the tender butcher (jjba diavolo x reader)

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Your eyes languidly trace over the pages of your book, held in one hand.

He lays with his head in your lap, his fuchsia hair untamed and spilling across your thighs, brushing against the expanse of skin left bare beyond the hem of your dress. He gazes up at you in a way you could mistake for adoration, but you cannot help but notice the ice behind his stare.
"Read to me." he commands; for a man so paranoid about being seen, being identified, it is surprising how he can scarcely stand to have your attention directed at anything other than him. You glance down at him, turning the page to a new story, and with a harsh swallow to clear the nervous catch in your throat, you begin.

"The lucidity, the clarity of the light that afternoon was sufficient to itself; perfect transparency must be impenetrable..."

He hums softly, contented by your willingness to entertain him. The way your voice wavers, trips over words in your nervousness; it's all so soothing to him. His lips, painted with black that smudges at the edges, pull up into a smirk.

"...I always go to the Erl-King and he lays me down on his bed of rustling straw where I lie at the mercy of his huge hands. He is the tender butcher who showed me how the price of flesh is love..."

His hand moves to the side of his head, his sharp nails tracing patterns against the skin of your knee with a practised veneer of gentleness; you know from experience that the merest application of force from those bestial talons could break the skin and draw blood. You shift your legs gently in an effort to disrupt his ministrations, but it only serves to draw a softly mocking chuckle from his lips. His large palm presses flat against your knee, stilling your trembling. Still, your oration continues, for if you continue to read aloud, you need not glance down and meet the gaze of those cold, dark eyes, glinting with mirth as you try to contain your fear.

His eyes eventually slip closed, lulled by your voice. You fight to suppress a sigh of relief, no longer feeling him regard you with an underlying cruelty.

"My hands shake. I shall take two huge handfuls of his rustling hair as he lies half dreaming, half waking, and wind them into ropes, very softly, so he will not wake up, and, softly, with hands as gentle as rain, I shall strangle him with them."

As you reach the end of the story, you feel the rise and fall of his chest become more shallow, more steady. Risking a glance down at him, you see the usual crease of his brow smoothed out by sleep; he always looks so much more peaceful when he's asleep, so much more like a man you could truly love.
Absently, one hand combs through his hair, stroking gently at the top of his head. After a moment, you realise your own motions, and your hand stills. Then, you drag your fingers, unbidden, through the length of his hair, maroon-coloured in the low light of the room. You wind the strands around your fingers, pulling the corded hair taut.

His hand catches your wrist.