumbles the words. Maybe he can show Mirage how to be honest.
Except, Mirage has the audacity to look confused. Surely he's not that callow— No, Drifter knows he isn't. Just as he can tell Mirage is bleeding out internally, eats too much fruit, not enough salt, and takes a magically enhanced sleeping draught every other night, or that he's never been bitten by a vampire. He can smell it, sense it when he attunes to Mirage's body. No, Mirage is not untouched, and he is certainly not innocent.
And still he doesn't understand what Drifter wants.
Contradicting, endlessly.
"I want to fuck you, Mirage. That's it, that's the deal." Drifter has to bite off everything else he wants to say. It'd sound like begging, let me fuck you, you said anything, so let me fuck you. They could become an accusation, because he knows Mirage is at least curious, so why are you like this?
Another splinter, as Mirage blinks fast, faltering. Loses composure all over again. He'd be better at this if he weren't already so knocked about, dancing his way toward control or denial, making sure he got everything he wanted and gave as little away as possible. Drifter would let him have that illusion of control, just to watch him wield it. As it is, Mirage just shifts uncomfortably where he's pinned, emotions on show. Too obvious.
"You are— You— Men?" It's silted, like English or perspective fail him here. Not like this sort of thing would be part of his formal lessons, and it’s kept quiet enough from polite society that he wouldn’t have heard it in casual conversation. Makes sense that he doesn't have the vocabulary. Drifter himself only knows how people acknowledge it in hungry whispers, hateful heaves, or combinations thereof. Still, all this time, all their conversations… He can’t have been this unaware. It’s unbecoming. Tactically, it’s an oversight.
Drifter has to allow room for some benefit of the doubt, then. Head injuries can make even the strongest, most sensible warrior stumble. He knows as much from first-hand experience.
"Come on now, I thought you were somethin' of a traveller?" Drifter urges. That was something they had in common, after all. “Wouldn't have thought you t'be naïve." To miss something so obvious, it undermines Mirage's competence. “Ain’t so different when it’s all just bodies in the end. Just bodies.”
"I am not naïve." Mirage takes it as the insult it's meant to be. "No, I just— It's you. I had thought…" He trails off, and whatever his muddled brain is trying to handle, it's burning his fever brighter. It seems to hit him all at once, then. Whatever ignorance he'd talked himself into that had made him so steady against Drifter's interest, collapses in on itself and takes his defences down with it. The last of the denial he'd been clinging to burns up in the atmosphere as he crashes. "Oh. No."
The denial sounds strange, dashed against the jagged spikes of what emotions Drifter can see, can taste and feel. Because Mirage says no like he's horrified, but the death-pallid brown of his cheeks make a futile effort to flush. Because Mirage's eyes widen like he's terrified, but dry lips part for a breath that is desperate with something other than pain. Because Mirage doesn't seem to be afraid of Drifter, even still, even now - but he is afraid.
A sudden burst of juniper hits Drifter’s nose, sharp enough to make his sinuses itch.
Drifter has his own epiphanies, then.
"Oh yes," he hisses. Fuck, this, this is better than fantasy. He'd thought he'd have to teach Mirage's body to betray him, that had always been part of the desire. The plan to scar, to infect. "Oh, cher, I didn't know." Didn't know Mirage was sick enough to want a monster, even when he believed that monster wanted him dead.
Drifter's erection is still pressed to Mirage's stomach, and he rocks his hips forward in a slow drag, enjoying the hard bite of Mirage's belt buckle against the head. The sudden shift in Mirage's scent makes Drifter twitch; it’s fear, yes, but blistering hot and strange with arousal. Guilt and panic tear at this beautiful man, and he makes a low noise of denial when Drifter takes a tighter hold of his waist and settles into a rhythm, fucking up against him.
Well. How about that? Turns out Drifter can fit his hands all the way around the Mirage's waist.
"I had thought," Mirage starts, trying to reassemble himself. "I thought that it was the, the 'carnage' that you—" He fails. Tries again. He grabs at Drifter’s hips as though to steady himself, but that just makes the rest of his body shift with the press of Drifter’s hips. "No, ah, no m— Yes. Yes, I agree, the deal. I understand. Whatever it is, you can have it, have me. Vampire, listen, you have to— Drifter!"
