11| Have I Scared You?

(risotto being a dramatic little bitch my beloved<3)

4.7k words... yeah, too tired so not editing this, suck it.

--------------


"How the tables have turned," A voice in the dark muses, "It is now you who are visiting me in my chamber, rather I visiting you.

Risotto creeps upon the entrance to y/ns room with a divine hesitance. His hands, barren of a candle to guide him, and his mind, empty of any plan to escape should things go bad. 

A single beam of light shoots through the crack of the door, the lights painting the halls their bleak colors, bleeding into the vampires bedroom like blood in the water as it mixed with the darkness.

He could not hear the heavy hums of the wolfs breath, the murrs and grumbles it spelled in its sleep. He didn't think it was in the room at all.

"And what is it you wish to talk about this time?" (Y/n) said. 

Risotto hesitated at the door, his foot running in and out of the dark as he tested, considering, whether he should really step inside or not. Should he trust the vampire so charming, he might lose his head, but he also might not. It was a gamble, and he was an addict.

His eyes played ping-pong between that portion of darkness he knew the lord sat, and the bit of light that guaranteed safety, the importance of either fighting for priority. 

He's convinced himself he trusts (Y/n), but does he really believe that? The line between what he wants to believe and what he can believe is blurry, and the patient silence of the room is only making it harder.

Hunting vampires all his life, it's an occupation that requires little mercy. None have ever spoken to him, and none have with such kindness and thought. There's is plenty to doubt about the vampire hiding in the room, though he makes it hard.

"Why is it I'm not dead yet?" The words slip out before he can catch them, and a disapproving sigh comes in response.

"This again?" (Y/n) says. "Do I need to say it all over for you?"

Risotto bites his tongue. He hadn't thought to say it, it was more so a comment towards himself. Dealing with such a dangerous person-- no, not a person, thing-- should be done so with the utmost precaution; and here he was obeying the demand of no candle guide.

He's convinced himself it was a demand; failing to remember it was he who promised to return with no candle.

The vampire settles in his bed some, the weight forcing its supporting legs to softly groan with the movement. He's getting impatient with Risotto's uncertainty, which only happens to frighten him more than encourage him.

It gets to the point where it all ends up boiling over, the recognition that it's turning into one thing at a time: Come visit me in my dark room, don't look at my face, now come without a candle, now come to me with your neck exposed.

It will be a matter of time before he's tasked to wheel himself in on a silver plate, an apple stuffed into his mouth.

"I don't think," Risotto retreats back behind the fine line. "I want to come in there and talk tonight."

"Well, that's just fine. How about we go for a walk instead? Or I could have Prosciutto prepare some dinner..."

"No, thank you, I'm fine. I'll be returning to my quarters."

Risotto left before (Y/n) could argue the point further, his paces silent in the hall as he heads to safety from something that was never a threat to begin with.

The room is still dark, and the vampire is cast into isolation once again. Company is the dust on the windowsill and the unseen monsters lurching around in the dark.

Cold air leaks through the cracks of the window's wooden frame, carrying the condolences of every dead thing that witnessed his rejection and cooing the ghoul as any monstrous guardian would.

(Y/n) thoughtfully thumbed the fine threads in his hand. A gift he had created with purpose and hope, that a bridge could be made between him and his guest. He had hidden it in the dark, hoping for its creation to remain a surprise. It sits without an owner now, a mockery of his efforts, and it sharply thrown to the wall.

"Are we throwing a tantrum in here?"

Prosciutto appears at the door with two cups in his hand, and looks into the abyssal night. He easily pinpoints the face of his lord and sighs, "Oh, and we're crying, too?"

"Don't patronize me."

"You're being a baby."

"He's scared of me."

"Of course he is, you eat his kind."

(Y/n) pulls himself under his covers. The regal attitude of the High Lord of The Manor has fallen, and now in his place is a pouting child. "Not all the time."

The two cups are set onto the bedside table, and Prosciutto sits down on the mattress's edge, looking at the frightfully large lump whining beneath the sheets and comforters with pity.

His hands falls to stroke the vampires hair, settling back into the fatherly role he's been nearly forced into after becoming the vampires caretaker. 

"You must come to the understanding, my lord, that just because you want something it cannot be simply given to you."

"I know that!" He cries. "I'm not my brother, so don't treat me like I'm an idiot! I was doing everything I could to make him comfortable and like me, and he left, looking like I was- like-"

"Calm down. What happened, exactly? Tell me."

