the tease of blood

"--uhhh-"

Yeah, not what she meant AT ALL, but okay??? Did she hesitate a little too long? Or was she this out of the game that assuming she meant sex made the most sense here? Now she was second guessing herself entirely, mentally replaying how she spoke and what she might have done to indicate she meant hooking up versus-

Darcy ducked her head almost shyly and followed his lead. When they were both settled in the booth she piped up.

"I just meant like, you know, people say coffee but it's a catch all term for... y'know, drinks? Like, tea! I meant do you really mean coffee, are you a coffee dude or are you into tea or would you rather we were knockin' back brewskis or.. or.."

Jesus christ, what was WRONG with her??

She splayed a hand out on the table, slim fingers tapping lightly.

"I mean I'd totally..." whew, good god his eyes were so blue in this light. Boy she was going to absolutely get wrecked, wasn't she?

"..I'd totally be down for... for that. For sex, I mean, like you're super good looking. Oh my god, I am so sorry, I promise I don't just go around offering that to people, I'm just literally incapable of shutting the fuck up sometimes, wow. Yeah, let's just-"

Darcy lowered her head against her arm for a moment, hiding a muffled, nervous chittery laugh and groan before lifting her head again.

"I'm a manager at a small retail store, mostly. It's for uhm, esoteric shit... not nearly as cool as what you do. Did you always want to do that?"

"Wait, what?" Kirk looked like 18 wheeler truck is coming at him, the way his eyes almost popped out of his head. He inwardly crumbled so hard, he felt mortified on the spot. He wanted to desperately ask her why her blood pumped so hard when she asked him? Why the smell of her blood lingered in the air for him? But that'd be weird, so he kept it in.

"—I'm so sorry. I thought it was a euphemism! I mean, it's great to know that—that's on the table—but yeah, I'm a coffee guy. I'm kinda any kind of drink guy. Kinda hard to get drunk. I got a weirdly high tolerance." Kirk explained, seeing the waitress finally come by and he felt personally saved by the added distraction.

"Can I get a pot of coffee and two mugs?"He looked at Darcy to see if she wanted anything else. "It's on me since I asked you out for coffee." He offered, trying to use what William told him a long time ago. Like if you asked for the date, you pay for it and if you didn't still pay for it.

#ooc;#--- omg he's mortified

Kirk misreading signals because he could hear Darcy's blood pumping fast lmaooo

@suredid

pagefied

karen entered the diner with the paper on her arm as she walked and sat on the booth behind him; her ear caught something about the newspaper as she sat right behind him, ❝ are you surprised by this headline? it not even one of the worst, ❞ the blonde added as she was intercepted by a waitress. ❝ yeah, coffee is fine.. thank you, ❞ her voice was calm as she placed her newspaper on the table and reached for the menu the lady offered before walking away.

#hc;#--- is this an allegory for the ame/rican med system....yes

"wait, what do you mean?" He turned his head, the top of his hair only visible from the booth because he was hunched over. "Like they print bad headlines or there's more about the bat-thing?" He asked, knowing he sounds off. Who would care about newspaper headlines? But, his breathing gets a little more haggard, his fists clenching tight. He thought he did a good job hiding, limiting his flying until 3:00 am at night. How did they see him?

"It's just—why the bat thing? Y'know? There's so much going on. Who would care about a bat monster? There's Spider-Man, um, that guy with the horns—DareDevil, ah, that other guy—who kills people. Bullseye. Why would a newspaper waste space on something like this? It seems so—unprofessional."

#pagefied

"Wait, what about a bat creature?" Kirk looked at the headline on the tv in the diner and then saw someone's newspaper with the headline: GIANT BAT CREATURE SPOTTED IN NEW YORK. "Oh, shit." He muttered under his breath. "I-I didn't think they'd report on something so—ridiculous."

#open;

Kirk can synthesize blood that he can drink, but the costs of producing one bag is insanely high, so he constantly has to choose whether to feed himself or go a bit longer with his hunger.

Their audience proceeded to grow by two when a couple lined up behind the lady who was impatiently tapping her toe behind the OTHER man, and yeah, the guy waiting to take an order had like laserbeams about to shoot out of his eyes.

"SO sorry," she wasn't the least bit sorry.

Darcy reached for his phone and handed off her own in the same manner. She moved as she typed, leading them from the counter and toward the exit. She paused as the doors slid open and lifted his phone at an angle, teeth flashed in a beaming grin.

Now his phone would sport a picture of Darcy cheesin' whenever she called.

"I'm a total night-owl, so don't feel bad if you get like, midnight urges to chat or something."

She knows which diner he means, a spot she'd never graced before now but then she was pretty sure it used to be a Chinese place a couple months ago. His phone traded back to him she adjusted her satchel on her hip and led the way.