Drifter doesn't have the patience or presence of mind to figure out Mirage's coat and sash, so he digs his claws into the partially torn collar and shreds downwards. The force of it yanks at Mirage's body, and he stifles his pained shout with a practiced clenching of teeth. Luckily for him, Drifter's claws are sharp, and the thick layers part easier once they catch, slicing the coat and undershirt in ragged slashes.
"Not now," Mirage demands, urgent and desperate. “No.” Trying to command, but he's closer to begging. "As long as it, ah, doesn't get in the way of my ability to, to do my job, you'll have it. Later. It has to be, stop, not— You can have— "
Drifter is torn. He wants to watch Mirage fall apart, to focus on how his voice gets breathier, thicker with mania, with his fear. He's thinking about the Djinn, not worrying about Drifter is going to fuck him, but the effect is the same. Desperation. Anxiety. But Drifter is distracted by the rapid rise and fall of Mirage's chest. His intention had only been to bare his neck, the crook of his shoulder, so he could get his mouth on him, but.
Turns out Mirage’s silhouette isn’t just the illusion of his uniform.
Muscle and fat make the swell of his chest obscene with the hitching, shallow rasps of his breath. Through the torn clothing, Drifter can see sweat-damp swirls of thick hair cover the heavy curve of his tit.
"No wonder you gotta keep all buttoned up out there. Tight little body like yours… Anybody else who tried to take you, yet? That why you givin' up so quick? You done this before?" It's not jealousy that heats Drifter’s words, but delight. Mirage letting others have him, as he's now offering to Drifter, is far-fetched enough that it’s pornographic.
"Nashala would never ask this sort of deal of me." Indignation cuts through any shame or lust, but Mirage sounds outraged for the Djinn rather than his own propriety. "She wouldn't allow it."
"… But she ain't here," Drifter finishes for him. He's aware that Mirage didn't answer any of his questions.
Reminded of her absence, Mirage visibly reorientates himself. "Go." He lifts a hand, sliding it between their bodies so he can press at Drifter's chest. He's healing, too slow to outpace the bleeding inside of him, but enough to put some weight behind the urgent push. "You waste our time. Agree to the deal. Leave."
Drifter should feel satisfied. He'll have time to plan this out, to get everything he wants, however he wants it, to make it last, but. But. He doesn't want to let go. He can't help but feel like this is his only chance. First and last time seeing Mirage fall apart, no matter the deal they’ve agreed upon. He’s distantly aware that more of his ties to sanity have snapped, but that awareness doesn’t make this urgent instinct any less real. He doesn’t want to let go.
"You an honourable man, Mirage, but somethin' tells me you'll find your way outta this. I don't got any fancy magic tricks to hold you to this. No Faustian magic up my sleeve. So when–"
"Every second we waste is another second she is at risk!" There's the hysteria again. "I do not care. Go. Go now, I agree, so accept the deal and go."
Mirage is right, this is a waste of time. Drifter is confident he can retrieve Nashala, but it has to be soon, or there is a very real chance of failure. He tells himself he can’t allow himself to be played for a fool too easily, though, so he has to test the boundaries. Has to be sure he can get what he wants. He has to nail his real offer down to this precipice, leaving no room for Mirage to escape his intentions later.
"I’ll find you,” Drifter promises. “Later, after the ritual. After we win. You'll put your little lady to the side, and you’ll crawl into my lap. Pretty thing, wearin’ somethin’ nice, just for me. An’ I'll fuck you however I like, for as long as I like. Have you, hurt you, anythin’ I want.” Drifter can’t help it, then. The purr starts as a low clicking in his chest, instinctive. He’s losing control of himself, unused to the wait for pleasure being so prolonged. Drawing it out like this is undoing him slowly. “Why, you lookin’ a little scared, sweetheart. Like time comes, you might bolt. If you're that terrified ‘bout a man taking you—”
"I swear," Mirage cuts in. He does such a good job at sounding stern, no matter how his body betrays him. “I swear on the djinn, I will uphold my end of the deal. You said— You said yourself, I am honourable. My loyalty is no secret, I will, I will do… anything." It is said with the gravity of admitting great weakness, showing soft underbelly. "You must save her. Please. You have to go."
And it's that fucking word the snaps the last of Drifter’s threads. Mirage is looking up at him, bloody and dark-eyed, hair loose and uniform torn. Open and defeated, pressed to Drifter's front, hot and giving beneath his cock. His neck is bare. He's holding Drifter and pushing him away. And now he's pleading. Begging.
