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Starved - Rook x Venuris (WTHHero/Degusaurusrex)

Rook said, "I'm still not sure how I feel about the idea of having you do any killing." He frowned. He had really planned to ensure that this mark wasn't on anyone else but him. He shook his head a bit and looked into his coffee mug. "I guess we'll step over that hurdle when we get to it."

Rook did need information. He needed to know what the truth might have been about his mother. He needed to know if there were more members of the order that he wasn't aware existed, and he hadn't mentioned it yet, but he needed to know more about the plans they might have had in mind about Venuris. He didn't know what to say about the fact that the old man had been trying to create a resulting product of a union.

"We could try to grab her when she goes out, but that's when the members seem to tighten up their security the most. The way I figure it, they feel most secure in their homes. The only thing is that there is a reason for that. Once I get inside the building, I'm not too worried, but it's the getting inside that's problematic."
 
"Off the street sounds like it would be easier.. But okay, if you say so." Venuris frowned. He probably had a point about that, it would make sense for there to be valuable information inside of their houses, but that meant it was going to be harder to get to them in the first place. Couldn't she just kill the guards? Honestly, humans were so squeamish about death, which was ironic considering how many centuries they'd spent killing each other.

"Fine, so we need to plan." Clearly this wasn't going to be a one day thing, but what was she supposed to do in the meantime? She began to pace the room, glancing back at Rook periodically as she huffed. What had he said to her before, something about trying to learn to relax? She was just so cooped up, stuck inside the house and unable to go out without changing her entire appearance. At least when she'd been locked in a room it hadn't mattered what she looked like, and she'd always known to expect something bad.

Now she had no idea what to expect, and it was going to drive her insane.

"And just what are we supposed to do in the meantime?"
 
"We have enough information to move on Velma this weekend, potentially, there's a shift change at 3:00 AM which might work, and the number of guards is reduced at the front entrance," Rook stood, and flexed his fingers, gesturing his hand at the corkboard and some of the nearby clutter and rearranged it. The blueprints pulled out from under another book on the fold out table and the pictures hovered off the corkboard and folded themselves neatly into a stack on a table. The blueprints spread themselves out onto the corkboard and pins floated into the air briefly before pinning the blueprints down. Velma's picture moved to the upper right-hand side of the blueprints. Three spells in particular, on separate pieces of looseleaf parchment paper, affixed themselves to the left, and on the bottom right was a list of staff with one-line blurbs of information about themselves.

Rook stood and went to stand next to Venuris looking at the blueprints and shrugged. "There's most of a plan here, I just have a tendency to overthink there are a thousand and one things that could go wrong. There's always something."

He shrugged and then looked over at her with a brief smile. "I had planned on operating right against her mansion, but I'd be willing to make an attempt to plot out taking her from off the street if you think it's best. We're going to have to work as a team now."

Rook stretched and felt some of the tension leave his body, though, like most other things in his life, the question of Venuris coming downstairs to sleep near him the previous night was still near the front of his mind. Would this be a regular thing?

"In the meantime?" Rook asked, looking at Venuris with his eyebrows raised, "Can I ask you a question? Are there, uh, hobbies, in the demon realm?"
 
"This weekend?" How far away was that, anyway? Venuris had no concept of days, and the only reason she could keep track of time properly was because she knew how to read a clock, otherwise she would have based everything off of the position of the sun or moon.

"There is always something." That was a mindset she understood far too well. Always something to worry about, to account for. Something to plan for, an extra way to cover your ass and ensure safety and efficiency should the first idea fall flat. "Always." She sighed, peering over at Rook only briefly before her attention returned to all the papers. Never in a million years did she think to be studying blueprints and spells with the grandson of the man who had tormented her, but there she stood like some sort of demon detective ready to go after a criminal. How ironic.

"If there's valuable information inside her home, then we'll have to do that." She shrugged. Just because she wasn't overly fond of the idea didn't mean she would dismiss it. Better to dirty Velma's home and not Rook's, then she didn't have to clean up the mess they made when she was finally allowed to kill the woman.

