forum this city is insidious (o/o)

Started February 16, 2023 by @menace-to-society

tune

As he arrived, he had been greeted by the anxious face of one of his superiors. God, this had to be important if all of this fanfare was happening. Christ, why couldn't the fiend have chosen…literally anyone else? He just wanted to sleep. But, insisted the little voice in the back of his head. This could be interesting. This could make you actually want to wake up in the morning, if only to satisfy your curiosity. This has never happened before. The little voice made some great points.

After some brief polite conversation (Atlas only answered when he was required to do so, mind otherwise occupied), they started down a hall. There were several doors leading to rooms Atlas hadn't cared to explore, and hadn't been inside any time recently. At one of the doors, the person leading Atlas–he couldn't actually remember the man's name, just that it wasn't Jason–stopped. Not-Jason glanced at the door as a woman Atlas actually didn't know opened it, giving him a quick "He's right in here," before allowing Atlas to enter. Not-Jason walked off, apparently having other things to do. Atlas probably could have walked there himself, so he didn't see why Not-Jason was there in the first place.

Atlas entered the room just in time to catch a glimpse of the red and black creature hurtling straight for him. He just watched mutely at the fiend's quick observation of every angle of his person, before giving him an aggressive hug. Just what sort of fiend was this? And why was he so affectionate with Atlas? The young man wouldn't wrap his head around it. It seemed everyone else was just as confused as him. Atlas had personally requested not to have any partners working with him after a particularly embarrassing incident last year, and his coworkers were all too happy to oblige. Atlas wasn't exactly the most popular person in his department.

So why was this energetic fiend taking an interest in him specifically? He just had to know. His memory was poor, but surely even he wouldn't have forgotten meeting a fiend like this. One who was so…friendly? It was weird, and unsettling.

"Nice to meet you…?" Atlas managed, his poor social skills on display as he stared at the fiend in confusion.

Just as quickly as he'd barrelled into Atlas, the fiend pulled back. He kept his hands clasping the human's, eyes all but sparkling in delight. "It's nice to meet you, too, human!" he exclaimed. "My name is Orobas, but you may call me Baz. Tell me, what is your name?" He shot a glare at the woman peeking back through the doorway, who quickly ducked out of view, and added, "Your fellow hunters have been quite tight-lipped on the matter, I'm afraid. You won't believe the trouble I've had to go through to find you!"

Orobas, or Baz, didn't seem to realize the human's confusion. The time he took to speak was the stillest he'd been since Atlas had walked through the threshold, however, which gave the hunter plenty of time to observe the fiend currently holding his hands hostage.

Draped over the creature's frame was an ill-fitting orange hoodie with the sleeves rolled up, exposing the deep black gradient of his hands and forearms. On his left forearm were dozens of eyes inked in white, some unsettlingly stretched open while others were mere slits. Disturbingly, the pupils seemed to follow the viewer wherever they looked.

Clashing with the brightness of his assumedly borrowed hoodie were his vermillion red bangs and deep brown roots—another gradient that his three horns (one long on his right, two vertically aligned nubs on the left) matched. Light flashed off the gold rings decorating his longest horn and fluffy brown goat ears, very shiny and clearly well-maintained. Peering directly up at Atlas were two innocent-looking black eyes, still large with excitement, framed by a button nose and a grinning mouth with one lone snaggletooth.

Behind him was his tail, forked and swishing animatedly behind him like an excited puppy.

_{(Some doodles, although the outfit is not the same! 1 , 2 )}

(omg i love him!!)

Atlas glanced down at his hands, now trapped by the fiend's, without expression. He looked back at Baz, eyebrows raising slightly as the fiend asked for his name. So he knew that he wanted to work with Atlas, but not his name? What exactly did this fiend know about him? He liked to think ever since his self-owned business, he had been a fairly private person with very little media presence (though of course he did end up in the media from time to time due to the intensity of several of his fights). It was all too bizarre.

