Synopsis: what is a little crime enjoyer like you supposed to do when you accidentally catch the Butcher's eye?
Tags: female!reader, relatively fast paced, not beta read, graphic depictions of gore (at least I think so), mentions of dizziness and injuries on the reader, stalking (both by reader and by Ronin), slight yandere!ronin, mostly reader pov, Roni pov only once, around 6.1k words
Nighttime photography was a rather unconventional hobby for someone such as yourself, but you were never one to stick to what was predictable.
Uptown, specifically purgatory, was the Butcher's territory where gory masterpieces framed themselves on the brick walls of the alley. Even the toughest of forensics have to take breaks when it comes to performing an autopsy on the men and women who die there, and the faint smell of policemen's vomit wafted through the entryway. Everyone knew it was practically suicide to verge near that area at night, heck, even daytime, but who were you to care about self preservation instincts?
In any case, it's not as if you were unprepared. Despite the expensive digital camera hanging off of your neck, you were smart enough to at least wear dark, unassuming clothing and to carry pepper spray and a dagger with you. You studied enough of human anatomy to know how to dig your knife into a carotid artery if necessary, surely to take out the Butcher even with the crowbar digging into your temple.
But gods did you love the Butcher's work. The red staining the crevices of each brick, the implicitly artistic way he carved out the gore. Despite the carnage appearing to be messy, unappealing even when looked at from afar, it was hard not to appreciate good effort when you saw it. And, in every single body he desecrates, there was always a puncture in the ribcage where the heart would be, and you found yourself smiling even when you were met with the sight of a heart-less corpse.
You wonder if the two of you met, he would take your heart too.
It was around midnight now, and you were standing in front of a fresh corpse. Rough, jagged lacerations of flesh and bone met your eyes, and the squelch of the guy's eyeball under the sole of your sneakers did make you wince. A little, at least.
Again, the pointedly missing heart caught your eye, and you held back a smile. Always keeping his signature isn't he? No matter how bloody, gruesome, downright horrific his crime scenes got even to your standards, the sight of the empty ribcage always brought you back to clarity. You were photographing the Butcher's work, not caught by the police or the serial killer, or anyone.
It was strange in retrospect, but who were you to deny living another day despite its dreary tones?
Click. Flash. Click. Flash.
You had taken a few photos by now, and decided that returning home would be the best for now lest you wanted your co workers to question why you smelled like the bad kind of iron. Pulling your hood over your head, instead of walking out of the alley you used the railings of the shitty buildings to climb upwards, jumping across a few rooftops before deeming a safe enough distance to climb back down and take a long twisty road back to your house. Never wanted your nightly escapees to be all that obvious after all.
You sneaked in through the window, but oddly enough it was already unlocked. You typically unlock it from the outside when coming in. Maybe you just forgot the padlock? You shook your head, best not to overthink much right now, your exhaustion will not allow you to do any heavy thinking.
Your room was a sort of organized mess, various posters and clutter everywhere one could see. The laptop on your desk played a multiple hour documentary, giving the illusion of a lived in home or whatever. You were about to plug the USB into the port hole but we're instead met with the sight of a file that you never made.
And when you clicked on it, it only displayed a small message in a red font:
Nice photos- the Butcher
...
You hoped no one saw you jumping out of your seat in shock.
Your dream ever since you obtained your dingy apartment was to save enough money from your 9-5 to renovate one of the guest rooms into a dark room and to buy a film camera. The art of producing one's own photos was an enticing though to say the least. And yet, staring at the message displayed on your monitor really had you have second thoughts on whether or not you'd live to even obtain your wants.
The louder part of your brain told you if the Butcher didn't kill you the instant he found you, you'd be safe as long as you amused him or whatever. The quieter part containing your self preservation instincts told you to just leave before you end up like a bloody splat on the floor of an alleyway. A hopefully decent looking splat, but knowing yourself you'd probably find a way to make the art of dying look unappealing.