"What?" Her eyebrow shot up in surprise as she turned to him, taking a large step backwards as she thought. Where had that question come from? Hadn't he asked her something similar before? "I thought we.. Had this talk." Why did he care what demons did for fun? She was just a means to an end, and even though he had been treating her kindly enough, she was a bit baffled that he was going out of his way to ask about her home world.

"I suppose that depends what you consider a hobby. Everyone has a purpose, everyone has skills. We hunt, we eat, swim, the children run around playing in the trees and the water. Some of us make clothes, some weapons."
 
Rook seemed equally baffled by her explanation. Everyone has skills and purpose. Rook drank a little bit more of his coffee and gave her a strange look his eyebrows furrowing together in thought. He went back to the kitchen and started talking "Okay, yeah, everyone's got a purpose and skills, but that's not all there is, is there?"

He put a little sugar into his coffee and this time adding cream. For some reason, he had a bit of a sweet tooth this morning. He put the cream away and then walked back into the living room and set his coffee mug down. Rook just shook his head, the explanation would make no sense. He smiled and went to a closet pulling stuff out until he found a hat and a deck of playing cards.

He put the hat down near the sliding doors to the yard, and then went to stand at the other end of the room. He grabbed a card from the deck and pulled it out. He put it between his pointer and middle finger, biting his bottom lip, and flung it into the hat. "YES!" he said, "first try, did you see that?" He looked over at her.
 
"I.. Don't know?" She gave him a peculiar look as he went in and out of the kitchen with his coffee, only to abruptly change direction and go over to a closet. What the hell was he doing now? She watched him come back with a hat and cards, raising an eyebrow when he set it by the doors and then backed up. What was he going to do with a hat on the ground, cast a spell on it?

"I saw it." Venuris had seen it just fine, but now she was looking at him like he'd sprouted a second head. What was so exciting about landing a card in the hat, was it going to do something fascinating? She walked over to the hat and crouched down, poking around in it before pulling out the card and staring at it.

"Is it supposed to do something?"
 
Rook looks at her with his eyebrows raising all the way to the top of his head. He wasn't sure how to go about this, but he said, "Yes, the card was in my hand and now it's in the hat." He said, and chuckled a little.

"Not everything is about accomplishing something," he smiled softly at her. It was something that he often told himself when he found that he was getting lost in his memories and thoughts for too long. "Also, you're in the way, I might get lucky with the neck throw." He waited for her to move out of the way and threw a few more cards, landing only two out of five, he sighed "Damn, it was a fluke!" He said. He turned around backwards for the next couple of throws, trying to aim without looking and missed entirely.

He then turned and looked towards Venuris and held out the deck of cards. "Come on, give it a try."
 
"I'm not--Fine." She sighed and dropped the card before stepping out of the way. She was technically in the way, although she still didn't quite understand the purpose of the game. He was literally just throwing cards at a hat and hoping that they landed correctly? It seemed a bit silly, but who was she to judge what he found fun?

"Wait, what?" She'd watched him curiously as he hopped around and threw the cards in various ways, but when he turned and held the deck toward her she took a step back. "You want.. Me.. To throw cards at a hat?" She looked at him skeptically and hesitated before quickly grabbing the deck from him.

"Fine, fine, I will try, although I still don't see why people do this for fun." She made a face and moved to a good position, leaning forward slightly as her tail swayed around before she threw the first card. "Well that.. Didn't go well." It had landed about two feet away from the hat and made her frown, and with an irritated shake of her head she started tossing more toward the hat.

"Oh. I got one in." Her tail snapped as she straightened out, staring at the one card that had finally made it into the hat. "I didn't think I'd actually get one."
 
He didn't laugh though he wanted to at the joy that she suddenly expressed at landing a card into the hat. It made him happy. A kind of warmth spreading out from his chest. He stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest. The moment her tail straightened he raised both his eyebrows in surprise. He had seen her convey anger with her tail, but he was unsure of what exactly that meant, though he found it delightful.