After several moments of awkward silence, Atlas was sure the fiend was done speaking for now, awaiting his answer. He merely looked back at the fiend's face, expression giving nothing away (he wasn't generally an expressive person nowadays). "My name is Atlas Sharpe," he said simply, waiting another few moments before speaking again. "You say you were trying to find me? Can I ask why you want me specifically?" He wouldn't be surprised if the fiend was rather tight-lipped on that matter, or if the reasoning was flat out strange and nonsensical, so he was curious what the answer would be. A person could tell a lot about someone else based on their style of speaking and their body language.

As for Atlas's body language, he was more or less standing almost completely still, his left foot tapping a quiet but anxious rhythm on the floor. Since he had been hugged by the fiend, he had been standing fairly still. He wondered what on earth could be going through the fiend's mind at the moment and whether this was all some elaborate setup. This fiend was clearly capable of higher thinking, though he doubted even his most dumb colleagues would stupid enough to let a dangerous fiend in without some sort of precautions and backup plan. He supposed that he would have to ask the fiend himself to see what this was all about.

_{(Thank you!! I've been doodling him quite a lot, so I'll probably keep sharing relevant art because it's fun ^^ This is very rough, but here's a comic page of their first meeting, more or less.)}

Baz pursed his lips in thought at the answer, turning the syllables over carefully in his head, before giving a curt nod of approval. "Atlas… It's a strong name. I like it!"

The fiend seemed entirely undeterred by Atlas' lack of facial response and even less interested in releasing the point of contact between them. At the question, though, he blinked and tilted his head to the side. "Oh, well that's… That's because…" He paused, forehead wrinkling. He let out a long, drawn-out hum, then gnashed his teeth together in slight annoyance.

Sudden clarity relit the excited spark in his eyes. "Because you're my human!" As if sensing the following question, a coy smile danced across his lips. "You'll have to forgive me for the pause. I'm not yet used to speaking with my treasures. Normally they're a bit less… sentient." As if to emphasize his point he wiggled his fingers, drawing Atlas' gaze to the black rings adorned on them. He relinquished his grip on one of the human's hands as he lifted his own to his lips, blowing lightly on the rings and twisting his palm as the black turned to a brilliant gold.

And, as if that was a perfectly sensical answer to the unasked question, Baz gave Atlas a proud, toothy grin.

(OMG YES I LOVE IT,, your art is so good wtf! i love your art style)

Atlas just continued to stare. What the ever-loving fuck… he thought to himself, completely and utterly stumped for the first time in his career. Normally he didn't speak much because he didn't really like the sound of his voice, or because he didn't feel like he had much to say, only really turning on the more social and dazzling side of personality with clients so as not to scare them off, but now he was truly at a loss for words. He knew that some fiends hoarded treasures like money or jewelry or gold, but a person? He had never heard of that happening. He was sure his colleagues were going to want to know all about this later, to possibly understand the fiends better in order to more effectively kill them (they had never pretended to be humane).

After several moments of blank silence (Atlas figured the fiend would have to get used to that if he wanted to work together), Atlas's face finally unfroze for a moment. Wait, did the fiend even want to work together? Was he stupid enough to try and kidnap one of the top fiend hunters? What was happening here? Atlas's curiosity roared forth, filling the man with even more questions. Oddly enough, he was starting to get somewhat excited about this. He never had a chance to learn new things about fiends.

"What do you mean, I'm your human?" Atlas asked, face slowly becoming more animated. "I've never heard of fiends collecting people as a treasure before, so is this some sort of weird way of saying you're attracted to me? Do you actually intend to work together to fight other fiends? What is your goal here?" With each question, he wanted to know the answer more. What was this fiend thinking? What could possibly be going through his mind? The young man had to know. He wasn't passionate about much anymore, but learning new things about fiends had always intrigued him.

_{(I'm happy to hear it!! I've been making a lot of progress with my compositions recently, which is satisfying to see. Also, you really hit the head on the nail with Baz's hoarding instincts LMAO. I'm looking forward to elaborating on that. )}

It was Orobas' turn to look confused, finally letting the human's hands slip free as he fired off question after question. "Is it that strange?" he murmured, speaking to himself. A small frown overshadowed his smile from moments before as he took a second to consider that.