The logical part of your brain told you to encrypt your files more, and that's what you did first before listening to anything else. Your eyes kept darting back to the file on your hardware, mocking you in a way. Admiring the Butcher's work and yet being spooked by a cryptic message? Laughable even. You knew what you were getting yourself into when you even started this hobby of yours, but now that it's come to bite you in the ass you're scampering away like a stray puppy.
And yet, even with all the fail-safes and encryption you put upon your files, some childish part of you seemed to want your self preservation instincts be put on trial, and you typed in a message in one of your folders, the one containing your finest work yet.
It was a beautiful night at that time, moonlight glossing over coagulated blood on skin, the walls covered in a rusty layer. The white bones lay as a sort of decoration in the guts and gore displayed on the mud ground, and of course, light peared into the Butcher's heartless signature.
Using the liquify tool, you moved the picture around in the darker areas where change was almost imperceptible, even those with the greatest eye sight having to squint to even read the hidden message. If, hypothetically, the Butcher were to watch your work for hours on time, there was a small chance he would read this.
The message wrote short and concise, in any case.
Wanna see more of my work?
A practical invite to play. Or perhaps an incentive to beg for your life. Hey Butcher, you get to keep a fangirl and I get to keep my hobby. Sounds fair, right? Was the real hidden message here.
You went to sleep that night layering up with multiple blankets, if only in an attempt to cushion the knife/crowbar digging into your ribcage. Neck pillows stuffed around your, well, neck, and despite the uncomfortable heat you kept it on for your own protection. You didn't actually expect to survive, just stay awake long enough to catch sight of the Butcher himself.
When you woke up, all extra layers were neatly folded in the bed beside you, your neck pillow tossed to the floor. And when you frantically checked your laptop again, the folder was updated with another file that definitely wasn't there before.
Show me what ya got, dear photographer.
It was impossible to keep your sigh of relief to yourself.
Ronin never thought he'd get a full on stalker for all of the bloody bodies he leaves in purgatory.
He's seen detectives, forensics, heck even news reporters obsessed over his every trail. Every single body found, he always opened the news channel just to see what elaborate lie they spun about him next. Fun pastime, if he had to say, though Angel would vehemently call him out on his ego.
He didn't expect someone idiotic enough to directly visit Purgatory without any backup in sight.
The first time it happened, he was having a bit of a good day himself. Took extra time to carve out jagged messages over the man's torso, making sure to put the blood in all the appealing places for the news to show with the slight tremble in their voice at his new massacre. He had to roll his eyes at how squeamish they were sometimes, even if macabre, his work deserved at least some sort of appreciation! "Monster" "Devil", as much as he liked those nicknames he did end up a bit pouty when no one took note of his gory masterpieces.
He was walking away from the alley, crowbar over his shoulder and white mask smelling distinctly of rust, when he heard the landing of feet against the mud. He paused for a moment, wondering if he should go back and make two dead bodies, despite how tedious it was, but it was a new moon night anyway. He couldn't see them, they couldn't see him. And besides, as stated, he was in a good mood that night, so maybe he'd let that crazed reporter go.
Everyone rioted on his laxness, but he only languidly leaned back in his chair and released a hearty chuckle.
The next time it happened, well, the shock of their idiocy spared their life.
It was a particularly mediocre day, nothing exceptionally thrilling. Heck, his victim didn't even live long enough to scream, or perhaps their vocal cords were too enraptured by his glorious appearance. In any case, he lingered around the body for a while, grumbling about his disappointing kill under his breath while texting the GC. This time, he was close enough, but also enveloped in the shadows for nobody to take notice of the 6'2 butcher ready to bash someone's skull in with his weapon of choice.
When he saw you, outwardly unassuming and plain, laden in dark clothing like you were pretending to be a spy on a recon mission, he only barely managed to keep his scoff. However, his interest piqued when he actually took note of the camera wrapped around your neck.
Though he wasn't a camera connoisseur or whatever, he did recognize expensive shit when he saw it; there was, in no way, that a reporter could be seen carrying around such expensive equipment, especially in purgartory. He narrowed his eyes when you took the pictures from various angles, then left as soon as you came. He shoved the phone back into his jeans, his crowbar underneath the dumpster before beginning chase, quietly of course.