"Say, hah, fuck—" Drifter breaks off around the exhale of a moan. His hindbrain clouds over him in hot, heavy panting, leaving him dizzy. "Say it again." It's not a good idea. They both need this deal to work, and he has to leave. He has to go, now, right now, but. "Prove you'll take it. Prove you're not scared, say it. Say it." He knows he's growling, grinning through this wild feeling. It's not the smile of a man, but the bared teeth of an animal.
Mirage is no more afraid than he was before. For him, the concern is Nashala, not his own well-being. In this, he is defiant to the end. That could be all it is, except,
except,
Under the fear, there’s the smell of juniper. Under the pain. Juniper. Under the dying, his scent is a peppery juniper, burnt with clove and chestnut. Everything that his searing blood is not. Drifter needs that scent to be arousal.
He grabs Mirage's thigh, hitching it up high and hard enough to make Mirage buckle. That's fine, Drifter can take the weight of him. He steps in even closer, forcing his body between Mirage's legs, making space for himself.
Mirage grabs for balance, hands fisting in Drifter's filthy coat. He won't back down, and even as he struggles to breathe, he shoves back. It's an awkward position, no doubt painful as he's kept upright only by Drifter's hand encircling his thigh, the other still tight at his waist, and the crush of the wall at his back. He's wheezing. One of his lower left ribs, already suffering a stress reaction from the earlier attack, has fractured.
"How— What— There's no time for this." Mirage yanks at Drifter's coat, trying to shake him. When Drifter lowers his head to bury his face in the crook of his neck, one of Mirage’s hands instead lifts to his hair, yanking cruelly. It stings, but he's still too weak to do any real damage. "Drifter!"
"Prove it," Drifter begs. He's whining. To hear it, to feel it. He needs. He needs. He fucks himself against Mirage, trying to find the right angle. Their difference in height is now a source of frustration. He's too confused in what he wants.
Mirage is just as lost. He doesn't know what Drifter is asking for, having to make his own assumptions about what is being demanded of him. When he finally does try to give, to prove, it's with an uncertain rock of his own hips. It makes Drifter laugh, high and mean, but that only urges Mirage on. He squeezes his calf, knee hitched around Drifter's waist, and digs his heel in.
It's an awkward scramble, then, as Drifter puts his other hand beneath Mirage's ass and lifts him, but they manage to settle into an easier position. Mirage has his legs around Drifter's waist, not strong enough to lock his ankles, thighs shaking with the effort even as he's forcibly held up and open. Drifter presses in closer, and finally, finally it's the right angle. Mirage isn't hard, but it feels good to grind against the heat between his legs anyway. Like they're fucking.
Mirage still has his naked hand in Drifter's hair, and when Drifter lowers his head to put his mouth on Mirage’s chest, bottom teeth catching on his nipple, he tries to use that hold to yank him off. It doesn't work, especially when he pushes up into the heat of Drifter's mouth instead of pulling away.
Drifter drags his tongue over Mirage’s tits, alternating between sucking and biting lightly, then licks a messy path upwards, soaking body hair with spit. Up his neck, to his jaw, and Mirage’s beard still has blood drying into it, numbing Drifter's tongue wherever it touches.
"Beg me," Drifter finally manages, pressing his mouth to Mirage’s ear. "Beg me for…" What? For what? What does Drifter want, that he can make Mirage beg him to take? Not blood, not death. Not yet. What can he take that will sting? He wants it to hurt, but not to harm.
"Please," Mirage says, automatic and easy. Flat. Blunt. It's not nearly enough. He is calming a wild, fussing animal, giving Drifter what he wants to get this over with. "Please, Drifter." He's only interested in appeasement. It's not desire. He doesn’t fucking mean it.
"No," Drifter snarls, because it's not right. "You have to prove that you…"
Mirage can't. So instead, he orders, "Take it."
And Drifter does.
He kisses Mirage. It's messy, but not cruel, and finally it's enough.
Mirage flinches away, surprised, choking on pain and Drifter's tongue when the back of his head knocks against the wall. Then, he’s surging forward into it. It's rushed, still a frenzy to get this over with, but it could be mistaken for passion. Especially when it feels this good.
God, it's good.
To taste him and not be burned. Drifter almost remembers then, with the bitter taste of sick, that this is supposed to scar, isn’t it?