"Soooo... are you like, an actual coffee guy or just someone who says it and means .. y'know...." a heat crept up over her cheeks and outward along her ears. Thank god it was getting darker out as the evening settled in.

Kirk just put his number in, taking a photo of the deli and saving it. "Really?" He hands over her phone, taking his in return. "I don't usually sleep much. I'm—always grading papers. I'm just swamped all the time." He told a little white lie. He can't say that he doesn't sleep much because he's a weird bat freak.

He follows after her, pocketing his phone, walking side by side with Darcy. "Wait—what?" Kirk looked confused, wondering what she meant, but then he heard her blood pumping a bit faster, the smell of fresh blood flooding angular veins. He grits his teeth, his eyes watching her face turn red. His knuckles turning white from how hard his fist is clenched.

(focus. focus. keep talking)

(don't fuck this up.)

"—You mean if I wanted to have sex with you? That's really—bold." He tried finding a better word for it. "I meant the coffee. I want to get to know you. Um—not that I would have turned down the sex! I'm just more of a date guy leading up to it. I kinda want to know you, Darcy." He felt his ears burn. He could see the diner up ahead, walking up to hold the door for her. "Anyway, what do you do?" He asked, walking behind her. "Let's sit here." He pointed at a corner booth, glad the diner is seat yourself.

xunreinx

She'd been kicking herself before seeing in the alley, eye teeth still too sharp piercing the inside of her lower lip as she grit her teeth. To be fair she'd assumed it was some girl getting roughed up by a John that didn't know what stop meant. But the closer Selina got the more she realized that she'd made a mistake, a terrible one, the smell of blood filling her nose as she came to a stop just inside the alley.

Such a stupid idea, such an idiotic thing to do. Curiosity pushed her closer, and self preservation screamed to run, leaving her caught in indecision as the man slowly turned. There was time to run, she could just run, but the sobs had made her own throat tighten in sympathy. For a brief moment she let herself believe that she'd stumbled on a moment of loss. It happened in Gotham, more often that most places. But she wasn't an idiot, and she could see just fine in the dark that there wasn't a wound on him.

“Did you do this?' A subtle lean, ready to start running, ready to turn heel and take off like a bat out of hell. "Or was this done to you?'

If it came down to it she'd claw her way up the wall to get away, it would be unexpected. A rare occasion that she was grateful for Dr. Dorian's mad science.

Oh, no. Oh, no. OH NO!

He sees her, his red eyes taking in a woman stepping close to him, he's been caught. The blood on him and only him paints him as the one who did this. There's no excusing this. He wouldn't try anyway. He did this. He drank this man's blood until he gorged himself like a fat tick.

"I-I did this. I—," he's shaking, his hands trembling as he looks at the corpse in front of him. "I–I ate him." Kirk sobs out, crying into his bloody hands. His wails echoing in the alley, he scrambles towards the man, his hands scrunching up his shirt. He's leaving bloody handprints on him.

"I didn't mean to. I got so hungry. I blacked out and then—,"he hung his head low. "I don't remember it. I don't...but I did it. I had to have done it. I'm here, and I'm not hungry anymore." He muttered to himself. "I'm sorry. I know it means nothing to you, but I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." He tells the dead man. "This should have never happened to you." He reaches over to close the man's eyes.

#xunreinx

small blurb on how he came to be:

Kirk Langstrom is a professor in zoology who was studying bats, trying to use dna splicing to find a way to cure deafness. This led to him using the vampire bat's saliva to break down a tumor he had (one he was suffering from that was virtually inoperable), but his serum would break down due to how unstable it was.

Until, one day when he combined William's research on nanites to stabilize his serum, he was sure it would work. He eagerly injected himself but made a horrific error. The vampire bat serum genetically spliced him, altering his dna and turning him into psuedo-vampire, dependent on blood to survive.

#bio;

thesoldiersminute

Jeremy Allen White as Carmen 'Carmy' Berzatto The Bear | S04E01

#f;

"Yeah!!" she snaps her fingers at him. "That's it!"

Man, that book fucked her UP!

She was about to say as much when two things happened. Well, three, technically.

One, he smiled. Darcy was an absolute sucker for a certain kind of smile. The sort you didn't always catch because people only seemed to do it when they didn't mean to be seen. Could have been he didn't care if she saw it or not, but it felt a little bit like a secret and that did things to her.

Two, he told her his name AND his profession. Which meant that he was like, not a total bum?? But also?? What the fuck, that was literally so cool! And she knew people with bitchin' jobs, so that was saying something.

And three, he actually wanted to buy liver, like, to eat. Which, sure, totally a thing some people did but no one she knew and that was actually kind of.. sort of.... incredibly weird.

And interesting. Oof, she had the hots for this guy already, damn.

"Oh, cool cool cool, yeah, no.. I mean, yeah, I live like, a few blocks north, but my usual store has like, banned me, or whatever. Totally innocent, I swear, it's just that the owner is my arch nemesis, I think, so y'know... ha ha, can't go there!"