For the sake of his pride, he wouldn't admit it, but you were a difficult mouse to catch. Slippery in all the wrong ways, and he couldn't imagine the number of times he cursed simply because he lost track of you in the various rooftops. Didn't help that your clothing was dark either, and that your hood was up. He obtained absolutely nothing from you except for the camera around your neck and a mere estimation of your height and weight.
He wouldn't admit that it brought a twitch to his eye.
Finally, he manages to catch a glimpse of you sneaking into a dingy apartment window, the sound of a random documentary about a killer briefly escaping the glass before it was shut again. He snorted at the lock placed, as if he couldn't lockpick his way through. He could, technically just bust in and kill you on the spot, but eh. Might as well watch whatever you were on about.
And he was glad that he did. Even he couldn't follow your fast ass typing to a t when you came to typing your password. This level of encryption reminded him of those fuckass spy movies again, although he was surprised when the USB was plugged in and you went to Photoshop instead of the dark web to post your findings.
Then you began to edit the picture, and his disbelief grew by the second. Okay, maybe you were the type to make it all nice and pretty for whoever was receiving the pictures. Not like he could judge, with the amount of time he spends in the alley just to make his bodies look somewhat pleasing.
And then you encrypted your files, shut your laptop down and went back to sleep.
... What the actual fuck.
He would have just busted into the apartment, picked at the lock, maybe even smash the glass if he was particularly impatient, but the sun was rising by then. And well, wouldn't want the security guards to take note of him now would he? It wouldn't be so bad to allow you to live another day, no matter how many people protested. Besides, he'll get more time when he busts into your room later on.
... Wow that really does make him sound like a creep.
In any case, third time was the charm. He left his crime scene as quickly as he made it and instead went rushing over to your apartment, the less complicated way with fewer twists and turns. When the telltale sign of you leaving your window came into view, he himself prepared to enter too.
When inside, his eyes roamed over each and every crevice and space. Perhaps you were foolish enough to leave something noteworthy out? Well, aside from your laptop it seemed not. Careful to not jostle your belongings too much, he tiptoed his way towards the laptop, cursing at his memory when typing the password. Then came your files, which he happily decrypted, the clack clack of the pads of his fingers against the keys echoing throughout the room.
When your pictures came into view, against his better wishes he still found himself mesmerized.
Of course, in all matters of technicality it was still his work. His piece of art, his hands having done the lacerations presented present on the corpse. And yet, he couldn't help but feel somewhat, charmed, in a sense. It was his work, sure, but you were the one making look even better, lighting in all the proper places, touching up the background, adding a filter that fit the picture cohesively and all (though he'd grumble sometimes on how it doesn't fit the vibe he was going for).
By the time he realized that he had been staring for way too long, he only had the time to sneakily obtain one of your socials, lock your window again and walk away as if he didn't commit the oh so horrid crime of breaking and entering.
Well, in the meantime he may as well find as much as he can about you know? Besides, it's hardly stalking when you have followed him (his creations, his brain unhelpfully added), he'll just take a look.
And if he ends up far more infatuated than of what he intended to be? Well, a Butcher always needed their own assistant now didn't they? But maybe the word "partner" suited better in his tongue...
Today was a particularly shitty day.
You had meant to buy a brand new window lock, with how the last one ended up. Hopefully something sturdier that'll allow you to delay the butcher from breaking into your room again.
You're not exactly sure what went wrong.
Dragging the pads of your fingers along the bandage on your face, you could only sigh and then wince at jostling the gauze. You had meant to buy a lock, but you're not exactly sure why you ended up with a nasty bruise that required to be drained with how drastic the fluid accumulation was. It's just, the guy ogling creepily at the little girl the aisle over gave you such a an urge to punch him square in the face, and you were never one to have good control over your impulses. It was what led you to do your nighttime hobby after all.
But. The more important thing was to take your picture for the day.