It was true he wasn't very experienced with caring for humans. Most of his past treasures were something small and inanimate, blessedly easy to care for and serving to soothe the possessive ache that resided within him. Something shifted, however, following what he privately referred to as, 'After'. He'd grown steadily more apathetic towards the normal pretties that caught his eye while, conversely, his possessiveness only grew. That was, until…

He shook his head, clearing his thoughts. Was it possible he'd merely approached this in the wrong manner? Humans collected other creatures all the time to cherish, so he surely wasn't going against any rules or taboos. Reassured, he crossed his arms and arched an eyebrow, deciding to entertain his human's antics.

"What more can I say? It's as simple as I told you before. You are my human." Baz's tail arched forward and the forked end prodded Atlas' chest accusingly. "Your attempts to categorize my instincts into something you can understand are pointless. It's more than a physical, romantic, or platonic attraction. Even I can't properly put it into words…" He trailed off, once again looking thoughtful.

His tail lowered until it rested above the ground, far more relaxed. "It's not inaccurate to describe it as an attraction, however. Like a pull I can't ignore." He shrugged. "It's just the way I was made."

Baz's expression suddenly lightened again, his exuberant smile returning. "Ah! But don't worry, I'm not a bad Keeper. I'll take good care of you, even if that's helping you fight off other fiends!"

Something he couldn't categorize? Now this was intriguing. Atlas had never before met a problem he couldn't solve, or that he could at least delegate to someone who could solve it. It was one of the main reasons why he had liked his old self-run business. He solved all of the problems, and he could do it however he wanted with no supervisor. Even as a child he had loved puzzles, doing more and more challenging ones until he lost track of time. He wanted to know how things worked, sometimes even taking things apart–much to his father's annoyance–to learn how each part interacted with the next and how that came together to create the whole. He would sometimes put the things back together, if his mind remained on that particular object long enough. He had even been the same with his partners, wanting to learn everything about them and what made them the person they were today until he got bored. He was never good with other people, not beyond a simple one or two time interaction.

And over time that curiosity, that drive, that started to fade, causing him to stay up late playing video games or watching television in order to put off going to work the next morning. Sure, fighting tough fiends was a challenge, but he wasn't able to learn much about them in the battle. When they got that strong, every moment mattered if Atlas wanted to survive, and while that held a different sort of thrill, that tended to fade after the battle was won. The adrenaline was almost like a replacement for the knowledge that he had used to seek, but now he had the opportunity to learn more about fiends than any human before him. Most of them just wanted to know their weaknesses so they could take them out and ensure that the humans whose lives were in danger from them were safe, but Atlas was different. He wanted to know all about the fiends–their instincts, their lives, their communities, and most of all where they came from. He didn't accept that they had just appeared one day–there had to be more to it. And he wanted to know. If this fiend had taken such a liking, felt this pull towards him, then maybe he could answer Atlas's questions.

But the young man couldn't get too excited just yet. Perhaps this was all a setup, a particularly elaborate way of killing him. Maybe this fiend had lied to get Atlas alone and then avenge the others of his kind Atlas had killed–and it was no small number, either. He had to keep his wits about him. He wasn't the fifteen-year-old, fiend-obsessed kid that he used to be. He was an adult now with adult responsibilities and people counting on him to fulfill his duties–whether they realized it or not. He couldn't afford to be reckless. Besides, he couldn't ignore his distaste at the idea of someone owning him. He wasn't a pet or a piece of jewelry.

"I am a person, you know," he said after several moments of processing the information from the fiend. "This pull…it doesn't mean that you own me. You realize that, right? I'm a person capable of making my own decisions and not an object. So what exactly are you proposing here?" Yes, this answer would make everything a whole lot clearer…probably. The more interesting questions could come after this whole matter was solved. Atlas wasn't so desperate for information that he was willing to become this fiend's person just for the information. He needed to know the terms first.

_{(Sorry this is short; I wanted to get something up before I go to work!)}

While Orobas was overjoyed to see Atlas warming up to him enough for the indifferent mask to crack, the suspicion in the human's implications was enough to anger him.