Mirage sucks on Drifter's tongue, tilting his head then licking deeper into his mouth. It's dizzying. Mirage is a good kisser, and that's devastating. He draws back, just to close his teeth around Drifter's bottom lip and tug, letting go with a wet pop. He follows that with a slow lick over Drifter’s fangs before sliding back into a deep kiss.
Chestnut burning, cut with clove.
Drifter hadn't realised he'd gone still, no longer rocking his hips like he can bury himself to the hilt just by wanting it badly enough. His breathing has slowed, mind settled. Ohh, that's really fucking good.
And, now that he can focus, he knows what he wants. He does, in fact, remember. He kisses back with a combative focus, giving as good as he gets. It's still wet, still filthy, but he finds a rhythm and uses it to take back control. The inhuman, sharp curl of his tongue is long enough he could make room for himself at the top of Mirage's throat, but he'll save that trick for later. Because there's going to be a later.
Drifter pulls back, tilting his head to get a better angle, but Mirage chases his mouth, automatic in his refusal to let go. When Drifter laughs at this small victory, Mirage's eyes snap open. He frowns, refocusing, remembering himself. When he tries to speak, Drifter kisses the sounds away. There's no room for anything else right now. Just this.
Mirage isn't hard, but he smells like maybe, if he weren't sick and weak with blood loss, he could get there. What a turn of events. Drifter hadn't had any reservations about fucking him when he'd thought Mirage was unwilling, but now, now it's something else entirely. Now, it’s fucking intoxicating, that Mirage is burning for him already. No infection needed. No need to coax or force his need, it's already there, and he's so desperate to smother it that it leaves him weak.
Letting go of Drifter's hair, Mirage slides a hand between their lips. It's an immature barrier, so Drifter acts in kind. It's the bare hand, so he takes two of Mirage's fingers into his mouth, right to the base of them, and closes his teeth on the first knuckles. They twitch when he sucks on them, and Mirage rubs over the back of Drifter's tongue in a familiar, massaging pressure. Index and middle finger, petting Drifter in little circles.
Mirage accepts this diversion and refuses to be deterred. "I am a distraction to you."
It takes Drifter a moment to realise it's a question, and only does so because Mirage stops treating Drifters tongue like a clit, pulling his fingers free so Drifter can answer.
"You have no idea," Drifter agrees. Finally, he thinks, Mirage understands. He frees one of his hands from its possessive grip on Mirage's thigh so that he can wrap it around his wrist instead. He desperately wants those clever fingers back in his mouth.
Except Drifter's words are seemingly confirmation of an important problem. Mirage nods, less in understanding, more like he's made up his mind on something. He gently but firmly reverses the hold, both of his hands wrapping around Drifter's wrist, and Drifter allows it, curious. Excited.
He flattens Drifters fingers, smoothing them out when they automatically twitch back into a relaxed curl, until Drifter gets the hint and holds them straight. Then, he puts them like daggers to his throat, lifting and tilting his head until he finds the right angle. The soft flesh gives easily, deepening indents under wicked claws.
Drifter rocks his hips up, interested and amused, because he can still smell juniper. What is this supposed to prove?
"I can't kill you," he confirms. "Didn't ya know? Patron don't allow—"
Mirage's heart rate spikes so suddenly, so violently, that Drifter freezes. They're both completely still, tense to the point of new brutality. Staring at each other. Mirage's pupils are pinpricks, his lip curls. He's holding his breath.
He impales himself on Drifter's fingers.
Any and all of his dignity is lost immediately. Death is the great equaliser, and it doesn't care for infinite willpower or military training. After the first surge, the initial puncture, the sheer force of Mirage’s survival instincts manage to wrench back control over his actions, refusing to let him pull Drifter in any deeper. He flinches and struggles and shudders, unable to do anything but give in to them and attempt to escape the pain of dying.
Drifter could have pulled away, maybe, and made some attempt to stop this insane suicide, but shock and instinct stay his hand. His fingers curl, burying into the wet, convulsing heat. They sink in slowly, and he refuses to let Mirage's struggles pull him free. He can feel so much as he slides in. He can feel his pulse. His words, his screams, caught and trapped in Drifter's hand before they can even touch his tongue.
It shouldn't be— It isn't possible, even accidentally, to hurt, let alone to kill a teammate. So. How?
How is this…?