Typically, you wouldn't have gone. Most assume the butcher's murder schedule to be randomized, without a precise time, and to that they might have been true, if it weren't for your creep behavior. So, a kill is happening tonight, and despite your newfound anxiety at finding a crowbar lodged into the muscles of your neck, the thrill of it all was too tempting to resist.
Exiting from the window and making sure to actually lock it, your hands locked down on the railings as you climbed up to the rooftop. And of course, the walls on the edge of the roof just had to be wet from some random liquid. You hoped to whatever entity that was able to hear your prayer that it was only water, else you might just start sobbing on the spot.
Reaching purgatory put you in all sorts of a bad mood, but oh well. You'll buy yourself an ice cream later, or something, for now you'll take your time to observe the desecrated body on the muddy, dirty ground.
And observe you did. Even you couldn't stop your gaping mouth at how utterly ruined the person was. The elbows, ankles, shoulder joint and knee were brutally smashed into pieces, to the point where nothing was attached to each other anymore; The eyelid showed signs of being scraped by a crowbar, for the eyeball itself hung loosely from its blood vessels. The ribcage, as usual, remained empty of its heart, but it was in no way as pretty as the others. Each individual rib showed signs of being cracked, likely by the heel of a boot from how relatively tame it was.
This was a much more gruesome sight than the usual art that you bear witness to.
For a moment, irritation flared up your spine, and the urge to give the butcher a lengthy note to not desecrate the bodies so badly that it won't appear nice on the pictures, but you held yourself back with a grumble.
Click. Click.
Despite the considerably less photos taken today, even you were curious about the victim. Who pissed off the Butcher so much that he'd leave such a mangled mess in the alleyway? You weren't wearing any gloves at the moment, and the thought of touching the coagulated blood without the cloth as your protection gave you grotesque shivers in and of itself, but as they say, curiosity killed the cat and satisfaction brought it back.
Rolling up your sleeves, you grimaced at the squelch of the bubbles building up in the sticky blood, but kept swiping the gore away from the man's face. Other than his eye color, obtained from his loose eyeball, there was no ultimate defining features for you to recognize. The man's hair, you assume used to be brown before all the red staining it, and the eyes were blue with a faint grayish tint. Though his pallor was now gray and pale from all the blood loss, you could tell that he had a somewhat cool undertone.
It reminded you of the man who gave you that bruise...
No. Nononono-
Frantically now, your hand practically slid off the man's face with how harshly you swiped at it, the blood doing nothing to help the friction. You had half a mind not to rub and wipe off the blood on your one good black jacket, especially after you already rolled up your sleeves just to prevent staining. But, then again your heart dropped to your gut in the same way.
It was him. The same man who attacked you back that morning.
No it had to be a coincidence, right? It had to be it had to be it had to-
But the wounds were too precise, the man too bloody and beaten for a usual Butcher work. It could have been someone the Butcher was particularly annoyed with, your mind helpfully reconciled, and for once you might believe your own repetitive delusions.
Then the tiny card of paper landed in your direct line of vision.
No.
You aren't sure if satisfaction would bring you back anymore. Slowly, tentatively, your crimson fingertips stained the white paper red, and it turned into mush in your palm. But, the text was still visible, in that scratchy pen ink that took you too long to read.
Sorry the carnage isn't as pretty to look at for this. Forgive me?
The card fully melted into the blood, and you resisted a scream from the deepest cesspit in your throat.
...
The fucking blood wasn't washing off-
Internally, you knew that you were being a bit of a hypocrite, getting all freaked out over a body when you've seen and photographed countless others before. But this one was just too close. If the Butcher decided to play Russian roulette or whatever and gun landed on your name, you would've been dead. You didn't even know this guy, but the butcher didn't know you either!
Or did he now? He did know where you lived, how to bypass your encryption, fucking, taunt you at your limits. You wished you could just pour high concentrated hydrogen peroxide on your hands, at least that way it wouldn't stick everywhere. It stained your basin a light red, your nails filled with brown, dried blood. It wasn't coming off-
Fuck it, you were going to cut your nails and scrape out the dried blood yourself, instead subjecting yourself to the torture known as hopelessly scrubbing your hands and hoping the blood would chill the fuck out.