"But it does! I do!" Baz huffed, crossing his arms petulantly. He looked mere moments away from stomping his foot on the ground and throwing a proper tantrum. "You are a person, and you are mine. Why are you allowed to call people yours, but I'm not?" His tail lashed behind him at the unfairness of it all, and he took a challenging step forward.

" 'My boss', 'my family', 'my friend', 'my partner'," he held up his fingers as he listed off examples, stopping in his tracks to glare straight into Atlas' eyes. "My human."

Behind the frustration and self-righteousness, however, was hurt, illuminated by his slumped shoulders and jutting lower lip. "Am I not allowed because I'm not a human? Or is it because you think I'm lying? Because I really am a good Keeper," he whined, tone shifting into something distinctly pleading. "I won't make you do anything you don't want to, and I won't even get in the way!" Significantly quieter, he tacked on, "That much…"

(no worries!)

Atlas blinked at the sudden rage the fiend exhibited. He hadn't even considered the idea that he had enough of a sway on this fiend to hurt him. Because he did look hurt, behind the anger and the stubbornness, there was a distinctly hurt look in his eyes, in the lines of his body. For a moment, Atlas felt a little bit bad, but quickly iced over his emotions before he get himself too involved with this. Yes, he was curious, and yes, this was exciting, but he did have a job to do, and he was in unfamiliar territory with this. He had definitely come across fiends who had intelligence equal to that of humans. It wasn't as if all of them were like dumb animals, acting purely on instinct with no thought or emotion behind their eyes. He knew firsthand how human some of them could be, but he'd never actively felt bad because of something he'd done to them. Most of the time it was a matter of survival–kill or be killed–or it was like he was just eliminating a pest such as a rat or a fly. This fiend, however, was different. He was smart, yes, but something about him was almost human. Atlas had to know more.

It definitely seemed like this fiend–Orobas–was being honest, Atlas didn't know for sure. He was decent at reading people's body language for cues that they were hiding something, but perhaps fiends had slightly different tells than humans. Maybe the real problem here, though, was that Atlas was putting them into two separate categories–fiend and human. Maybe they really weren't that different. Well, except for this pull. It was something Atlas had never heard of a human experiencing. But still. Everything else about Orobas could easily be a human trait (minus his appearance, of course). Atlas was surprised at the amount of the emotion Orobas was comfortable with showing upon a first meeting. Many humans seemed to reign in their emotions. Again, his thirst for knowledge crept in.

Atlas sighed, glancing away for a moment before looking back at Orobas. He wouldn't be letting his guard down anytime soon, but at least for the time being there was no reason to accept this proposal. He wasn't entirely sure what it entailed, but it wasn't as if Atlas had any other commitments that would stop him from accepting, and no one who would really care about it besides himself. Atlas wasn't exactly the most popular person, and his family situation was complicated to say the least. Besides, if he kept his guard up then he was more than able to defend himself. He wouldn't hurt Orobas unless the fiend attacked him first, and he wanted to know more. So against his better judgement, Atlas would let himself be Orobas's human–for now. God, here he went again with his curiosity. He hoped it would lead to good things this time.

"Look, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings," he said at last, frowning at Orobas. "What you're saying is just a bit…unconventional. But I'm not against it. I just wanted to be cautious. It's not every day I let new people into my life." He was careful not to use any language that ostracized fiends from humans this time, not wanting to scare Orobas off. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and he was going to take it. He just had to be vigilant. If he were cautious, perhaps it wouldn't be so bad.

Orobas held Atlas's gaze, watching the subtle twitching of his irises as the human thought his words over. It was clear to the fiend that the man was a thinker, something that made his chest warm with pride, but he hardly recognized the feeling so caught up in waiting for an answer. He didn't even blink—not until Atlas admitted to accidentally hurting his "feelings".

Baz's brow furrowed a bit at that, but his shoulders lowered. He looked less defensive now, more curious as the words continued to spill from the other's mouth.