(Y/n) pulled himself upright, looking down at his caretaker with a disheartened face, who rushed to wipe it free of it tears with his thumb. So many years living with each other in the dark, Prosciutto developed some sort of odd night-vision, though that was to be expected with the extra slight dosage of vampire blood given to him.

"Well," The vampire started, "he had come to my chamber like normal, and I invited him inside. Then he asked why he wasn't dead yet, for the hundredth time, and got scared and left."

"That can't have been all."

"It was. I asked why he would still think about that at this point, when I haven't laid a single scratch to his face." (Y/n)'s voice dropped to a whisper, cracks forming between his words as he came steadily close to breaking. "I don't know what I did wrong."

Prosciutto sighed and discarded his lab coat to the end of the bed, leaving him to bask in the winter air with only a thin turtleneck. 

The heavy bite mark in his neck has remained for the many centuries he's become a ghoul, and it flashes with the small movements he makes as he softly pulls the covers from the vampires head.

"You are playing a sad game of push and pull. You push him to accept you without reason, and he pulls away. He pushes you to see your face and finally find something to relate to, and you pull away." He sighs.

His hand rubs (Y/n)s shoulder with care, as his other brings the cup he'd delivered earlier to the vampires intimidatingly larger palm. 

"What do I do, then?" A cry comes from the blankets. "All I want is someone to keep me company."

Prosciutto wants to say, but you have us. Though he knows it's not the same, for he can see how (Y/n) looks at Risotto in the dark, when he takes advantage of his human handicaps and allows himself a vulnerable moment to simply stare, and wonder.

It should not be something so loosely addressed as obsession, but more so a curious love that a hiker might have when finding a docile deer. 

You see it all the time, it passes you by and the only way you can get your hands on it is by killing it-- but then that one deer comes by, its willing and gentle, you can get close to it, study it. It's wonderful.

Prosciutto huffs. This is the part where he imagines (Y/n) begs to keep the deer.

"I know, but what is it you're going to do about it? Will you wait for him to come to you? Or will you go to him?" He says.

"I don't know."

"The sun will not wait for you to decide."

(Y/n) slowly sits up in his bed again, and sucks up the contents in the mug without a thought. "I will tell him, he does not have to come to me."

"Smart of you to decide this. But do not make it sound as though you do not wish for him."

"You nag me like a father."

"I am your father."

------

He hears those unmistakable heavy paces enter his room, the ground bowing beneath tall feet, and keeps to his retreat in the bathroom. The bathtub is his safe haven, though cramped as it may be-- it reminds him of his old bed in the town.

Risotto begins to miss the large, pleasant space of the bed in the joined room. But he reminds himself he has grown too comfortable with all of it, and that his agreeable conditions are all fabricated to make him submit.

"Risotto." A deep voice calls into the room quietly. "Are you in here?"

He keeps quiet, intending to sleep with fluffy towels rather than the blankets provided. Yes, he denies himself that luxury just as well, and yes, he does miss it dearly.

"I apologize if I've scared you, somehow. You had told me you would come without torch, but I'm afraid that was partly in light of me being pushy for you to accept your current conditions. I cannot imagine you're comfortable being held here."

(Y/n) is somewhere by the entrance of his room. Most likely, he recognizes Risotto is not in his bed, but can still smell the lingering scent that tells of his presence. 

"I will not force you to visit me if it's something you do not want. A human so close to a vampire, I only now recognize the daunting difference that must haunt you with worry. Forgive me."

Risotto sits in the bathtub, cloaked in his silence, as he listens. It's so sincere, the words are so rich and with purpose, he fears it may be one of those tactics, where he becomes hypnotized with charm.

It only works in direct presence of most vampires, but he knows (Y/n) is not like most vampires; so he grows skeptic of his factuality, and what is simply charisma or true repent.

"I hope-" He hears a slight break in the vampires words, and his heart stings. But why, that is something he refuses to realize. "I hope you will still speak to me. But, it is also fine if you do not. Thank you for the time you've spent with me despite, I've enjoyed it all so dearly. Goodnight."

The groaning of the floorboards leads back to the hall, and Risotto begins to panic. Has he made a mistake, was running away not the right decision? (Y/n) sounded so hurt, but could it have been a lie to lure him out?

Risotto climbs from his spot in the bathtub, accidentally, though with some intention, hitting a part of him against the side so it made noise. 

But the vampire kept walking, and the lack of immediate attention, the introduction of finality, it was almost sickening.

Risotto rushed from his hiding place, nearly tripping over the recovering ground where heavy weight once lay, and pushed himself into the hall. What was he doing? First running from (Y/n), and now chasing after him?