Drifter strangles himself on a moan, an animal sound that grates his vocal chords in sympathy with Mirage's. He's so turned on he's shaking, wound too tight within his own body, ready to snap. And yet, he is gentle with his fingers, forcing them into a velvet slide despite the violence inside of him. He pumps them out and back in once, twice, to watch the dark dribble of arterial blood froth and pool at the puncture. It slides down Mirage's neck, closer to black until it touches his torn white shirt, wicking out into bright crimson stains. Drifter has to be so, so careful. If he gives into instinct and wrenches his fingers free, tearing the jugular, there's still enough tension that it will spray out. Wasteful. Mirage wouldn’t like the mess.
Drifter has to taste it. Even knowing it will burn, knowing it will hurt, he has to, before the body disappears—
Oh. His clever. Stupid. Determined Mirage. Not a tool, not a coward, not anything but Mirage.
Drifter leans forward, placing his lips not to Mirage's bloody wound, but his mouth. That is the hunger that drives him, despite everything else. He's prepared for the blistering blood bubbling up Mirage’s ruined throat and spilling into his mouth, and they both choke on it as he kisses him. Mirage doesn't have enough consciousness to be surprised, or to react in any way that isn't a death spasm. His lips work in twitches against Drifter's, and then they don't move at all. Drifter kisses him through it, holding him tighter and tighter, getting sick on his blood until the body starts to disappear.
Drunk and desperate as he is, Drifter almost begs the patron to give it back, just for a little bit, please, but. This was Mirage's plan.
He collapses forward against the wall when Mirage’s body is taken. He presses forward, messy black hair sticking up at wild angles as he grinds his forehead against the brick. He’s so turned on that it hurts. It wouldn't take much. He wouldn't even have to undo his belt, just touch himself through his pants until he came.
It's not propriety or shame that has him wrangling back self-control.
Mirage hadn't killed himself to get away from Drifter. He'd done it to control him. Deny him this distraction and force him into action. Drifter itches to punish this, to defy and let the Djinn stand as a mere trophy wherever Paradox decides to display her, but.
But.
Poison on his tongue and Mirage's spit on his lips, he knows he's going to enjoy pretending to collar himself. He feels that truth now. So he'll reward this cruel bite of polished heel by upholding his side of the deal.
Drifter isn't the mindless beast many mistake him to be. He's a sapiovore prone to bouts of mindless violence, not an animal playing at personhood. It is his decision, now, to shed his lucidity. He lets those lines blur.
His body, strung tight as it is, snaps with his discarded self-control. The prowling, perpetually starving part of his mind surfaces, and he is a blur of shadow and glowing red eyes as he tears through the streets and over rooftops after his victim. There is no whistle. No toying with his prey. No real strategy that he needs as he tracks her bloodscent, even as it winds away, luring him towards the enemy base.
He ignores the sting of anything that tries to stop him as he lurches through any defence trying to keep him away, and catches Paradox in a side room near the Hidden King’s burning effigy. The way he tears her apart is especially violent. Unusually cruel. It takes her a long time to die, and Drifter makes sure she knows it's a punishment and a deterrent. He doesn't care enough about her to enjoy it, and doesn't even bother to spare her coat.
By the end of the slaughter, he only just remembers to pick up the Djinn. It’s an afterthought he’s reminded of when he sees her laying on her side on the ground. She is unharmed, the vessel undamaged save for the faintest scuff, and she burns brightly when he scoops her up.
"Ah ah, none o' that," Drifter admonishes. "I'm on your side, remember? Don' worry, your pet bitch is jus' fine. Well. By now he will be. Patron will've stitched him back together. Mm, yeah. Didn't let you go willingly, that’s for sure. What a man you got for yourself there, Miss Dion, Ma'am. Taken with a nasty fever by the time I got to him, and still he tried to bite me. Should think about gettin' a muzzle for him."
Drifter begins the trek back to base, ears flicking as he stays alert for any sign of the enemy. It just wouldn't do to put the Djinn back in harm's way now. Not when he has his end of a deal to uphold. He's already picturing how Mirage is going to look at him when he gets back to base and hands the Djinn over. Will he show his disgust? Concealed fear? Resignation?
Or gratitude. Desire. Appreciation.
The vessel turns hot in his hands, like she can read Drifter’s thoughts and finds them offensive, and he laughs at her for it. Hell, maybe she can see what he’s thinking, he doesn’t know the scope of her power. He'll ask Mirage about it when they return. Maybe he’ll even be honest.
Whatever she's capable of, though, it won't matter in the end. Not anymore. Mirage made a deal with him and more than that,
More than that.
Drifter now has a wish.