Your phone decided to ring in that inopportune time, and you suppressed an exhausted groan. Of course, right when you were on the brink of a mental breakdown, just what you needed!
Walking over to your bed, you practically plopped onto it like dead weight, grabbing your phone and unlocking it. It was a message from an unknown number, and you couldn't help but roll your eyes. Seriously, a scam number? You were about to turn on do not disturb before a notification interrupted you, and your phone froze.
@ goreboy
come onn
I even took a photo of how miserable you looked!
Granted, not as good as your works of art but still
Cut me some slack darling
Sent an image
No fucking way the Butcher texted you after that whole fiasco. You suddenly felt the urge to hurl your phone across the room.
But you didn't! All because of your sanity, which was somehow still present, and yet dangling dangerously on a thread thinner than hair. Your phone finally unfroze, thank god, and you clicked on the notification faster than the flash.
The chatroom looked all sorts of suspicious, even if the layout was similar to that of discord. The image he was talking about was a low quality screenshot, static subtly overlaying the picture. The picture of you, in your bed, hands still a subtle pinkish red, holding your phone with a tight expression.
You whipped your head around your room. Unless the Butcher was in the fucking shadows of your house, he should have left a camera hidden somewhere. Based on the angle of the picture, the trajectory led you to your nightstand, where only your camera sat idly, a red light blinking from its lens.
How ironic.
You practically ripped off the bug and threw it out the window, which you still forgot to lock. The ping of a notification entered your ears, and your smile was nothing but mirth when you read the serial killer's message.
@ goreboy
:((((
How rude
You
That's what you get for placing cameras in my room
@ goreboy
So if you stalk me it's perfectly acceptable but if I do the same back it's suddenly a problem?
You
What do you want?
@ goreboy
Ah-ah darling
I asked the question first
You
...
Am I the one who was watching you in your own home like a creep?
At least I have the decency to not follow your trails
@ goreboy
Oh?
It would be so much better if you would though..
Watching your face from real life sounds much worthwhile
The camera can't seem to capture your charm
You
My charm?
Actually you know what
Just answer my question
Wtf do you want from me
@ goreboy
To see my fangirl in action!
You
.
That's it?
@ goreboy
I won't hurt you if that's what you're worried about darl'
I just wonder
How long will it take you to catch your muse in action?
Sent an image
Tentatively clicking on the picture, it was surprisingly dark. If it weren't for the moonlight illuminating the background you wouldn't have been able to see anything.
At least, you could tell that there was a pair of long legs, most likely the Butcher's in the foreground. His jacket's shiny zipper reflected the light back into someone's eye- where you now realized that he was holding a decapitated head in his hands. The man's vertebrae was still swinging around, about to come lose in a single dislocation.
Wait, that head looked vaguely familiar-
Your jaw dropped to the center of the earth itself. The Butcher was holding your shitty ex boyfriend's decapitated head, still with the nerve endings visible, and took a picture of himself and with it. You could still see the blood, a drop almost falling and only stopped by the camera capturing a moment in time and-
You clicked do not disturb. In no way were you going to think about that longer than five seconds when you were still reeling from the blood on your hands and bruise on your cheek. Butcher hunting you down be damned, you needed a fucking nap.
Against your better wishes, you still continued your nighttime photography.
It kept you on edge, constantly looking everywhere for the sight of another person. You've replaced your knife with a gun, and you spend more time just staring at the splat of blood rather than actually taking a picture, wondering when the time comes when you too will just be a body in purgatory.
You hated that your gut feeling told you that that likely wouldn't happen.
In any case, you're not sure whether to laugh or cry when you realize your skill has been getting better just by you lazing around instead of doing something. Maybe it's because you take pictures when it looks decent, not just take various pictures and hope that some turn out decent.