Rook made a show of nodding thoughtfully as he watched Venuris go through the motions of learning how to toss the cards in his hat, and then glanced at her one eyebrow halfway raised with a slight smirk on his lips. "That's pretty good," he nodded a bit before he added the next part, wondering if she was competitive.

"However, I think I got at least 4 out of 12, so, I'm pretty sure I'm winning," he tapped the point of his chin, and put on his most thoughtful expression, "and I think that means," he looked over at Venuris, a playful smirk on his face, "I'm pretty sure, you're losing."
 
"Winning?" She hadn't realized they were competing, and she narrowed her eyes at him and then frowned. If she lost, what were the consequences for that? "You didn't say that we were competing." What did she get if she won?

"What happens if I win?" She turned her attention back to the hat and tossed another card, making a noise of approval when it bounced off the edge of the hat and then fell inside. So that was two, which meant she needed to get at least three more in to beat his four.

"That's three." She landed another one and then missed the next, sighing as her shoulders sagged before she straightened out.
 
Rook wasn't sure why, but he enjoyed this side of her, for a moment she did seem to be truly afraid of some consequence that might affect her. He shook his head and gave her a small smile. "Nothing bad," he said easily, and then walked to the other side of her, watching her throw, "You're improving quickly, I think you might have better hand to eye coordination than I."

He chuckled a little when she asked the next question. Rook leaned forward and looked into her eyes for a moment, he was closing more distance than usual, though he was careful of her anxieties of being too close to him. For some reason, his heart started to beat faster. He wasn't close, not really, not if it were any two other individuals, but there were still questions tormenting Rook's mind about her coming downstairs to sleep near him. "What do you want?" He asked.

Then the moment passed or at least, Rook moved away from the moment, by physical leaning back away and taking a step back. "Oof, looks like I'm in some trouble here."
 
"Nothing bad?" Well, that was a start, but the entire thing still seemed strange. Was this a test to see how good she was at things? "I might. I used to hunt." She doubted that he had been a hunter, but it wasn't as if she'd specifically asked.

"What do I want?" Her brow creased as she thought, flicking another card across the room to watch it just barely make its way into the hat. What did she want? She couldn't go home, so that was out of the question, and now she was just cooped up inside his house unless she had enough energy to hold up a human appearance, and even then it was only for a short period of time.

"I want to go outside. I know it would have to be at night, but I want to go outside. I spent thirty years cooped up in a tiny room, being moved to other rooms for tests and.. Things. I want to sit outside and not feel trapped."
 
Rook smiled at her, and then watched the card fly through the air, and land into the hat. He nodded careful, on some level disappointed with the answer, and on another, he knew that it made sense. He walked to the hat and looked at her suspiciously. "You didn't use demon magic to throw the game, did you?" He smiled lightly and then stood holding up his hands, "I'm kidding, you won, fair and square."

Rook bit on his bottom lip and then looked away, crossing his arms over his chest, and at that moment, felt he had made a mistake. He felt bad for her. He felt bad for her more than he felt a desire for revenge. The chances that he could take out the other members of The Order of the Yellow Rose on his own were slim if they knew he wasn't falling in line; However. However.

The door to the yard opened before Rook knew what he was doing. "The fences are high. It's unlikely that anyone will look," he said, his voice somewhat distant. He turned to look into the living room "If they did, they might just think you're cosplaying. Come out."
 
"I--Of course I didn't." By the time she went to defend herself, Venuris realized that Rook was joking with her. She huffed quietly and then went to set the cards down before turning, realizing that he had opened the door to the back yard. She hadn't even seen him wander that far across the house, and she hesitated in the living room before edging slightly closer to the kitchen, and then the back door.

"But it's so early in the day." She hovered in the kitchen nervously, picking at the bottom of her shirt before slinking over to the open door. It seemed to good to be true, like if she stepped outside she would either be punished, or people would be there staring at her, poking at her and questioning everything.

