Hereās a piece of the Deadlock Drifter fic Iām writing. Itās pretty much about my headcanon that when a vampire becomes stronger than the vampire that created them, they lose the bite scars on their neck. Also, Driftdoor is going to play a part, but will not be the main focus of the fic. Sorry for any mistakes, Iām new at this, and itās unfinished. Hope you enjoy!
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He didnāt remember how heād gotten so deep into the woods in the first place. Looking back, it was an awfully stupid thing to do; charging into the domain of a beast he knew nothing about. Maybe heād fallen prey to the natural curiosity that all humans possessed. His mortal mind unable to resist the unbearable urge to see whether or not he could defeat the monster lurking just behind the curtain of darkness. Or maybe heād been frozen to the spot, which, admittedly, was even stupider than the previous explanation. Too petrified to run as the bloodied maw hunting him grew ever closer. But then again, what did it matter? Itās not like remembering the events leading up to his death would change the bloody outcome. Besides, itās not like he was upset with what had happened all those hundreds of centuries ago, he rather liked his new situation, loved it, actually. Although, there do come days where he did have his complaints, days where the world seemed to have the intention of pushing him to his limits. Days that made him resent his eternal youth. Days like today.
The sun was shining, the birds of the British countryside were singing, the flowers were blooming, and there wasnāt a frown to be seen among the people inhabiting the nearby village as children played noisy games in the grain field next to the edge of the woods.
He didnāt know which pissed him off more. The sun was obnoxiously bright, glaring through the cracks in the moldering shack he had holed up in for the day, Drifter having to occasionally shield himself from the blistering light with the moth eaten remains of clothes he had found abandoned on the floor. The singing of the birds was nearly unbearable, piercing his sensitive ears with their degrading shrieks. The flowers made it nearly impossible for him to sense anything outside the wooden prison he had enclosed himself in, the pollen clogging his sinuses with increasingly offensive sweetness, and the smiling people? Oh, that was just plain annoying.
But perhaps the worst part of all this was the itch. He scratched at his neck incessantly, his steel-like claws eating through the scabbed over skin resting on top of his jugular, on top of the scars that his creator had left behind. The two twin bites that had sealed his fate all those years ago. Drifter would never admit it, but that concerned him. Deeply.
He dug his talons deeper, plunging them further into his flesh, pushing past veins and dense muscle to reach the epicenter that burned beneath his skin, muttering Latin curse words underneath his breath at the insufferable tingling sensation buried somewhere inside him. Heād tried to pay it no mind on the day it had emerged a month ago, assuming that ignoring it would make the problem disappear. It didnāt.
He wriggled his fingers frantically, stretching and reaching, and rubbing at every possible angle, desperately hoping that heād finally claw the sensation away, but it was no use. The itch persisted, in fact it seemed to worsen the sensation no longer ignorable, the tingling sensation evolving into a nearly painful burn, like someone had spread hot sauce into his neckās sinews. He ripped his talons out of his flesh, the macerated wound heād created sealing shut in the blink of an eye.
āDamn it.ā He hissed through clenched fangs, resigning to try and distract himself from the itch by digging his claws into the ground beneath him. Leaving deep gouges in the wood as his massive talons and hands drug downwards across the material. This day was making him regret the fact that his mortal mind hadnāt mustered up the brains, or the courage to sprint for the hills on that fateful night. Normally, heād be able to sleep through the sun, and the birds, and the disgustingly cheerful attitude people obtain during the day. But the itch prevented that, too obnoxious to ignore for long, and too unknowable to try and solve.
He shifted his weight on top of the mildew ridden hay he was laying on; the side of his coat darkening as decades of stagnated mildew leaked into the fabric. Drifter pulled the shredded cloth tighter over his head, squeezing his eyelids shut as he tried to get comfortable despite the sunlight that singed him through the holes in the walls. Along with the overwhelming scent of pollen, the cramped shed reeked of fungus, the smell likely emerging from the streaks of blackness coating the wayward boards of the structure. Black mold was a smell that he should have been familiar with at this point, but he wasnāt. He hadnāt been familiar with anything lately, everything was...intenseā¦heightened. Drifter had thought his senses had been sharp before, he remembered his first few months as a fledgling vampire, plugging his pointed ears with beeswax, and rubbing incense under his nose to block out the tantalizing scent of the blood pumping through the veins of the people around him. But now, his senses were amplified to a degree that was almost painful. He could catch wind of prey tens of miles away, hear the pounding of hearts amidst bustling crowds without strain or resistance, his night vision was incredible, seeing in the dark like a human sees in the light, he could even tell the difference in diet between humans when he tasted their blood, who ate what, and how much iron their life-fluid carried within its plasma.
