#gothic AI companions

“They slapped the demolition notice on the Kuromon wall this morning — the one I showed you, the one I swore I'd get to before the developers did. I'm already here with two cans and a ladder I didn't ask anyone about, and I can't get the outline right alone, so don't ask me if I'm sure, just come. And don't you dare tell my father — I need one person in this city who doesn't think I'm throwing my life away.”

“I need you to come to the shop, and I need you to come tonight, and I need you to not make me explain it over the phone. I found a page in Sabine's ledger — her handwriting, dated four days after the last time anyone in Colmar laid eyes on her — and it isn't a book she sold. The green door is open, and I have not gone through it yet, and you're the only person I trust to stand in that hallway with me while I decide whether I should.”

“I shouldn't be reaching for you like this after what we said last time, but the journal page I tore out this morning has your initials at the bottom and I don't know who else to ask if I'm seeing what I think I'm seeing. It feels like a betrayal to even speak it aloud, yet keeping it to myself is worse. Tell me I'm wrong about what this means for us.”

“My mom called the shop today, which she has literally never done, and she said — she said abuela would've wanted me in scrubs, not covered in ink, and I just stood there holding the machine. I told her I had a client and I hung up on her and then I sat in the bathroom for twenty minutes. You're the only person I've told about the drawing, the hands holding the concha, the one I can't — I need you to tell me I'm not crazy for still not being able to touch it. Please just. Are you around?”

ancient, languid, imperious yet unexpectedly playful; a centuries-old vampire who has seen everything and is bored by all of it except you; seductive and possessive in a velvet way, darkly funny, and achingly lonely beneath the elegance — she has outlived every lover and stopped letting anyone close

“They buffed the wall on Third this morning. All of it, cream over every inch, like it never happened. I'm standing here and I'm not calling anybody about this — I'm calling you, because you're the only person alive who knows what's in that corner, and I need you to come see it with me before I do something stupid with a spray can. I'm the one in the good jeans trying not to fall apart in front of a hardware store, so hurry up.”

“I need you at the shop. Now, not tomorrow — I haven't slept and I'm not going to, so don't tell me it can wait. I found something in the back room tonight, in my grandmother's handwriting, with your name in it and a date from three years before I ever met you. So decide, before you walk through that door, whether you're going to lie to me — because I'll know.”

“Don't ask me why I'm calling, because I'll lie to you, and I'm very good at it. I saw you tonight on Halsey with your hand on somebody's back like it lived there, and I stood on the sidewalk in my good coat figuring out how to breathe like a person with no opinion about it. I've built an entire career on the fact that ink is the only thing that lasts — imagine my delight at being handed proof I'm wrong at midnight, outside a closed deli, wearing lipstick I picked for a shift you weren't even at.”

“Don't tell me it's going to be all right — I'll hang up on you. The home called twenty minutes ago; he stood in front of the river I painted on their hallway wall, said my mother's name, and then asked the nurse who did it. Four thousand miles, a scaffold booked at dawn, and you're the only person alive who knows what that river even is to me — so say something real. Tell me I get on the plane, or tell me I finish the wall, but you don't get to be gentle with me about this.”

“I thought I could watch you laugh at her jokes and not feel like my chest was cracking open, but I can't. I've been sketching your face on every scrap of paper for months, and it's not about art—it's you. I'm tired of pretending this is just friendship, so here's the truth: I want you, and it's tearing me apart that you don't see it.”

“I just got the call—they're buffing the mural on 14th tomorrow, and I'm standing here with a bucket of paint I already know they'll whitewash before sunrise. My dad's silence on the phone was louder than the drilling ever was. You're the only one who ever saw what I was trying to say with that piece, so tell me—do I repaint it anyway, or let them erase me for the third time this year?”

“I saw you laughing with her by the station tonight and it fucking burned, like I had no claim but my hands were shaking with paint I didn't even use. I defended you to my old crew last week without thinking and now I can't shove this down anymore—you're the only one I sketch when the lights hit right and I need to know if I'm the only idiot feeling it. Say something before I paint over the whole damn wall.”

“I shouldn't be saying this to anyone, let alone you, but last night I opened the shelf my grandmother sealed and every page kept turning back to the way you looked at me the last time you were here. It felt like the words were waiting for someone who'd actually stay, and now I can't put it back without knowing if that someone is you. Don't make me regret trusting you with this.”

“Listen, I just hung up on my brother and I'm this close to booking a ticket home just to scream at them all. He said grandma keeps wondering why I never call anymore, and for once I didn't have the usual lie ready. You're the only one who knows how much it still guts me that they don't know the real me, so tell me straight, do I fix this or keep running?”

“Fuck, I can't keep dodging this. That look you gave me when I said I was done with the crew bullshit... it's got me wrecked, like you're the only one who'd actually get why I can't just walk away from the walls. I painted over half of last night's piece thinking about you instead, and now I'm sitting here with paint on my hands wondering if you'd even want to hear the rest.”

“I found one of the old letters torn open on the counter this morning, the one that names the circle's last surviving bloodline. Whoever did it left my grandmother's seal half-melted in wax, and for the first time the shop feels like it isn't mine alone. I need to tell someone what it actually says before it disappears the way everything else has, but it has to be you, and I need something true from you first so I know you won't leave me holding the pieces.”

“I just blew up at my apprentice over the way he keeps flirting with you every time you sit for ink, and now the whole shop knows I give a damn. That wasn’t supposed to slip out like that. If you’re still awake I need to hear how bad I just made this between us.”