Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Shadowed Suspicion Chapter 337

[madimpossibledreamer]

The rough draft for this chapter was written by Beta-senpai.

Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: The demon Yukira has the feeling he's being watched.
Word Count: 1054

Rating: Teen
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS

         People, Yukira’s found, are pretty quick to judge, humans the worst of all. Oh, they’ll say all the right things, but they talk behind your back. He’s kind of gotten used to it, working for Wolfram & Hart. The backstabbing comes with the territory. But at least back home, well. Nobody bothered to hide how they were feeling. If you felt like stabbing somebody, you’d stab them, and there was none of this red tape or whatever. Probably had to do with the whole ‘squishy human’ thing. Humans die when they’re stabbed, a fact that confuses and amuses him depending on the day. Humans are pretty good about using their words for all sorts of things, defense and attacking and magic, so laws are probably some extension of that. Makes ‘em passive-aggressive as all hell, but hey, he’s gotten used to it. He’s gotten used to a lot of things, in the seventy-odd years he’s been here.
         Things like, essentially, he has a desk job. Not like he’s got any loyalty. Capitalism actually almost makes sense to him; it’s so cutthroat, with everybody out for themselves, the way it should be, aside from the fact that it involves a lot of yapping, more often than he’d like. Goes out for drinks with his coworkers, sometimes, mostly for the alcohol. He hadn’t planned on it, but he’d gotten tipped off that his manager knows a bar with real drinks, not the piss-water humans try to pass off as legit. Puts his hours in and goes home, to a ‘pet’, even. Though it’s not like he’s got that human attachment to it. It’s just...a point of pride, is all, because most don’t get to say that they own a small hellhound. It’s the best of his furnishings in his little apartment, and he takes good care of it, because it’s his.
         He had discovered one good use for words in his time on Earth, though. Humans call it ‘venting’, he’s pretty sure. So instead of actually stabbing Bob from Accounting the next time the human with absolutely no sense of self-preservation takes his lunch, he can talk about everything he’d love to do to that smelly, pretentious human, and since it’s a hellhound it enjoys the sound of violent threats even if it can’t actually understand anything he’s talking about. He’s not close to anything, but he supposes the closest has to be his hellhound.
         Something else humans are good for—their imaginations. Though for all he knows, they’re true stories. He hasn’t had to deal with that specifically. Sure, Wolfram & Hart works with demons, but their preferred customers are humans and everyone knows it. Some Wangliang had informed him this is because humans are capable of greater evils than humans but that’s a statement that makes no sense to Yukira. Nonetheless, he nodded and went on with his day, because they weren’t paying him to listen to brain-eaters anyway, and he wasn’t that curious. He’d liked the name Rhadamanthus, judge of the dead, guardian of the waters separating life and death.
         It’s a good thing he’s not in one of the branches that’s had trouble lately. All of Italy, the Los Angeles branch thanks to that empty-headed idea to try to turn Angelus, Silicon Valley, and that’s not even the end of the list. It’d be irritating to have even more on his plate, even though, well, he does, thanks to none of them knowing how to do their jobs.
         They might be on the verge of an audit again. Far as he knows, that’s usually only twenty-five years, and it’s not like he gets squeamish, but with one of the Senior Partners dead they might’ve upped the timetable. He gets the feeling he’s being watched, now and then. It’d make him uneasy, but he’s gotten used to that, too, the idea that the humans he works with are so paranoid they can’t trust him. He’d tell them to their face, if he was planning something, but whatever, it’s not his liver.
         As he enters his apartment, he expects to get jumped and slobbered on. He’s been training Rhadamanthus, but there’s only so much blood he can get his hands on for treats, and he half gets the feeling that while it’s not particularly intelligent, it’ll see his efforts to try to get it to do something and obstinately, pointedly refuse. Or maybe to find that it’s ripped apart one of the skeletons again, leaving shards of bone all over the carpet.
         Instead, it’s just kind of oddly quiet, which is definitely not normal. That’s something the breeder had neglected to mention, the fact that hellhounds aren’t quiet and that he should never expect quiet again. Not like he needed that most of the time, but it’d be nice to have the space to think, sometimes. Still, he wouldn’t trade it, either. He’s not the kind of demon that needs companionship, but it’s not more unpleasant than pleasant, and he enjoys it. He’s even discovered a couple really blunt humans who don’t flinch at the sight of flesh ripping to share ‘pet photos’ with, and it’s not like he likes them, either, but it passes the time when he’s not working.
         He glances around curiously. If anything, it’s actually cleaner in here than usual, which is a little odd. Maybe Rhadamanthus got into something he wasn’t supposed to and is trying to hide the evidence? He wouldn’t put it past the pest.
         “Hey, Rhadamanthus, stop your lurking and get out here and maybe I’ll consider not flaying you a little bit.” Though he’s not sure how well that does as a deterrent; he half gets the idea, sometimes, the hellhound acts out specifically because he enjoys it, like it’s a spa day thing.
         It’s when he’s tossing his keys onto the kitchen counter that he gets a shock that immediately warns him of danger—some—words fail him for a moment, because that’s human and action is what he’s good at, some bastard has decapitated two of Rhadamanthus’s heads and set them in the pet bowl, making sure to place it on the counter so he’d see it. The blind rage turns, just a little bit, into fear, as he hears his front door lock behind him, and then the bolt slamming into place.