But Drifterās senses hadnāt been the only thing heād seen a change in. He opened his eyes a hair, taking in the appearance of his crimson stained hands, as he continued to mutilate the wood with the iron like appendages. His claws were longer than usual, heād learned this fact by accident when heād tried to make a fist whilst in the midst of hunt. Coincidentally, that was also the same night heād learned theyād gotten sharper. Ordinarily, such an accident would result in crescent moon shaped scabs that would persist on his palms for the next few minutes, but it didnāt. The incidentally deep wounds had closed in mere seconds, he hadnāt given it much thought in the moment, devoting his attention instead to the prey at hand. But now, weeks after, he had begun to realize how strange it had been. Additionally, his eyes picked up a new variation in his talons' colors, their usual grey hue now darkened to an inky black. Drifter ran his elongated tongue through the plains of his mouth, in the past week, heād grown several new fangs, waking up in the middle of day to find that in sleep, heād spat out the last few fragments of his human body. The molars, incisors, and wisdom teeth being replaced with fangs designed to tear, slice, and cut through the supple skin of his prey. Even his hair growth had changed, his greasy raven locks growing from his shoulders all the way down to his mid-back in the span of a month.
His pointed ears twitched, as a particularly delighted scream echoed across the plains. It was like a knife to his ear. Drifter shifted over abruptly, tossing and turning, yanking and pulling at his ratty cloth covering him, desperately searching for any semblance of relief from the overwhelming noises piercing his head.
Another gleeful squeal came from children frolicking around the field in front of his shed. The sound slicing through his ear drums. He clamped his massive hands over his ears, trying and failing to muffle the taunting noises of the prey he desperately wanted to catch, but wasnāt permitted to thanks to the unforgiving eye of the glaring sun. Drifterās eyes blew wide open, the blood rushing through his veins making his eyes nearly bulge out of his head. A particularly small child stumbled, their knees crashing into a patch of rocks, and they wailed as a single bead of blood oozed from their knee.
The scent slammed into his sinuses, leaving him salivating, panting his steamy breath into the damp of the shack as he shook with the effort it took to resist charging outside into the day, and ripping into the prey with his fangs.
His entire body was in torment, his mind torn between the overwhelming task of trying to find the will to not sentence himself to death by bursting into the light to pursue the defenseless bundle of children who screeched and squeaked at their game of tag. The other half of him focusing on that damn ITCH.
His claws met skin without his permission, tearing through the twin scars placed over his jugular, wrenching muscles free, causing his head to go lopsided and sag against the floor and he severed arteries and tendons in search of relief.
For your information, my instructor made me do the lips that way, and I f$ck!ng despise them. They literally were done, and last minute he told me to REDO THEM. AHHAGGAHGDBSJSKDNSBKDOCJSHSKSKKS
Also, couldnāt get the left eye right, so just added a scar onto it. š
What do you guys think of the marks on Drifterās hands?
I have two head canons. My first headcanon is that theyāre self inflicted marks that he carved into himself that allows him to do things like teleport behind people, blind people, etc. since I think that somewhere on his arms is an X shape that matches the X on the Stalkerās mark icon, but Iām not 100% sure about that one. I have seen others head canon these marks as an affliction that Drifter is trying to get rid off, and thatās the true reason why heās in the ritual, and the whole āI do this for free!ā Thing is just an act he puts up to not reveal his Achilleās heel. Which is an incredibly interesting way of seeing things, and I do like this! But, also I have a particular love for the idea that Drifter really is fighting in the ritual simply for the chaos and slaughter that it brings. As, sometimes, the classic Disney-Villain esc motivation of wanting to do evil things simply because youāre evil is more entertaining (atleast to me) than anything!
Regardless, this head canon is based mostly on personal preference, but it still would be a very interesting route for Valve to take if they want to explore more of Drifterās backstory in a visual novel or some other form like they did with Lady Geist. Since I think Drifter is like Lash, similar in the way that they are both more intelligent than they let on, and seeing Drifter researching ancient texts and then physically searching through abandoned structures/ancient temples for ways to strengthen himself would definitely be something Iād like to see!
My second possible head canon is that the marks naturally came as a result of how strong he became with age. This one links to another head canon I have that Drifter is much older than we think, personally I like to believe heās at least 1000 years old, but I do like to imagine a possible scenario where Drifter was born in Ancient Greece, and got his accent from spending a large amount of time in Louisiana, and New Orleans. I think Drifter would migrate there as a result of hitching a ride on a boat from France. Anyways, I head canon (both for Deadlock and vampire media in general) that once a vampire becomes stronger than the vampire who turned them, their bite marks finally heal fully, the scar tissue drying up and then flaking off, and they become stronger altogether. So maybe once Drifter became stronger than the vampire who turned him, he gained the marks because of this. After all, we donāt know what any of the other elder vampires of Deadlock look like as of now, so maybe they have similar markings to Drifter? Regardless, those were just some fun ideas that I had, since I was playing deadlock one day, and went down a rabbit hole of where the symbols on Drifterās arms could have come from.
Also, I was thinking about writing a fic about Drifter, less about these head canons, and more about the previously mentioned idea of his bite mark drying up and falling off. Maybe some slight Driftdoor? Since I adore that pairing! Who knows. Would love to get your opinion on the marks on his arms! Just wanted to share my personal opinion!
Drew a hand! First step towards my goal of learning how to draw people! Also, the weird hand position was to try to get me more comfortable in drawing odd poses, cause the human body is weird.
FINALLY DONE! Made a yoyo doll these past few days!
Made up of 66 fabric circles (yo-yos), 12 buttons for eyes, and a her head is made of scrap fabric. I named her Argos, because she has tons of eyes! I LOVE HER!
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