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Starved - Rook x Venuris (WTHHero/Degusaurusrex)

The man was insane. He was leaving her alone in the house all day with a bunch of things she knew nothing about, no idea when he would return home, and--and--

"Fuck you, human!" The kick she had delivered to the stove stung enough to make her shriek as she hobbled back, tears pricking at her eyes as she stared down at the mess she'd created. He'd been gone all day and she was hungry. Half of the food in the fridge she'd never seen before, and all of the meat was still in packages and cold, as was the blood. The blood she could go without for now, he'd just given her some that morning and she was used to going for days without any, after all.

But she was hungry, and her stomach had continued its incessant noise making until she'd been forced to resort to extreme measures.. Which meant trying to figure out how to use the stove. After a day spent alternating between pacing the house and attempting to read, she was already in a foul mood. So when all she managed to do was spill the juice from the package all over the stove and nearly catch the package on fire, she'd kicked the stove, threw the pan in the sink, and hidden herself in the corner of the kitchen near the back door, raw steak in hand.

There were still tears in her eyes as she sank her teeth into the steak, tearing at it and ripping a piece off to chew on. At that point, she didn't care if it was cold, she was just hungry, and by the time Rook returned she'd already gotten through the first few bites.
 
Moments before Rook's mind had been far away thinking of the implications of the meeting, but he quickly noticed he couldn't see Venuris anywhere in the living room. He did hear something from the kitchen. He walked around the corner and in the kitchen proper and his green eyes went quite wide as he looked at her.

"What are you doing?" He asked, and looked around the kitchen shaking his head somewhat in disbelief. Rook moved towards her cautiously, and after taking his gloves off, grabbed the steak from her hand and walked to the counter top and put it down on a small plate.

He gathered up a dish rag and soaked it in warm water. Most of the thoughts that had been playing in the background of his mind went elsewhere. He knelt down beside her and started to clean her hands "Hold still, relax," he said, speaking in as quiet a voice as possible. He wiped her face as well, his green eyes quite soft as he looked at her. "I'm sorry, I didn't think. I didn't know you'd get so hungry. I'll make you something proper."

Taking care of her made his heart pound quickly in a different way then it had been all day. He got up and began to clean the kitchen without complaint and soon was gathering spices out of the cabinets.
 
What did it look like she was doing? She flinched but said nothing, gnawing off another bite and watching him apprehensively. Was he going to take the food away from her when she'd only just started eating it? She had half a mind to snap at him when he pulled it out of her hands, but instead she whined quietly and began to lick at her hand before realizing he was coming back over, this time with a rag.

"I was eating that." She sniffed quietly, looking down at her hands and realizing just how filthy they looked as he began to wipe them off. Now she truly did look like the picture of a demon, sitting there with blood on her hands and face from the failed attempt at a meal. Was she really just an animal like most humans made her kind out to be? "I haven't had anything since you made food yesterday." Which had been well over twenty four hours ago, at that point, and she'd been stuck inside the house all day barely able to use the sink to get water. She had been a fool to think that using the stove to cook anything was going to be easy, and then she'd gone and made a mess of the entire room in her attempt.

The splatters of blood and juice from the packaging had gotten onto the stove, they were in the pan she'd dumped in the sink, and there were even a few drops on the floor, but thankfully it had taken minimal damage during her rampage.

"I don't know what half the stuff here does. I wasn't trying to make a mess." She sniffled again and watched him from across the room, pulling her knees up and wiping at her eyes. "I've never used all of these things before."
 
Rook looked over from the counter towards her and raised his eyebrows. His eyes seemed a little more kind than usual. He could feel something tugging at his heartstrings. He would have to talk to her about what had occured with the order but, he figured that should wait for later. "I'm sorry, when I get into a particular mood, I have a tendency to forget to eat."

He listened to the next part and he felt his heart shatter into a few more pieces. He stopped cleaning and set the rag down. He washed his hands quicky, and then knelt down next to her. He carefully put his arms around her and without thinking much of it, gently moved her head against his shoulder hoping she wouldn't bite him in retaliation.

"Shhh," he started low under his breath, "It's okay. It's no big deal. I'll take care of it. I know, a lot of this stuff might be confusing for you. I can teach you, if you'd like that."
 
When Venuris found herself with her face pressed into Rook's shoulder she wasn't sure what to do. It wasn't necessarily the fact that she had her face against his shirt, but the fact that his arms were around her holding her close, and for several moments she sat there stiffly before her shoulders sagged and she choked out a sob.