It must be some spell, a drive foreign to his own that has pushed him to do something so out of character. He has been out of character since he has arrived, a bit more expressive, a tad more vulnerable. 

Why is that? Is this place a secret sanctuary for him? Had this turned from a kidnaping to a rescue? He hated his life in that town, a poor paid vampire hunter, maybe this was meant to be, his saving grace.

His scent must be known in the hall by now, (Y/n) must know he's just behind him, and yet he still walks away. With this sudden disinterest, a piece of him breaks into turmoil, is lit on fire with a sudden rage that makes him feel as though he's been abandoned all over again.

The only thing that seemed to care for his life was the very thing he had dedicated himself to hunting. 

Not the townspeople, who showed not an ounce of appreciation for his dangerous work; not its government, who hired him forcefully; and definitely not those who fled at the sight of him and his blood-stained clothes, never wondering if it was his own spill rather than a creature, if he was the one hurting. Too many nights had he bandaged himself up in the dark.

And now this single break from that emotionally-numbing madness that left him a broken person was walking away from him, giving up. He would not let him.

"Wait, (Y/n)," Risotto calls, and the footsteps stop. 

This towering beast, eight feet, maybe nine feet tall, it is unknowingly traced in the moonlight so. He sees it, though he does not mean to. The vampires face.

It happens just when he turns around to face him, deathly white light tracing over his skin with its delicate fingertips, illuminating every curve and carved part of his face. It was such a gentle reveal, and though it was, it still hit Risotto like a sack of bricks.

This thing that fears its own face, its such a beautiful creature, what part of it could it despise that he'd withhold such a wonderful sight? Perhaps, it was a design of punishment, such a handsome face should be worshipped instead of hidden away in the dark.

"You," He stammers, and (Y/n) looks at him a bit longer, a flicker of hope shining through his depressed language. "You're not a monster."

An unexpected shock pulls itself to the vampires face, and realization seems to have settled in as a window makes itself known. There's a fear that comes to make itself known, fabrics and curtains and every shadowing thing is thrown at the source of revelation.

When all is dark again, (Y/n) is gone. A running breaks through the halls silence and Risotto could only feel compelled to follow. 

It was only good fortune he found himself as fast as he did, though it was barely enough to keep par with what he hunted, a second glimpse of that timeless portrait. 

He could hear the route (Y/n) tried to follow, he knew it too well-- the path to the vampires chamber. Where was that earlier hesitance, those constant doubts and thoughts of being, literally, led to his death? They are gone now, dead with his idea of escaping.

Ghostly murmurs tickle his ears, and things are tossed around in a hurricane. Sorbet and Gelato urge their lord to fasten his escape, they say, they will stop Risotto long enough, though it is a fruitless claim.

The door to the room is reached too fast, it lurches out of the wall to meet the vampire as he throws himself inside, and is yet so distant to the desperate man who follows, simply to meet a locked door at his end.

"(Y/n), open the door."

There comes a wretched wail from the other side. "I will not!"

"Open it, please." Risotto urges, handling the knob roughly as he attempts to force his way. "Please, I beg of you."

"I won't, I won't! I cannot!"

"Why not!"

"Oh, I'm a monster-- you hated me before, this I understood, but I can't stand it now! You've seen me and now it's all over!"

"Nothing is over, just open the door and let me in." Sorbet and Gelato have abandoned their attempts at stopping the human from doing as he pleased, and instead have taken to audience the spectacle.

"It's horrible, it's horrible, no, no, no... I don't want it to end.." 

"You speak nonsense. Open it,"

A quiet, shattering cry comes on the other side, and if he hadn't known better, Risotto would've been convinced that was a human going through the worst heart break anyone could conceive, mourning the loss of something that could never be touched, embraced.

"I've lost you now, haven't I? It's all gone, I've ruined it." (Y/n) sobbed.

"You have lost nothing. All you need do is open the door, and let me in-- everything will be fine."

"You don't understand, you can't possibly understand, I was so close."

"So close to what?"

"Finally having someone, simply having someone, and oh, look what I've done..."

Risotto looks to the ghosts gently swaying in the air behind him, embraced in each others arms, simply watching. Is that what it meant to have someone to (Y/n)? Is it what it meant to Risotto? 

He'd like someone to have like that. He could only imagine how it must feel for a centuries old being, alone and grasping at the air in prayer for simply anything to deliver him from his own solitude.

"You've done nothing." Risotto gently tests the doorknob again, disappointed at its stubbornness. "Please, open the door for me."

Another small whimper comes forth, and his hearts twists in his chest. There is no bargaining anymore, (Y/n) has shown he is as unmovable as that damn knob, and now Risotto must show he does not care for his stubbornness.

