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[knifemonopoly]

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, PLAYER1. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 10.11.0.0.01 *** PLAYER1 has joined 10.11.0.0.01 <PLAYER1> If you're looking for someone you knew as Yugi before June, you've found him! It's Atem, leave a message.

Main handle: < Player1 > Anon: < turtleluck >, < actuallydied >, < burner >

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[digiorno]

[What Atem says . . . Giorno thinks about it, chin tucked down as he stares at the floor. If I'm scary, then other monsters will think twice about hurting my friends. Not so foreign a thought, really. He's struck once again by the ways in which he and Atem are similar, and how not all of them are good.]

[Would he forget such things if he were in the form Atem has taken? Maybe. But then, maybe he'll forget them in this one. That's the problem. He just doesn't know yet. He wants to believe there are some things about him, core things, that won't change no matter what — but this is Ryslig, and the Fog controls even the most basic parts of him, no matter how he fights.]

[He closes his eyes and exhales slowly, just to remind himself that even if he doesn't need to, he can. When he looks up again, he offers Atem a faintly apologetic smile.]

I don't want to drink blood directly from someone . . . because my father was a vampire who killed dozens, if not hundreds, of people. For food. For fun. Because he was bored or angry. Nothing you do or don't do will change that. I appreciate your consideration, though.

[As braced against this as he clearly is, as upbeat as he's trying to be, his stare still catches on the state of the room. It's . . . not his father's style. That's easy to see. He can hang onto that. It's not his, either, but maybe that's for the best.]

[knifemonopoly]

[Atem doesn't smile back. His brows draw up, instead, recognizing the way Giorno's treating something very heavy as something very light, to make the weight easier to bear. He doesn't comment, doesn't say sorry, because that won't help; he just nods, understanding, recognizing the source of the discomfort that's been shared with him.

He doesn't know much about Giorno's family, does he? That's not unusual: he doesn't know much about Steve's family, or Lust's, or plenty of other people, but a mass-murdering vampire father...sounds like a real piece of work.

(Green eyes in a dark-haired, bowl-cut face look up at him in a memory, someone silent, even under beatings, because he believed nothing could be done. Are they...?)

Nope. No. That's none of Atem's business, unless Giorno chooses to talk about it. Instead, Atem takes hold of the blood-drawing supplies, and crosses to the sitting-area.]

Then, let's get started. Do you want to do the venipuncture, or should I? I've got practice, but I've never done it to myself before...

[Atem comes to the clinic, during the blood drives, to volunteer for an institution that's helped him and his friends and which he supports, and also to get good at blood draws. He really is practiced, but will doing it to himself be different?]

[digiorno]

[He’s beginning to get used to Atem’s responses to things. There is a level of maturity in him that is nonetheless sometimes surprising, and at times it makes Giorno feel well and truly like a child. It’s hard to understand how Atem stays serene about these things. Giorno is very good at acting unaffected, but what he sees before him is different. It’s not that Atem is unaffected, it’s that he absorbs the information, sees it for what it is, and acknowledges the pain without his own strong emotional reaction coloring the moment of confession.]

[Rarely if ever is he jealous of others, because he has clawed his way out of the dead earth all on his own, and he deserves everything he’s gotten. But he is jealous of Atem right now.]

[And then he’s looking down at his hands, spread flat and wide palms-up on his lap. It might seem as though he’s hesitating until one notices that he’s not so much looking as watching. Waiting for a tremor. But there isn’t one. His emotions haven’t reached his hands, and they won’t. They very rarely do.]

[He lifts his head, and he nods.]

I can do it. I’d rather this not be both of our first times.

[This is a joke? Probably?]

[knifemonopoly]

[Atem's been told some horrible things. His own father, as Atem understands it, gave an order for mass human sacrifice. 99 people. He's a little bit used to large numbers of the dead, by now.

If he told someone about what his family had done, he wouldn't want them to recoil from him, or to hear sorry. He'd want the difficulty of the situation recognized, but not pity, or anything else that wouldn't change matters. He'd want to be understood...but not in a way where someone else told their comparable story, pulling the focus onto them instead of him. So he gives Giorno that same understanding, and respect.

....at least until Giorno cracks the joke -- it has to be? Put like that? At least, it makes the tension crack for Atem, whose mouth pulls up in a grin, and whose spike-lined shoulders twitch in a light laugh.]

Heh! All right, then...I'm in your hands!

[He kids back as he lays the hollow needle and its tube out on a tray-table and settles into a low, comfortable chair beside it. Leaving the needle and its attached tube to Giorno, Atem rolls up his sweater-sleeve, takes a strip of elastic, and, using his prehensile tail-tip to hold it in place like a second hand, ties it tight above his elbow. He rests his hand wrist-up on the arm of the chair, clenching and flexing his fingers, making the veins easier to spot. Giorno may or may not need the guidance, with a vampire's sense for blood...but it's a very normal bit of phlebotomy preparation, and not very vampire-y at all.

If Giorno starts to seem less controlled about the blood-draw, though, Atem hasn't forgotten his promise. He's got no intention of giving up a life, or even getting seriously injured, today...he'll keep an eye out for cracks in that composure, for anything that seems off. He's relaxed, but watchful.]

[digiorno]

[He's not exactly a phlebotomist, admittedly, but he's demanded to learn how blood draws work at the clinic all the same. You never know when you'll need to know, or when every single doctor in Bavan will disappear due to some fucking calamity, or whatever.]

[The point is: he knows how to do this well enough, and hums in appreciation at Atem's know-how, nodding at his clenched fist.]

Of all the aspects of my monster form, I appreciate the prehensile vines most of all.

[Something else he doesn't get to have as a vampire! Annoying. But Atem's got his back, apparently — and with the visual of the vein to focus on, he can do his best to ignore the smell. Inserting the needle is easy, removing the elastic is routine, and as the draw begins, he exhales slightly, relieved. It was the right thing to do, coming to Atem right away, as awful as it felt, and still feels. He'll be able to keep better control like this than if he'd waited.]

[Not perfect control, though. By the time the vial is full, his expression is pinched, brow furrowed, as though he's rapidly developing a migraine. Which is more or less correct. His body and mind are having very different feelings about what's happening here.]

Is one enough to start with, do you think? I should have asked before, sorry.

[knifemonopoly]

[Prehensile vines...extra limbs...Atem's always envied them a little, they seem so useful. But, rather than comment on it, he replies to the latter statement...]

Hard to say. Every monster's different! Drink it and see how you do.

[Atem folds the tube over one-handed and deftly clamps it in place, effectively pausing the bloodflow in a way that'll be easy to restart. He's braced, poised, ready to go...if Giorno gets a taste for blood and loses control, Atem's ready to teleport the hell out of here. It shows in the slight hunch of his shoulders, a watchfulness in his expression.]