Everything that had happened over the last several days since the old man's death had finally come crashing down. From the starting fact that he was dead, to the relocation here to Rook's house, and those were just the main two factors. That didn't include trying to get used to wearing actual clothing, or being able to move around without being chained to a wall or a bed. It didn't include being able to bathe as she pleased, eat a proper meal that had meat, or any of the emotional issues that had come with all of the trauma.

What a child she looked like, sitting on the kitchen floor sobbing into the shoulder of a virtual stranger. A stranger who had left her alone for the entire day after ignoring her for half of the previous, one who had come back to clean up her mess and prepare food that wasn't to be eaten on the kitchen floor, raw and cold and filthy.
 
This might have been the most vulnerable that Rook had ever seen Venuris. He put his fingers into her hair and held her whole she sobbed. It didn't bother him. He could feel tears soaking his shirt and her body shaking as she cried and trembled. It was an odd feeling. A very protective urge built up in Rook's chest. He wanted to keep her from feeling this way somehow. On another level, He just liked holding her. It didn't feel odd in the moment to have her resting against him.

He didn't really use words, but made some soothing sounds under his breath. He stayed in place until the sobs slowed. Only then, did he pull his hand out of her hair and looked at her, his eyes staying with hers. At first he found them frightening, but now that seemed to be gone and he just found them alluring.

Rook smiled. "Should I make you something to eat?"
 
"Uh huh," She sniffled and pulled back, wiping the last of the tears from her eyes and nodding. Her eyes were puffy from crying and her throat hurt from all of the loud sobs, but at least she was no longer hysterical and could manage to mumble out the response.

"Yes please." She looked around the room, eyeing the abandoned meat that he'd taken when he first found her on the floor. Was it even still good now that her hands had been all over it, did it really matter when she wasn't human and her body worked differently? Hell, she had no idea what the rules of anything like that were, all she knew was that she was hungry, exhausted, and thoroughly embarrassed by her outburst.

"I'll just.. Go in the other room and stay out of the way." She cleared her throat and winced, slinking around the room only long enough to find her water from earlier before she all but bolted over to the couch and sank into the cushions. That.. Had not been her best moment.
 
Rook watched her go, and felt a strange recombination of concern and endearment towards her. What else lay beneath the surface? She was always so guarded--

You're one to talk.

--and it was hard to imagine that he could have possibly predicted she would react in that way. She had this exterior of violence and threat, but Rook started to wonder how much of that was an act on Venuris part. What other sides to her were there besides rage, suspicion, and fear?

He started to prepare the steak. He chopped it into strips and put it into a bowl. The steak was seasoned with cumin, ancho, chili, pepper, garlic and lime. This was all done with a quiet sort of efficient movement. He looked through the fridge--righting some of what had gone askew--and grabbed some corn tortillas. In a few moments he was chopping onions, bell peppers.

Rook left Venuris alone as he cooked. Not because he didn't want to be near her, but he knew she was a woman of some pride. He knew she might need a moment or two to recover from any embarrassment and even then it was likely to surface at some point. The best approach might be to act as if it wasn't a big deal even if it was for Rook.

He brought two plates out filled with tacos. He set one in front of her and sat on the floor, putting his plate down. He made a point of eating first, so she could see how he folded the shell and took a bite.
 
Venuris berated herself as she tried to get comfortable on the couch. She had been a fool expose her weakness, but something inside her had broke when he'd worked so gently to clean the mess from her hands and face. She hadn't been touched so gently for as long as she could remember. Everything had been rough, sharp pains from needles and burning pain from blades against her skin. That was only the exterior damage that had been done to her, and she rubbed harshly at her face as she tried to shut everything out.

What was she supposed to say when he came out? She wanted desperately to go home, to have something familiar to her that she knew was solid and safe. At the same time she wanted to slaughter all of those responsible for her pain, for the potential pain of others, and that meant she was required to stay in this world, bound to the man that had just brought her a plate of food.

What if there were others of her kind trapped here?

The thought made her freeze when she'd just gone to pick up her food, and she stared at it with a concerned expression for a moment before mimicking his motions. Holding and eating the taco was a lot easier than trying to use the chopsticks from the other meal, and she managed to get through one taco and then part of another before she lost her appetite and stopped.

"Am I the only demon they had?"
 