Most of all, using Photoshop has been more of a tedious task as of late. More often than not, you found yourself not even being able to control your mouse, your cursor controlled by the Butcher to choose some tacky filter that he swears looks fire. You threaten to delete your file and he already says he saved it in multiple devices.
So to say, you're at your limit.
You readjusted the lense again with a sigh, the flash of the camera making it known to everyone in the vicinity (which should be no one, unless they're as stupid as you are) and you hummed at the result. It would look better with some photoshoping, but overall not a bad picture.
You took a step back just to admire the work again, and then grimaced when you accidentally stepped on an eyeball again. You could practically feel the sticky, gooey squelch of the eye popping into a bajilion blood vessels or whatever, especially since the shoes you were wearing didn't have as high of a heel than the others.
Wait where did the eyeball come from?
The dead woman in front of you had every single body part intact. Her eyes, while loose, still remained dangling from its socket. Aside from the heart missing from the ribcage, there was no particular organ that you could see missing.
No fucking way.
"Yes way darling," and then the Butcher just waltzed in without a care in the world, snickering loud enough for you to hear. "Though I'm pretty sure you meant to keep that thought for yourself."
This was not happening to you right now. You were already being terrorized by the text messages and him taking control over your computer entirely, and now he decides to meet you out in the flesh. His white mask caused you to straighten up the posture for a bit, but the more important thing was-
You couldn't move. At all.
Maybe it was fear, maybe it was dread. But the fact that you couldn't move was a frightening prospect. Was he just going to keep on walking to you, smash his crowbar into your cranium and you would take it like a good little victim? You think that might just happen, with how your body refused to follow your commands.
"What's the matter?" His voice hit the shell of your ear, his head right next to yours, and suddenly every single alarm bell that could possibly exist flared in your head like a fucking mantra. His drawl brought the most violent of shivers crawling up your spine, and you practically whimpered when his chuckle followed soon after.
"Cat got your tongue?"
Alright that's it. Despite the feeling of tungsten weighing down your ankles, the adrenaline in and of itself gave you enough courage to at least start running the fuck out of there.
The heel of your boot kicked his shin, and he cursed right behind you, the sound of limping grating your ears. With a much needed huff, you ran. Like really ran. You nearly tripped over your own shoe, got your hoodie snagged by some random ass object in the road, a few tears evidently ended up in the comfy cloth, red blood covering the cut instead. Your blood, your mind helpfully provided, further spiralling into your own panic.
How great was it, that you managed to get chased down by the killer of your dreams (perhaps nightmares, with the recent turn of events). Instead of staying out of everyone's way, you just had to catch a serial killers eye! To think that you dreamt about meeting this man.
Well, death was always the endgame for you, you weren't going to lie about that. But something gives you the feeling that indulging in the Butcher's whims would be a fate far worse than death.
"Oh my god are you okay?!"
You blinked. Right, you're miles away from the alley, somehow the Butcher hadn't caught up with you with how long his legs were (was your kick really that powerful?), and you were right in front of a convenience store, a normal every day person right in front of you.
Your pants were torn, blood rapidly drying on its edges, cuts adorned your frame like rapid strokes, heck you yourself felt like you were going through a stroke. Not exactly the best sight to show a civilian. Normal typical civilian, not a clinically insane person like you.
As if your day couldn't get any worse than it already was.
You were absolutely exhausted from adrenaline crash, bandaging up your cuts and attempting to clean your bloodied clothes for the whole night.
Well, the last part is something you have to do regularly whenever you went out for your nightly excursions, but perhaps you could cut yourself some slack with whatever the fuck kind of night you had previously. You hadn't slept a wink, eyebags framing your face from your bottom lashes to just a millimeter above your cheekbone. Toppling over from exhaustion alone was a valid option here, but you weren't going to do so as long as you injected some caffeine into your veins.
... Which you had none of at the current moment. Seriously, no energy drinks, instant coffee, nothing! Just had to run out at the worst possible time.