In his pocket, a tool he's kept on him at all times, he pulls it forth and jams it into the knob. It takes a single, calculated swing to break it off, and the little golden mechanism falls to the ground with a heavy clunk.

There, he sees it again as the doors are forced open, that wonderful face disappears and sinks into the shadows, avoiding the spoil of light with such a pained, frightened expression. "Do not come closer!" (Y/n) shouts from the dark.

But his fear has gone. He has known this, acknowledged its absence as he descends into the dark chamber like he should have earlier that night. "(Y/n), you will show yourself to me."

"No! You can't make me!"

He hears his voice in that dark, and guards the only exit he imagines (Y/n) can fit through. His eyes lurk around the room, fighting for a moments recognition, when he sees it again, there, on the floor.

The vampire's afraid, his large, clawed hands push him against the farthest reach in the room, pressing him to the wall in hopes it may split apart and eat him whole so he may avoid the entire confrontation altogether.

"There you are." Risotto says, departing from his position at the door. (Y/n) struggles against the floor, why he has descended to such an inconvenient spot an unknown factor, and a similarly unimportant one.

Prey caught in a trap, Risotto nearly sees himself back in those woods so many moons ago, fighting on the forest ground for a moments peace. And now, how it all comes around, and he watches the vampire he was meant to be feast to scramble away from him as best he can.

"Why are you scared? What has happened that worries you like this?" Risotto inches closer to (Y/n), and he feels a part of him break at how the thing violently flinches and continues to kick himself away. 

"You've seen me, and now I'm done! I can't- I don't have- Please, I beg of you, it cannot be painless with this heartache, but tell me it won't hurt?"

Risotto quirks an eyebrow at this, and still, comes closer. (Y/n) seems close to having a heart attack. 

"What on this earth do you speak of? I've seen your face for only a few passing moments, and barely now in this broken dark," Risotto gestures to the large stream of light pooling in from the hall, "...And you make it sound like it's the end of the world." 

"Because, now you will kill me!"

"Kill you?"

"Isn't that what you've chased me for, what you've come to do now? You got what you wanted finally, and now you're done with me! I can't have you anymore!"

"Of course you can have me, why would I kill you?" Risotto takes to lowering himself to the ground, nearly in a crawl, and continues his approach. (Y/n) seems to almost physically relax at this, though only for a moment, for then he begins to pull in on himself, retreating whatever he can away from the human.

"Because, that is what you do, and it is what I am sure you have waited all this time for; to have the perfect opportunity to have your way with me, and kill me." (Y/n) sobbed, and Risotto couldn't help but to think even his tears were gorgeous. "Well, you have it now! Do it!"

"I will not."

"Just do it, I beg of you, I can't take the anticipation anymore!"

"I have not come to kill you." Risotto stresses, and now, has come so close, there is no other place for the vampire to hide in, given he had the thought to. "Truthfully, you have enamored me."

"That can't be true. You ran away in fear earlier, and you treat me as though I'm only entertainment. You toy with my heart, and I hate it." 

"(Y/n), I did not seek your face to satisfy some grand curiosity of mine so that I could kill you immediately after. I simply wished to know who I shared secrets with in the dark-- but I have found something much better."

(Y/n) hiccups and tries to tuck his head behind his folded knees, but Risotto is too quick, and cups his head with his hands and lifts it back up. Even still, he looks at the human in fear, eyes wide and eyebrows curved upward as he sobbed through clenched teeth.

"You're simply so... What could I even say?" Risotto studies the head in his hand a bit longer, looking into the horrified red eyes mirroring his own. "So many words to describe you, and yet I cannot find one that I deem good enough."

"I'm a monster." (Y/n) whispers into his hands. 

"You are no monster. This face I hold, I could stare at it for days and never tire, it is so different than the one I mapped with my hands. I feel I am truly seeing you, now."

"You hate me?"

"Goodness, now I know how you felt when I asked you, over and over, when you'd eat me." Risotto sighs. "No. I don't hate you. It's quite the opposite."

Something seemed to shift. A spark of excitement, relief, hope-- something as wonderful and relieving as those, it flashed on (Y/n)'s face, but he dared not feed into the fantasy. Instead, he would wait for Risotto to spell it out for him.

He didn't make him wait long.

"You said, you would like to have someone?" Risotto says, coming impossibly close that the vampire has simply frozen up. "How do you mean?"

"I want, I wanted, I mean-" (Y/n) quietly gasped for breath between his words. "I wanted someone to have."

"Explain, I cannot stand such little communication."

"I wanted someone to have, that is it." 