Rook hadn't realized how hungry he was until he had the first bite. By the time that Venuris had gotten through one and a half tacos, Rook was shoveling the last of his five into into mouth. It was very good, and if seemed like ages ago when he last ate. His stomach growled angrily at him and he was very sorry.

He looked up, eyes wide, as he pushed the rest of the last taco into his mouth. He chewed it quickly and had the grace to look a little embarrassed.

"Oh?" He thought for a moment and then touched his chin. He shook his head. "Not that I'm aware of. However, I'm starting to think I don't know as much as I think I do. In any case, I doubt it. It seems that you being here is a big deal."

He leaned back, putting his hands face down on the floor behind him, and then looked at her tilting his head. "I can understand your current views on humanity, but, why'd you come here anyway? What reason is there for a demon to visit our world?"
 
"Why not?" She shrugged, tucking her legs underneath her and then looking away. "Wouldn't you want to explore foreign worlds if you do could do just by opening a window?" It wasn't as if she hadn't gotten through this world unscathed before, but her last trip had ended in an indefinite capture, and she was still dealing with the consequences of it decades later.

"My kind has been here before, many times. I did not expect I would ever get caught just by playing a game amongst ourselves. I did not expect that when I saw something other than that cell the world would be completely different. I don't even know what's left of my world anymore, if it's still the same." She sighed, rubbing at her forehead and then tugging the blanket over her lap.

"If I was the only one to be subjected to those horrors, then that's a relief."
 
Rook thought a bit as she spoke. He had traveled once, away from this city, but, it was in an attempt to put it all behind him. He had thought at one point that he could lead a different kind of life. Of course, that wasn't to be.m the case. Instead, he lead this life, and he didn't have to do it forever.

"I think had I been someone else, I would have enjoyed traveling," he said, he tried for cheerful. He didn't really notice he was talking about himself in the past tense.

He listened to her words and could offer no real comfort. Did time move differently over there? Was there a chance that things could be utterly different in a matter of decades? He supposed human history was full of examples of things changing significantly and sometimes at a rapid pace.

"I'm sorry for your loss of time and what you've been through," he said and stood uncertain of what he could say. He walked her slowly over to the couch, moved his hand, and then stopped. Then he thought What the hell, worst that can happen is she breaks my hand and I don't do it again.

It was a comforting gesture, one he often had the urge to make when he was both attracted to and cared about someone. He reached out and pushed some of her hair behind her ear. "It's been a long day, we should rest," he pulled away, looking at her, and then looked away feeling nervous. "Would you want me to take the couch?"
 
Venuris hadn't seen his hand until it was too late, and she jumped at the feeling of his fingers gently brushing back her hair. Her pupils thinned out as she instinctively went on the defensive, watching him but making no move to actually lash out at him once he'd pulled back.

"Why?" She frowned at him, glancing between him and the stairs inquisitively. She had just assumed that the spare bedroom would be set up eventually and she would sleep in there, so what was one more night on the couch until then? He was right though, it had been a long day for the both of them, she could see it on his face even as he offered her the bed. Could she be so rude as to take his bed after he'd already cleaned up her mess and made food?

"Won't it hurt you if you sleep on here?"
 
At first, Rook thought she was talking about the thing with the hair and his eyes got just slightly wide as he paled slightly. Especially after watching her pupils narrow at him quite intensely. Was she angry? Frightened? Was that like a humans pupils dilating when they saw something they liked? "I just thought--" He stopped when he noticed that she was looking at the stairs and then he swallowed a bit and nodded. "Right," he said, taking another catious step back, and looked at the stairs.

"It's not a problem," Rook said, and rubbed the back of his neck, "to be honest, I sleep down here more often than I do up there. It's empty."

"Please, take the bed if it's comfortable. It's the least I can do," He nodded and looked away not sure where to look and instead of looking at her and having a conversation about what he may or may not be feeling he set himself to straightening up the living room and kitchen feeling somewhat foolish.
 
"..You do?" She wasn't sure if that was believable, or if he was just saying it to make her feel better about the idea, but she accepted the explanation readily enough. Having an actual bed to sleep in after so long was far too enticing for her to say no, and after sleeping in it the first night and experiencing its comforts, she found herself slowly vacating the couch and making her way towards the stairs.

"Okay, I guess. I mean, if you're going to sleep down here anyway, then yeah." She really just needed to stop talking before she made a fool of herself, and she got up the first two stairs before she stopped and turned around to look at him.