"What's cosplaying?" It took nearly a full minute from the time she stood inside the door to when she stepped outside, and the abrupt change to seeing the sun peeking through the clouds was enough to make her mutter and shield her eyes. "I don't even.. What month is it?"
 
"October," he said, voice full of warmth.

He waited for her to wonder outside and then watched her for a moment. He could see her shielding her eyes. He bit his lip a little harder and quietly stepped back towards the door as she became accustomed to the light. He had always been a fool. It was foolish to take on The Order of the Yellow Rose and his feelings for this demon woman were also foolish.

"You should go. I work best alone," Rook said, "I'll undo the binding and you'll be able to use your magic to leave." He closed the glass door and locked it using his magic to reach out to a nearby bookshelf and make it fall in front of the glass. That would buy him some time. He ran to his book and quickly opened the one that was his grandfather's journal and a few others that went over the details of the binding. It would hurt, but by the time that Venuris got back inside, there would be plenty of fresh blood for her to use. That is, if he didn't underestimate how long it would take for her to get back inside.

He took his sweater off quickly and grabbed the knife so that he could carve that sigil out of his arm when it was time. He grabbed a bottle of salt off the bookshelf and made a gesture with his fingers to begin to make it float through the air and adorn the ground with the proper line work to do what needed to be done. He wasn't sure that it would work, but it might.
 
"What?" By the time she turned around the door was shut and locked, and when she pounded on the door the bookshelf came toppling down and made her shriek. He was just.. Leaving her outside and telling her to go? How was she ever supposed to extract her vengeance if he was going to just cast her away, tell her he would break the bond and she could just leave?

All she had wanted was to go home, to return to her world and be far, far away from humans, but she wouldn't be satisfied with doing that until she'd murdered the ones responsible for her torment. He intended to take that away from her too? It had been a trick, allowing her outside because she had 'won' the game, and now he was throwing her away because what, she wasn't good enough to aid him in the task he had promised her?

"Open the door! What the fuck are you doing?" She pounded on the glass door until her hands ached, tugging at it in an attempt to try to dislodge the lock and pry it open. "Rook! Open the fucking door!" She could hear the mechanism inside of the door groaning as it tried to give under the pressure of her pulling, and after a good minute of putting every bit of strength she had into it, the lock finally gave way and the door jerked open.

The force of it sent her reeling backward before she righted herself and all but threw herself through the door, climbing over the bookcase with several curses and quiet panting.

"You lied to me, you told me I could do this, and now you're just going to throw me away like I'm useless?!"
 
"You're misinterpreting the situation as always, Venuris!"

Rook looked at her, seemingly fragile looking half naked seated in the living room with a strange and complicated circle of strange markings and arcane writing of salt. Rook put both his hands up, this was taking far more concentration than he liked, and made a complex series of movements with his hands gritting his teeth together as the bookshelves pushed themselves off the wall and created a barrier around Rook and the symbol, the bookshelf on the floor almost colliding into Venuris as it soared to take its place.

"Without the binding, you're free to do as you please," Rook said, and then continued his chanting, carefully setting the now empty jar of salt under the arm that bore the mark that kept her from leaving the mortal world. "The only thing that changes are you get to go home! Haven't you had enough?!" He asked, didn't she realize what he was sacrificing for her benefit. Sure, the Order would know that he had gone against their wishes as soon as the binding was done, but he didn't really mean to make it out of this task alive anyway and it would just be a different lifestyle for a while as he hid from his families' forces.

"You can get the fuck out of here, already, and go home! Be happy!"
 
"Will you stop?!" She jumped out of the way of the bookshelf with an angry screech, stumbling over herself in her haste to reach him. "You're going to mess it up and this will all be for nothing!" Everything she had gone through, everything both of them had gone through at the hand of the Order, would all be for nothing if he messed this up or killed himself doing it. She wanted so desperately to be free, to go home, but not until she'd achieved her goal.

