sender licks receiver's blood off their thumb / π
he's done this a few hundred times now. at some point he'd discovered, pencils were best sharpened with a blade. an x-acto knife. small thing. cold to the touch. thin metal, long. tiny blades he could unscrew when needed. in time, he decided to acquired a small set of them. one he's kept over the years and is still intact, but with plenty of wear on a few of the tiny blades. and sharp they were. enough for him to use with his compressed charcoal sticks, once they were nearly tiny nubs. these were what he was working with now.
a large page before him, the piece finally taking shape. a young aspiring singer-song writer, stage named Oracle, was looking for something dark to put on a textile. chris knew he could help. not that he thought much of his work, if anything at all. but he knew dark imagery, and he was often praised for what he could conjured onto the canvas. this time was no different.
a face was taking form in shades of grey & black. somehow expressing both suffering and joy, if not malice. if it was possible for him to keep the greys light enough, he could picture placing the artist's stage name in metallic silver for mild contrast.
while picturing his unfinished work finished, absentmindedly flattening an edge of what was left of the piece of charcoal in hand, it pressed between the flat of his thumb and a curled index, the sharp of the sliding blade missed the stick and sliced into his thumb. a sharp inward hiss between gritted teeth instinctively made its way out of his lips as he winced. "ouch." he said in a mere whisper, more to himself than to his company. she sat feet away from him, busied playing with ickis (a most refined gentleman, her beloved sphynx cat) - until she registered his flinching.
a question to him from where she sat, "yeah-" he responds, eyes cast on the cut as it started to bleed. chris had place the charcoal stick down by now, knife still in hand, stained red. "got me pretty good."
it looked worse than it was. truly. it stung, sure, but it didn't need stitches or anything.
chris stood to full height, helena now taking hold of his hand to take a look at the mess. chris cupping under it with his other, in case of spills. he found it amusing how dramatic cuts on fingers were. copious amounts of blood while barely gracing the surface of the skin. no layers penetrated. still, what came next was a shock. both to him and, by the looks of it, her too.
the movement was quick. instinctive, perhaps. it didn't register on him until he felt the warmth of her mouth and tongue grace the sting on his thumb. time stood still for a moment, he didn't know what to do. how to react. his lips parted as if he'd been about to speak but words did not come out. unbeknownst to him, too, he was holding his breath. there was a tension suddenly gripping his legs, from the height of his thighs and climbing its way upward. no, he told himself. stop that.
"um-" what was he supposed to say? "i.." thanks? "th-ank you." a pause. "i think." the expression of shock crumbled as he couldn't help the exhaled half-laugh at himself. or the awkward smile and creased brow. it was easy to decipher, there were lots about himself and their relationship he was still to discover. he just didn't know slicing his thumb would be part of it.