"Have, how?" Risotto says. "I need to know. I need you to tell me."

(Y/n) was creeping towards another falling, a second descent into a madness he could not control. He softly cried as he attempted to force words past whines, hesitation a shackle on his tongue.

"I wanted someone to have, and, to hold, and to simply be with..."

Risotto thumbed the tears on (Y/n)s cheek, wiping them gone. "Would you want someone to love?"

"I could not ask for so much."

"But you can. Ask for it, now, and I will give you an answer."

(Y/n) shook his head. "I will not. I will ruin us asking for something so fickle, I am blessed to simply have had you to talk to at all."

"Then, you would not want me to love?"

"I'm not allowed to say, my answer could drive you away, and I will be alone then, truly."

"I will ask you again, tell me. I must know, it hurts me not to."

"It can't possibly."

"It does. Tell me."

The vampire retreats into silence again, and Risotto worries he may have scared him, until he can see (Y/n) doubtfully parting his mouth, the words riding on the tip of his tongue. 

He remains patient, waiting for those words he so desperately wants to hear, because if he weren't patient he'd be tempted to kiss him now that he has him.

"If I could," (Y/n) starts, though he quickly shuts up. It's back to a questioning silence again, but Risotto makes sure he doesn't appear bothered, and continues to stay quiet as he caresses (Y/n)s face encouragingly. 

The vampire's teeth, he can see them, shifting incredulously, opening to speak though shutting when he decides to swallow his words. A minute passes before anything comes out.

"If I could, in a perfect world, where everything is happy and I'm allowed to wish for such things," (Y/n) began again, trembling beneath Risotto's touch. "I would wish for someone to love. And if I could wish upon that wish, I'd ask for it to be you."

Risotto could feel a shot of relief and joy swim through him, but he continued to listen, as it seemed the vampire had more to say.

"But it is not a perfect world," He says disappointingly. "And everything isn't happy, and I'm not allowed to wish for such things. I can only ever ask for my coven to remain with me, and they aren't even vampires. I am destined to get the short hand of everything."

"Not this." Risotto says back. "Not with me."

"What do you mean?"

"Go on, wish for it. Ask for someone to love you," 

"Why would I do that? I've already told you-"

"Just do it. Just ask."

(Y/n) swallows thickly and looks down at Risotto, still shaking and as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. 

He waits for the punchline of the joke, the part where he laughs and pretends this is all a bad dream, but it does not come.

"Alright," He says with a tremor in his voice. "I wish for someone I could love, that would love me."

Risotto swipes away the oncoming tears that begin to pool down (Y/n)s face, as he finally breaks into pieces, crumbling at his fingertips. At this, Risotto coos to him, hushing him and coming even closer, to embrace him best he could despite the vampires daunting height.

"It's alright, hush now," Risotto mumbles. "You've gotten what you wanted."

"I have not. Forever I will be left in the company of empty space and left to wait for the day I will eventually rot. And I will have no one then." 

"Have you not heard me? You wished for someone to love, and I am here."

(Y/n)'s crying had come to slow, gradually, and he had finally taken notice of the strong pressure enveloping him, the arms of a human wrapped around him so tight. "You do not mean that."

"It is not something I would want to rush into, but, I would like it, yes. Would you have me?"

"If only you'd let me."

"I would."

"Then," (Y/n)s face flushes a deeper red than before. Embarrassment. "Please, let me apologize for my earlier behavior. It was... That reaction was not something I am proud of."

"I understand why you behaved the way you did, as I know you understood my own fright. I appreciate your patience with me, and so it is only right I exhibit that same patience with you." 

Risotto finds himself still entranced, he considers he must look like a fool ogling at the vampire in such a blasphemous way-- though it's not like he could help himself.

"How about, tomorrow night, we do something fun?" (Y/n) says, and Risotto runs his thumb over his red cheek, tracing its heat. "I can't imagine there are many enjoyable things here."

"Tomorrow? Why not now?" Risotto whines.

"The sun will rear its ugly head soon enough. There isn't enough time in the world for us, and I do not wish to keep you here with me when you have the privilege of doing things outside of the night."

"Who cares for that ball of fire? I've already adapted myself to your hours. Let me stay, and we can talk, like I promised."

"Well..." (Y/n) pretends to contemplate, though its obvious he's stalling to relish in his excitement. "...Alright. You may stay. Light as many candles as you'd please, and you may use my bed when you tire."

"As many as I'd like? I could not hold a candle's flame to your charm, it would melt just as I have." Risotto says. "I need only one to enjoy you."

And only one candle was lit.

Comment