Damn him and all his bookshelves, she was going to dismantle each and every one of them when she was done with this. How dare he do this when they'd just finally started to make plans on how to proceed. How dare he turn around and do this when she'd finally started to put a little trust in him?

One of the bookshelves crashed to the floor as she wriggled through, pushing all of her energy and magic into forcing her way in to get to Rook. Books and random items were flying as it hit the ground, and she found herself stumbling before putting all of her weight into knocking him over.

"Enough!" Her tail whipped back and forth so harshly it snapped audibly, her body planted firmly on his chest as she landed on him and snatched up the knife. The sting of the blade as it caught her fingers didn't even register as she threw it across the room without bothering to look, her other hand connecting with his cheek as she panted quietly.

"That's enough. You will not risk that until I've gotten to watch them all bleed."
 
His palm raised as she moved through the bookcases and he felt energy pooling and tugging from his lower stomach as he thought about sending a shove of force in her direction, but he had expended too much energy for that, and it would start to eat away at his body if he went any further. That moment of hesitation was enough, and before he knew really what was happening, she was on top of him, pulling the knife out of his hand and tossing it aside.

The sensation of her pressed against him might have been welcome in another set of circumstances. In fact, on some level, it was now. Though, he was suddenly confronted with her strength. Physically, she was every bit stronger than he was without a doubt. If she did not want to release him, he would not be released. He was panting heavily as he felt the energy disperse that he was collecting to cast and suddenly her hand was on his cheek. He looked up into those eyes that at first had startled him, even now, they were breathtaking, but he wasn't frightened by them. Instead, he looked back at her, almost glaring for a moment, before his body relaxed.

He looked up at her and grabbed her hand that was on his cheek at first frowning and then he sighed softly letting the breath out of his lungs. "Ris," he said, "I don't want you to be trapped here with me. I want you to find peace."

This was not the position that Rook thought he would find himself in after casting the spell. He had half expected to be able to break the binding and was ready to start collecting everything important and to burn the rest of the house to the ground. His heart was beating hard for that reason, but suddenly, with her on top of him, it wasn't the only reason.
 
Why was he using that damn nickname with her again? She could have understood him using it to introduce her to the shop owner, considering how strange her full name was, but he was shortening her name and speaking as if they had known each other for years.

"How am I supposed to find peace if they still live?" She hissed the words and snatched her hand back as if she'd been scalded. Her intention had been simply to stop him from completing whatever spell he was doing, she hadn't thought of the consequences of literally launching herself and landing on top of him. She hadn't prepared herself for him to touch her, to feel the warmth of his hand on hers for a moment before she jolted back and entirely off of him.

"Do not speak as if peace is so easy to attain. You think simply being free would bring me peace?" She scowled and slunk across the room to hover near the front door, licking at the hand she'd cut on the knife.

"Did you deem my opinion unimportant?"
 
Rook stood a moment after she got off of him and reached down to grab his shirt putting that on suddenly very aware that his body was showing along with all that scar tissue. He bit the inside of his lip and then put the shirt on carefully. "It's a lost cause, Ris," he said, without any real idea why it was affecting her so much. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and didn't know how to explain that he wasn't doing this because he thought he would find peace, not really, after dismantling his family's empire. It wasn't like that. He didn't see for himself any future with a house and a white picket fence and the way that Rook had lived his life and moved through the world the idea of a house and a white picket fence seemed ridiculous.

He wasn't sure what the equivalent of that would be for Venuris, but he was sure on some level that her thirst for revenge wouldn't pave the road for that eventuality. "I don't plan on finding peace. Not really. Don't you understand that for me, after this, I'm done?" He asked. Looking at her.

"Of course, your opinion matters to me, but I didn't want you choosing to stay for the wrong reasons," Rook said, not entirely sure what he meant by that last point. He didn't want her staying for revenge, but he also didn't want her to be staying to help him by any means. He noticed her tending to her hand and he moved to the coffee table and opened the drawer that he had the first aid kit in previously, he opened it, and walked to Venuris, and opened her hand, and began to tend to the wound.
 
