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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]

[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.]