"But humans are social creatures, are they not?" he questioned. The research he'd done had suggested as much, one source even going so far as to say humans required up to eight hugs a day. It wasn't clear to him what would happen if that quota wasn't met, but Baz feared the worst, especially if his human was this guarded around even his own kind! Really—and the man was acting like he didn't need him! Huffing to himself, he resolved to give the man at least seven more hugs before the day ended.

"Well, regardless, I'm glad we're on the same page now." He paused as if waiting to see if Atlas would disagree, before continuing. A bright smile slowly crept onto his face as he added, "Not that you had much of a choice. You would've had to kill me." The way he said it was casual, as if there was nothing ominous about his words in the slightest. "It would've been a shame, wasting all this effort to find you and request to meet you 'properly'," he said, throwing air quotations around the last word as he wrinkled his nose in distaste.

"It took a lot of convincing that I wasn't out to hurt you, you know. I don't know if they fully believed me, though…" He spared a glance at the lone surveillance camera in the corner of the room. It looked inactive at a first glance, with no sign of lights or movement, but the fiend's sharp ears could pick up on the faint mechanical whirring as it focused on his movement.

Leaving it at that, he turned to face Atlas again. "Where are we going, now?"

Well, Atlas supposed that Orobas was right. Humans were social creatures, that much was true. Atlas had heard of research being done about how lack of socialization seriously affected people, even children and babies. But he saw other humans almost every day, spoke to them, awkwardly made his way around them in the street. It wasn't as if he lived a completely isolated life, though admittedly he would have enjoyed that a lot more than the life he was living now. If it were up to him, he would live far away from people and be like the woman from Kiki's Delivery Service. He had loved that movie as a child.

As Orobas continued talking, Atlas's eyes widened slightly at the 'you would've had to kill me' line. Good god he was determined. What would he have done if Atlas had rejected the offer? Tried to follow him around anyway? Hurt himself? Fight Atlas? Well, he doubted that the fiend would actually try to harm him, but he still didn't know much about Orobas, so anything was possible. He had gone to great lengths to find Atlas, apparently, and already seemed to be attached to him. It was a bit endearing, if Atlas were honest, but also greatly confusing. The confusion just meant that he had so much to learn, though, so he could get past it. What he really wanted were answers, and maybe Orobas didn't want to give those in the too-bright room with the security cameras and the other fiend hunters lurking just out of sight. Atlas supposed he couldn't blame him.

Atlas hadn't been surprised that the other fiend hunters hadn't immediately believed Orobas, as fiend hunters by nature were very distrustful of anyone not human. But it wasn't as if it was for nothing. Fiends hurt humans every day, and would likely continue to do so. The humans were in the right for killing them, weren't they? Not every fiend was as friendly as Orobas. Of course that still didn't mean Atlas would hazard trusting him.

At the last question, Atlas's eyebrows rose. He supposed he should have been expecting this, but it shocked him a bit nonetheless. Of course Orobas wanted to accompany him on whatever he was doing next; the fiend had made his intentions fairly clear (or at least did his best to do so). Atlas had to think of what to do. Originally, he had planned to go back to his place, but he wasn't sure he was ready to bring someone new along to his dirty apartment. No, he would take Orobas somewhere else. Possibly they could get dinner? It seemed better than going straight home with Orobas in tow. Though the only problem with that would be the other humans–would they see Orobas as a human or just be able to see him at all? He was humanoid, certainly, but would the horns and tail be enough to render him invisible to the untrained eye? And if there were any who could see the fiends at the restaurant, they certainly wouldn't be okay with one just sitting there. Atlas supposed takeout it was, then. They could go through a drive thru and then home, because Atlas did not feel like cooking for them both (he was also a terrible cook just in general). Did Orobas have a home, or was he going to try to live with Atlas now? He wasn't sure how he felt about the possibility.

"I was going to go get some dinner, probably go to a drive thru," he admitted, scratching the back of his neck. "After that, I guess I was just going to go home. We can hang out there for a while if you like." Why did he feel so awkward all of a sudden? He never invited anyone to his apartment, but this definitely wasn't a normal sort of situation. Either way, he hoped that Orobas would offer up his own living situation on his own without Atlas having to ask. He really didn't want to get into it if it turned into a sob story.