"You didn't even ask, you just locked me outside and told me you didn't need me!" She hissed at him when he approached and took her hand, yanking it back and cradling it to her chest.

"I'll take care of it myself." She scowled at him and stepped back, swatting at him with her tail before skirting around the room towards the bathroom. Had she been a fool to trust him at all? She hadn't expected that to sting like it did, but for some reason what he'd done stung worse than the water on her injured hand.

Once she'd finished washing off the blood and was satisfied it would heal in its own time, she left the bathroom with a hand towel wrapped around her hand and glanced at him on her way by. He could deal with one stained towel, she was far too upset to let him touch her at the moment.

"Dont you ever do that again." She had wanted to go outside initially, but now she had to worry he would try to block her out again, even if she had broken the lock during her frantic fit to get back inside.

"You don't get to take away one of the first choices I've had after so long."
 
Rook was already feeling frustrated again as he started to put the bookcase back against the wall. He did this with the other one as well. He had expended too much energy for this, and he would still need a lot of it later. The nightmares would recharge his batteries, so that wasn't that big a deal, but still, she was irritating him. He shoved the bookcase back into place and then did the same with the other one. When she came out of the bathroom, he might have still been stung himself with her anger over the events.

"Well then don't act like you're trapped here, or I am keeping you against your will! The only reason you are stuck here, with the unfortunate task of being around me, is your own thirst for revenge!" Rook shouted, "If you're staying here, that's on you, not on me. I tried to free you to go back to whatever is waiting for you in your world." Rook stood, his jaw clenching, and then continued to put the rest of the bookcases back against the walls and rearrange things back to the way they were before.

He did feel a little guilty, but only in part because of what she had said. Mostly he felt guilty because he wanted her to stay and because he didn't manage to release her. His thoughts were cloudy.
 
"I don't know if anything is waiting for me! I've been gone for thirty years, remember?!" Venuris refused to back down when he shouted, even if it did make her ears go back like a frightened dog, or send her tail snapping around behind her back like an unruly whip.

"You're one to talk, your thirst for revenge is going to literally get you killed. You'll do whatever you need to just to get it all over with, even if it means throwing the one being who has the power to help you away like they're nothing. What do you think would have happened if you'd broken that bond and someone found out? I have no idea what all your family is capable of, and I'm not willing to throw that all away because you want to be self sacrificing all of a sudden." Everything would have been rendered pointless if they'd been discovered, and knowing how vicious the Order could be, she was incredibly wary of them.

"What would you have done if they showed up in the middle of the night and just stole me back? You'd have lost your only weapon. Think about that the next time you pull a stunt like that." What a pair they were. She shook her head angrily and grabbed one of the bags of clothes he had purchased, storming back into the bathroom and shutting the door before the shower abruptly started up. This was going to be an.. Interesting day.
 
"Well, you should think about the fact that--!" Rook was starting to say before she went into the bathroom. "Hey! I'm talking to you!" Rook grit his teeth and then started to put up the bookshelves again. He cleaned as best he could. While he didn't want to use more magic, the best way to handle the salt all over the floor was just that. He concentrated, despite not having very much energy left, and managed to get it all back in the jar. Once Rook was finished with that he sighed and opened the yard door and sat, rolling up his sleeves, still feeling a bit to warm.

He looked up at the sky thinking about what she had said. She was a powerful ally to have, but he didn't like thinking in terms of that very much. He knew she was right on some level to be upset and about him. They were similar. Rook did not think this was a good thing. He had tried to find peace, but he couldn't. He didn't think of himself as blood thirsty, only that he wouldn't be able to get anything like rest until he knew his family's crimes might stop.

He wanted a cigarette. He hadn't smoked in years, but, boy, did he want one. He rubbed at his forearm and kept looking up, trying to let his nerves settle. Why had he done it? He wasn't prone to taking uncalculated risks.

Are you interested?

All in all, it would be better for her not to be involved in any of this, but, if he couldn't let the past die and had plans to die with it, who was he to say that she should let it go either.
 
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