She had gotten mad about a phone call while shopping and was near the fresh fish. The scent of it did SOMETHING to her and the next thing she knew the owner was chasing her out of the store with a broom and she was spitting raw salmon out of her mouth.

"Do you need to... like.. I can wait. I mean, if you wanted to get coffee now. Or," fuck, did he mean LATER? Her cheeks blazed.

"Or I can just give you my number!"

Kirk is taking in all this info. She got banned from her store? he thinks quickly before he fumbles with his phone, trying to dig out of his pocket.

"Yeah, I meant now. Uh, no—no, I can get liver anytime. It's not a one day sale. I can come back later for it." He says, finally having his phone in his hands.

He's been out of practice for years now. He hasn't gone on a date since college? He tries not to remember what happened with Tina and William. He liked her first, but he didn't have the nerve to ask her out and then William did instead.

Kirk never held it against him. He didn't know. They still don't. He hadn't spoken to them in a few years, but now, he didn't hesitate when in opportunity presented itself. Even with his—aliments—he wanted to believe he wasn't cursed to be alone forever.

"Yeah, just put your number down." He swiped a bit until new contact form was on display, holding it out for her to grab.

"There's a nice diner around the corner. We can go there to get some coffee." He notices another man standing behind them. "You can go around, we're not in line." He ignores the obvious glares from the deli worker. He guesses if the worker could smite them, he would.

#ooc;#--- all this to say he is very dangerous when he's lost control

kirk does look like batman when he has a handle on his shit

but then if his hunger gets the better of him, he do be transforming into man bat

evilhorse

Batman (Volume 3) #156 (Tony Harris variant cover)

#kirk*

There's a sickening crack coming from his body, his sinew and tendons stretching far what a human is capable of. He heaves on the ground, wheezing, clawing at the floor of his apartment. His nails growing into talons, fingers fusing together as he tries standing up, but he's unsteady, his feet stumbling as he tries going for the window. He has to get out. He has to feel the wind.

His heart beating hard in his ears, as he struggles to push the window up, his feet finding perch on the fire escape outside. Kirk's vision blurs as he sees nothing but a landscape of red.

A sob can be heard, trailing off into the sky as he flies up and away from his home, his body tightly wound and balled up as he tries making it to the abandoned skyscraper, shoes touching down on concrete as he crumbles on a half-done balcony that probably costs more than what he'll ever make as a professor.

He lies there, sobbing into the ground, his ribs cracking and forming over again to make room for the enlarged lungs that are rapidly growing in their place.

Somewhere between sobs, he blacks out, welcoming the peace as he hears his body still morphing into the giant bat he's becoming.

#drabble;

I didn't realize how fun writing kirk would be. It scratches that specific itch of wanting to write batman but not batman (bruce)

#ooc;

Oh thank fuck. He laughed and she was pretty sure it wasn't AT her.

Maybe.

"Right, but this book was about an outbreak that happened uhmm.. in... fuck, where was it? Somewhere in America, whatever, and you know how quickly it could have become twenty-eight days later with that shit. I think what freaks me out the most is just how quickly it can basically liquefy your-"

Now who was the one rambling? To a total stranger no less, while deciding if she wanted to cook fresh chicken later or just pick up something fast and processed to it's most delicious and unrecognizable form: the mcnugget.

"...organs... and... you know what? Yeah, actually."

Behind them someone coughed. An old lady glowered at Darcy when she glanced over her shoulder.

"Sorry, go ahead mam, I think I'm good."

The man behind the deli counter also looked fairly DONE with these two. Darcy took a step backward to exchange places with her and turned her high beam smile at the wacky fella with the big eyes.

He was pretty cute, and if he was crazy then she'd just like, turn into a bear and eat him, ha ha ha.

"I'm Darcy. Do you live in this neighborhood? I don't usually shop here, actually."

"That sounds like the hotzone." He uttered quickly, Kirk looked interested in what Darcy said before he snapped out of it and realized they were holding up the line at the deli.

"Oh, I'm sorry!"

He moved aside, feeling his cheeks get warm again, embarrassed that he caused an inconvenience. A small smile crept onto his face when Darcy looked at him. He saw the guy being frustrated with them, but he didn't factor in that he'd bump into someone interesting.

"I'm Kirk Langstrom, Zoology Professor." He offered up, he quickly thought about his tiny studio room, so cramped, so suffocating, but he didn't get into the field for the money, that's for sure. He started out wanting to change the world, and now—he stared at his hands.

Now he turned into a monster.

"I don't. I actually came today because of their special on liver." He pointed to a tacky neon green sign that said 99 cents per pound!

"It's—supposed to be good for you." He quickly said, not wanting to explain he ate it because it's close to him feeding on blood. "What about you?"