Grumbling into your coat, you'll probably buy a shit ton of your caffeinated drinks in the grocery store later. For now, main goal is to maintain enough of a steady amount of energy to the nearest Starbucks, ask for enough shots of espresso to cause a heart attack, and get the fuck out of there. The urge to lay, rotting in your bed was too irresistible, but you weren't going to give in.
Walking out of the house felt like someone just dropped an anvil on your head. Getting to the Starbucks itself brought along a myriad of staticky, colorful vision, each vibrance blending into each other until you couldn't even tell where you were and where the hell were you going. Every time light entered your retina it felt like someone planted a dozen bullets in your brain, each bullet swirling and swooshing around like charms in slime and-
You really needed your coffee.
The line was impossibly long, and your foul mood grew fouler by the second. You're about 90% sure you're about two steps away from puking your guts out all over the floor, and fuck- there was a wet patch on your ankle. Did you forget to bandage a whole ass cut?
Now, you had two options. One, sit the fuck down, press a tissue into your ankle and watch as it dissolves into mush within your blood. Or two, you wait in the line and watch as the ground grows more distant by the second-
"Yo, are you okay?"
You blinked, multiple times actually, tilting your head to look who was behind you. Despite the dots lining your vision preventing you from clearly seeing his face, you got the odd feeling that you've met him somewhere before.
"Fine, actually. You-" you yawned for a moment, before averting your gaze sheepishly. "You don't gotta worry about me."
"Uh-huh, sure sweetheart. You look like you're one step away from just tumbling down onto the floors."
Darn it the man was sharp. Or maybe you were just that bad at hiding your misery. Also what did he just call-
"I could get ya order if you want?"
He subtly pushed you as the line moved forward, because apparently your mind chose the best possible moment to turn to mush. How great, fantastic even.
"What benefit do you have from helping a stranger?"
"Well," he grinned cheekily, at least you think he did. "We could be more than that, I'm Ronin by the way."
You snorted. "How smooth. I'm (Name). How about you get me a nice old coffee? Make sure to put a heck ton of caffeine."
He smiled back. "Will do. Now go take a seat darlin', you look like you need one."
Huh, his speaking pattern was somewhat familiar... Even so you still nodded and briefly waved, taking a seat in one of the more secluded chairs away from everyone. Did you just get yourself a possible date? Maybe, but really, who were you to complain? The guy was cute, with his magenta hair and enchanting voice.
Wait a minute...
In the meanwhile, you supposed you could take a look at your wound, which, yikes was it bad to look at. Luckily no pus build up present, but the gash across the thin skin was clearly on its way to make you retch. The fibres of your sock had stuck to the open wound like a fucking adhesive, and the more you tried to peel off the sock, the more you realized how on the verge of screaming you were.
Maybe you should've slept first instead of focusing all on bandaging your minor cuts, because sleep deprivation would not do any wonders for your hand to eye coordination.
Alas, you had nothing except for the old tissues in your coat pocket, and Ronin was probably going to return any minute now, best not to freak him out with your egregious injury.
"Tch, darlin', can't even take care of yourself now can you?"
You froze.
There Ronin stood in front of you, imposing height shielding you from the rest of the cafe, two cups of coffee in hand. His face was scrunched up in disappointment, rather than the confusion that you were expecting. He only placed the two of your orders on the table, crouching down to the floor and grabbing your ankle in hand.
You squirmed in his grip, he only pinched the skin above your joint.
"Seriously, you shouldn't have run so fast and that far the last time. I wanted to take my time with the introductions and all but-"
No fucking way-
"How could I ever resist the sight of you all so miserable and hunched over hm?" His voice drawled to mock sympathy, and your heart dropped to the deepest pit of your stomach.
"Y-you're-"
"Ah-ah darling, wouldn't want to say that out loud in front of so many people now would we?" He snickered, somehow pulling out a napkin out of nowhere and pressing it into your gash, ignoring your hiss of pain.
"Now, how about you drink up your coffee and I treat your little wound over here hm?"
You really were the fawn caught in the butcher's trap.
THIS IS SO ASS IM SORRY I spent too much effort on this. But. Ronin fic here it is!
