Wetwork, he’s heard it called. Humans love to euphemize, as if they can evade their violent nature through language alone.
Maybe that’s why he likes this human. His name doesn’t obscure. It revels in the most important thing about him.
Shiv. Drifter doesn’t typically care so much about names. He’s all but forgotten his own. But that one threatens to make his tongue bleed if he says it aloud. He tucks it behind his teeth while he watches the young man live up to it.
The scent of blood fills his nose, salty and rich. It spatters onto the floor, running in rivulets from the squirming flesh. The meat makes noises, but Drifter doesn’t care. He’s transfixed by the dim glow of light off the blade, by the delicate parting of skin, by the flow of red.
When it's over, the flesh stops quivering, but dozens of cuts still weep.
Shiv wipes his blade clean on the man’s suit jacket, then pats him down until he finds a billfold. It’s a crude act that mars the perfection of his craft, but Drifter understands a man has to eat.
The performance is over, but he finds he doesn’t want it to end. Shiv makes the dirty warehouse radiant.
On a whim, Drifter steps into the dim light, letting his foot scrape. Shiv whirls, knife at the ready.
“Always inspiring to see an artist at work,” Drifter says with a polite clap.
“Who are you?”
“Just an old gator who crawled outta the swamp. Is that where you’re buryin’ this body?”
“Only if I want him found at low tide.” Him, Shiv says, like there’s still a person under all that meat.
Drifter tucks that away for now and purrs, “Clever boy.” The blade still gleams, steady in Shiv’s hand. “If I wanted to hurt you, that wouldn’t stop me,” he adds.
“What do you want then?”
A loaded question if there ever was one. He wants to consume this one, wants to watch him bleed out slow and pretty. Wants to drink from him for days on end, make a monument of his massacred flesh. Desire wrings at his insides. He has so many appetites, but he rarely indulges that one.
He steps close, faster than a human eye can track. The knife clatters to the floor with a single sweep of Drifter’s hand.
Shiv’s jaw clenches in his sudden grip. “Don’t think you’d understand me if I told you,” Drifter says. “But we can start simple, can’t we?” Shiv’s breath is hot and shaky between them. He smells of fear, but it’s drowned by a sudden torrent of his desire.
Some of those poor excuses for vampires like to use hypnosis on their human prey. Drifter prefers good old fashioned persuasion. “Say yes,” Drifter says, one claw tracing the curve of his ear.
“Yes,” Shiv breathes.
Drifter’s teeth ache as they break the flesh, sinking into Shiv with a tenderness he hasn’t felt in so long. Shiv trembles in his arms, but his head tilts, and the sound that escapes his throat isn’t wholly pain.
Rich blood spills across Drifter’s tongue. It’s heady, having Shiv at his mercy. The typical impulse to rend flesh and sinew lingers, kinetic potential beneath his nail beds, but when he digs in, it’s to clutch Shiv closer with the blunt tips of his fingers.
A whole life pulses alongside his blood, a boring childhood mottled with poverty and delinquency until one day, Shiv’s true talent became apparent. Then it’s red on red on red, spilling from throats and arms, a slash on an old man’s cheek, a nick under a woman’s arm, subtler and subtler as Shiv honed his craft.
Drifter was mocking him before, but he was right to call it artistry. Bloodletting can be beautiful, devastatingly human and inhuman at once, and Drifter could watch him do it for centuries.
With a sigh, Drifter eases his teeth free. Shiv moans, glassy-eyed, and he doesn’t put up a fight when Drifter forces their mouths together, spit and blood mingling on their tongues. He’s out of it, but when he catches up, he kisses back, weak hands clawing Drifter closer.
Shiv will take anything Drifter offers; that’s clear enough now. He drops to his knees at the barest touch of Drifter’s hand, blood smeared face rubbing against Drifter’s trousers as his hands fumble for the fly.
It’s been decades, maybe, since Drifter last bothered. Such a waste of time when he could be seeking his next victim. But with this pretty little creature, it feels like the only thing he could want. Certainly, it’s the only thing preventing him from spoiling it all by breaking his plaything on the first night. He’s broken so many playthings. Maybe he wants to keep this one a while.
Shiv’s pretty lips part and Drifter’s cock plunges between easily. He forces himself to take his time. Forces himself to relish each slide of Shiv’s reddening lips down his cock. Shiv’s long lashes are a dark fan above his flushed cheeks, a pretty contrast to the pink-tinged saliva dripping down his chin. He’s messy; no artistry here. But he’s done it before certainly.
A streak burns up Drifter’s spine at the thought. How many men could he hunt down to mark his possession?
His head fills with the memory of slaughter, the paltry resistance of flesh beneath his claws, the feeling of tendons snapping between his teeth, until the thoughts drain from him with the pressure of Shiv’s lips and the press of his tongue. Sharp claws curl against the back of Shiv’s head, twitching with pleasure, threatening his scalp and neck.
Enough. He shoves that mouth down until he’s as deep as he can get. Shiv twitches, throat clenching around him as he spasms in surprise, but he’s held by Drifter’s powerful grip. He accepts his fate as Drifter spills into the convulsing channel of his throat.
He holds Shiv there for the thrill of watching him struggle, the feel of his throat working around the oversensitive head of Drifter’s cock now, the sight of Shiv’s face turning red with the need to cough, to breathe around the cock lodged in his throat.
When Drifter relents, Shiv pulls off sputtering, eyes watering. Even flushed and sweaty, he’s pretty. Might be prettier with a few scars, but Drifter wants to know what life might do to him instead.
“Attaboy,” he says with a pat on the cheek. “Now, why don’t you clean up after yourself?”
Shiv wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, eyes lit up with a sudden, impotent anger. Oh, he’s even prettier like that.
“You gonna get me back?” he demands.
“I’m gonna do whatever I want with you,” Drifter says matter-of-factly. “But let’s move this body, unless you want to get caught.”
Later, Shiv takes Drifter home. It’s not a nice place, but it’s good enough. A surface to fuck Shiv on is all Drifter needs. By the time they’re done disposing of the corpse, his appetite for it has returned — another novelty. Maybe what he’s needed all along is someone pretty enough and vicious enough.
He fucks Shiv into the mattress, cock carving into him and his teeth doing the same. Shiv’s flesh tears like any other, but his blood is sweet with all the rage and murder that pulses through it, with the ecstasy he reaches as Drifter fucks him. Shiv’s body tightens around him, and Drifter fills him again, staking his claim.
He departs before the night is over, when the sky has gone blue-gray with impending dawn. He’ll find Shiv again, though. Watch him carve up another, revel in their pain and Shiv’s artistry before they fuck again. Maybe Drifter will kill him next time. He’d be so pretty with the life draining from his eyes.
Or maybe he won’t. For the first time in his centuries of life, Drifter considers making a companion. He could watch Shiv carve flesh for a century and never tire of it. He doesn’t expect that Shiv might be the one to tire of him.