You Can Kiss And Still Be Hunting

[eatthepen]

Another misc mecha fic from cohost, this one with a slightly more complex prompting situation. The original prompt was 'Mech pilot who hunted the last vampires', to which Scampir then added 'Actually maybe they should kiss', and someone else chimed in with 'Both. You can kiss and still be hunting', and that's such a mood that, well, here we are.

You Can Kiss And Still Be Hunting

"I finally found you," he said, climbing out of his cockpit and sliding down the mech's leg to stand in front of the shaded hovel where the old man cringed back from the daylight.

Eyes wide and hair ragged, the old man hissed, "Go on then. Wipe me out like you daywalkers have done to the rest of my kind. Suffer not the drinkers to find shelter, isn't it?" His trousers were ragged at the hems, revealing emaciated ankles above ruined shoes that had been fine once.

The pilot knelt at the light's edge, lifting his arm into the shadow. "You don't understand. I'm not with them." Out of direct ultraviolet, the dark gems on his beringed fingers began to shift and blur with antilumen emanations.

The old man watched, face tense. His irises were thin red circles around his pupils. The fangs he bared were stained. Slowly, he pushed himself up to sitting, his knees shifting in the dust.

Above the pilot's hand, now, a bubble of liquid gloom was forming. The pilot said, "I grew up in the City Without Shade. This little solace is all I can work, but I should be able to get you to my cockpit. Please, lord, we need you if we are to do any more."

Again the old man hissed. "I sense their touch on you."

The pilot looked down. Sun beat mercilessly on the nape of his neck, exposed above the collar of his flight suit. There would be no hiding the mech if a patrol flew over, and the dry wind was stiff enough to bury the noise of anyone who might approach.

He said, "I will accept the judgement of your lordship, and whatever punishment is due. I was long in my training before I began to understand."

"Blood..." hissed the vampire. "Your forebears accepted blood thralldom."

"That I might deserve the honour." The pilot rippled his upraised fingers and wrapped the shroud of antilumen around them, bolstering it with the natural shadow of the hovel. Then he offered his hand to the ancient creature before him.

Instead of biting, the vampire slid leathery fingers into his palm and drew him closer. "For the first of my new line, the wrist is not honour enough. Will you accept the sanguine kiss?"

For a moment the pilot wavered, not from fear but with the rush of his heart. His bubble of negated day reached across time and space to the dorm bunk where he had first confronted his desire for this moment, for what it would mean. The setting was hardly as romantic as the gothic halls he had imagined, the outfits prosaic compared to the elegance described in the cache of ancient novels he had found and only burned after reading. But this was real.

He leaned forward, into darkness, and offered his lips.