"Rook?" Had she actually used his name before? "Thank you." She bolted up the stairs the moment the words had left her mouth, disappearing around the corner and straight into the bedroom to shut the door quickly. That was about enough of that for her tonight.
 
"Yeah, I'm much more comfortable down here," he said, and continued to clean up. He wasn't sure he could meet her eyes any longer and he wasn't sure what he was doing. He put a book away, moved some things off one table to another, just focused on cleaning while she moved to the stairs.

Then, he heard her say his name. He looked at her, but she vanished a moment after she said it and the words "thank you."

"No problem," he said glancing up from the kitchen his hands covered in soap as he was cleaning dishes. He dropped the dishes back into the sink as soon as she was out of the room. He opened the fridge and grabbed a cold bottle of water and placed it on the back of his neck.

"What are you doing?!" he silently mouthed to himself. He drank the water and looked up the stairs. After awhile, he shook his head, finished cleaning, and climbed into the couch. The couch which currently smelled of scarlet skinned demoness.

Go to bed, he thought to himself and thankfully he was exhausted enough that he did.
 
As expected, the bed was absolutely coated in his scent. It wasn't that the fact surprised her at all, but she did find it a bit alarming that she sniffed briefly at the sheets while trying to get comfortable. It was only natural for a predator to scent out her den, and this was essentially her den for the night, so totally normal. Right. She was covered in his scent from her meltdown in the kitchen anyway, so shy of taking a bath and scrubbing every inch of herself there was no way around it. Besides, it wasn't like it was an entirely unpleasant scent.

She laid there in the bed for some time staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep with the house as eerily silent as it was. She'd half been expecting to hear Rook moving around downstairs doing things, but it was clear that he'd fallen asleep as fast as she wished she could have, and that left nothing for her to focus on.

The hours passed by agonizingly slow, and every time she thought she would finally be granted the mercy of sleep she was startled awake by her imagination. How was she ever supposed to sleep? There had always been some sort of noise, whether it was the camera in her little cell making noises, or people coming in and out to do various things, there had always been noise.

"Fucking hell!" It was somewhere in the middle of the night that she finally gave up, snatching the pillow and a blanket off the bed to tiptoe down the stairs with. She wasn't going to sleep with him, just in the same room, and she did her best to be quiet while moving around things and setting up on the floor before tucking herself in. That was much better, now she had the steady sound of his breathing to lull her to sleep..
 
Rook dreamt.

Mostly in nightmares. There was a pleasant dream; However, at some point during the night. He could almost smell Venuris in the room which didn't make a lot of sense as she had gone upstairs. Rook wasn't sure he wanted her to stay downstairs with him. Had he been motivated about asking where she wanted to sleep by something other than her preference? He dreamt that she was next to him, and it was warm.

When Rook woke, he half expected to see her on the couch under his arm, but it was the pillow. He groaned and then sat up rubbing his eyes. With the amount of sleep, he actually got last night he expected to be rested, but his body must have still been worn from the last few days and he felt tired on another level. His brain was tired. He had talked more opening in the past few days then he had in the past few years, and it took a toll.

He got up. Stretched, and then looked over at the side of the couch. There, Venuris was sleeping soundly, rolled up in a blanket with a pillow. Was she facing the direction of him on the couch intentionally? His pulse sped up. He wasn't sure exactly what to do about this. He was somehow very certain that if he made a big deal of it, it would not happen again, and he did want it to happen again. Didn't he?

So, Rook got up, and went to the kitchen, and made coffee. Then, he got a pot and a tub of blood out of the fridge and warmed it figuring that the scent of blood would be enough to call her from sleep. He also felt strange that the scent of blood warming was starting to bother him less.
 
She'd expected to wake up to some sort of noise, but she hadn't expected to wake up to a smell. A part of her had wondered if she would be woken up by some exclamation of surprise when Rook realized she had come down during the night, or if she would be woken by him shaking her awake to make certain she wasn't ill or dying to have chosen the living room floor as her sleeping space.

So when she woke to the smell of both the coffee he seemed to favor drinking, and then blood, it was enough for her to trudge toward the kitchen with the blanket wrapped around herself. She had absolutely no idea what time it was, what had woken him up, all she knew was that there was blood being warmed up for her and she was thirsty for it.

She chose to halt in the doorway to the kitchen, wrapped up in the blanket with only her head exposed and a sleepy expression on her face. She said nothing, simply watched him curiously as he moved around the kitchen as if it was second nature to him. She really, really needed to learn some of these things.
 
Rook saw her waking up and moving towards the kitchen before he actually allowed his eyes to gaze up at her. He focused on getting the blood to the right temperature, he suspected the correct answer was body temperature, right? In his mind's eyes, he had a flashback to her reaction to him putting a dagger into his wrist to allow blood to spill forth and for some reason that made him, nervous, something like nervous.

He wasn't sure what to say. He might have looked towards her and said something about it being nice to see her sleeping in the same room with him. He might have asked why she didn't come into the couch. This was a stupid question, why would she get into the couch? They might as well have been enemies just a few days ago, not that Rook every had that intention in mind. He didn't look up at her though he wanted to do so.

"You don't have to stand out there. You can walk into the kitchen if you like. You live here too," he said simply and grabbed a mug from the cabinet pouring the blood in there. He thought back with some passing guilt that he had been feeding her in tubs and he didn't realize what that might have been communicating. He set the mug of coffee down on the counter, and glanced at it, and then at her. "Here," he said, and smiled, though a little timidly.
 
"Thank you." Her voice sounded a lot more hoarse than she had expected, and after slinking into the kitchen long enough to grab the mug and retreat to the doorway, the previous night came back to her and her cheeks darkened. Right, she'd had her little meltdown and sobbed her heart out into his shoulder, and then she'd been unable to sleep in the silence and had come down to the living room.

It didn't seem he was intent on bringing any of that up and she was thankful for that, sipping the mug of warm liquid awkwardly. Why did he have that look on his face? Had she done something she didn't recall that had in turn made things awkward between them, or was he simply unsure how to handle her after that episode?
 
He poured himself a cup of coffee.

He sipped at his mug of warm liquid and looked at her looking at him.

Rook didn't know what to say. He wanted to say anything. Anything that would get her to move a foot closer to him. There were options that were spinning through his head, but none of them seemed right. He thought for a moment to open his mouth and ask if she slept well, closed it, and decided that wasn't the best option. Instead, he passed her, somehow both managing to be slipping past her without touching her and to be moving close enough to her to almost feel the heat of her body as he passed.

He sat on the couch. "We should talk about what the next move is," he said, and then wondering how that sounded, he added "we should think about how we're going to go into the operation to take out Velma."
 
Just when Venuris had thought he was going to say something, she watched him pass right by her and go into the living room with his coffee. Well, today was going to be a bit awkward, wasn't it? She frowned and shifted out of the doorway, slinking into the living room cautiously and hovering a foot away from the couch.

"What about it?" It wasn't like she knew that much about the operation, after all. She'd been cooped up in the house more time than not, and the last day and a half they hadn't interacted due to first a misunderstanding, and then him being gone for the entirety of the day.

"Just take me to her and I will tear out her throat." She flexed her fingers subconsciously, imagining the thought of the dark nails lengthening and tearing through flesh to the sound of a woman's scream. "I don't understand why it's not that simple. Sneak into her home, and let me kill her." That was simple enough.. Right?
 
"It's not that simple," Rook said, almost answering her thoughts directly. He was glad to have something easier to talk about other than the question about why she didn't just climb into the couch with him. He knew the answer, and he also knew that the question was really just a different question, and in fact a whole series of questions: Would you cuddle on the couch with me? Can I hold you? Can I kiss you? Can I touch you? Why couldn't he get his mind of this topic?

"There's an awful lot of security to be aware of, and not just the security on staff. There's cameras, security codes, and alarms. There's also the fact that I--" he stopped, and then looked over at her, making eye contact "--we need to be able to do this subtly enough that the Order doesn't think it's me. Also, we can't just kill her we need information. I don't know that I have the full picture."

Rook flexed his fingers a bit and then paused to take a sip of his coffee. "I can't stress this enough, but you need to hold back on the murder long enough so that Velma can be questioned."
 
"Fine. Don't kill her until after you get information." That wasn't an explicit order not to kill her, just not to kill her too soon, and she could live with that. It did make sense that the act needed to be subtle as not to lead the rest of the Order back to Rook, but at the same time it all seemed so complicated and obnoxious. Why couldn't it just be like older days, where humans killing each other was common and less worried over?

"I can just make her bleed some." She shrugged, drinking the remainder of the blood in the mug before setting it down on the coffee table. "How hard will it be to deal with the security at her home? Is it large, or is there just a lot of things to get past? Why can't we just take her off the street when she goes somewhere?"
 
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