[Secret Santa Fic] 1/5

[ran]

TITLE: Robert Pattinson is America
AUTHOR: indict
RECIPIENT: yuanhua
GENRE: Drama/Romance
RATINGS/WARNINGS: M
SUMMARY/PROMPT: "Hunter!UK x Oblivious Vampire!US"



c.1. darkness calls

They called his face sour, but treated him with respect. He was, though, an ugly child, with furrowed eyebrows and a deep, aggressive scowl. With his short, quick walk, and his angry responses, he was by far the most disliked in the academy. Though most people loathed him, they tolerated and respected him because his blood was sublime.

He came from an upper class clan, responsible for vampire hunting. The Kirklands had been known for ages to possess the highest well-crafted techniques, and built the most advanced weapons used even by vampire hunters today. It was unfortunate that the child was the heir to the throne, since he was so unlovable, they said.

They knew he was an angry child, but they used to push him around a bit. Steal his books, carve onto his desk, put worms on his bed. Of course the children laughed when he was angry. But the respect was earned, tooth and nail, on that fatal day when the first assignments had gone out, and another child had gone missing. Arthur had not said much, but he disappeared soon after.

When he returned, he had the dead body of the child over one arm, and the head of a vampire held in the other. He was nine, and nobody talked to him very much again.

He grew into an adult that might have been handsome, if he hadn’t scowled through the dim days and dim nights. After his graduation, he never stayed in one town for too long. Villages hounded for his attention, offering payment in whatever precious little they could afford, because he was a Kirkland, and he always finished his job. The job never finished him. He was peculiar in his pickings, and nobody knew much about him.

His frowning face was perpetually ugly, but in certain lights, when he relaxed by the window of an inn, they might have thought he was a handsome man. He might have been very handsome indeed, if he ever smiled. But he never did, and they only called him the heir of the Kirkland branch.

He called himself Arthur.

At the age of twenty-three, he had taken to a mission. But he took up jobs, along the way, and that was why he was walking down a small red-striped village with slumped roofs, trying his best to ignore the world around him.

“Please!”

A boy with a round face and spectacles nearly falling off his face was bounding closely to his heels. Arthur gritted his teeth until he could taste blood, but he adamantly ignored him. He knew it was a mistake to visit a town called Northick, and all the inhabitants there lived up to its beguiling name. They were all thick in the head, and this boy was no exception.

“Take me as your apprentice,” he was begging, following sharply on his heels. “I know how to fight and everything! I beat up some bullies, just the other day.”

Turn the corner. Make no eye contact. Draw up his hood, walk faster into the dirt path.

“And I heard you were going after the King—”

His cloak billowed behind him as he tackled them both into the alleyway, pressing the large boy against the wall with his hand over his mouth. His heart was beating in his wrists and ears, and his breathing only grew shallower when he saw the few people littering the streets at the dusk. When he brought his attention back to the boy, he saw the boy’s eyes had widened considerably.

They were quite blue, he thought.

“What do you know about the King?”

“I only know,” the boy wheezed, even as Arthur’s fingertips pressed into the softness of his neck, “that you’re looking for him! I-I wanna look for him too!”

“They were lying,” Arthur said. He released the boy, and turned away. Another person who knew nothing about the King. He was unsurprised that the news leaked out. Though he never announced his intentions, his arrival at anyplace where the King was rumoured was evidence enough.

Though Northick was mentioned, briefly, as a possible place where the King had laid in slumber, Arthur was here on another point of business. One hundred years had passed since the last King, and the new King would awaken, if he had not already. The bestial vampires were rising again, and in larger numbers. They were agitated, and thirsted for blood. They thirsted for their King.

He tightened his grip, and kept his head down. Night would arrive soon. The woods were crawling with vampires. He had never forgotten his first encounter with a vampire, when he was nine, and the vampire was large.

“They said a vampire killed most of the livestock,” the boy said. Arthur’s reflexes screamed for him to turn around and shoot the sound in the head, but he caught himself just in time. When he turned, the boy was beaming, and bathed in an orange glow from the sundown.

How irritating.

“You’ve lived in this town for longer,” Arthur said curtly, trying to end the conversation before it began. “No need to question me.”

“I don’t really know!” The boy ran a little ahead. “I lost most of my memories, so I don’t know a lot. Except the vampires apparently killed a shepherd the other day. They had to bury him after they salted him. Is that the right thing to do? If a vampire bites you and stuff?”

“It’s surprising what horrible things people will do to their dead in fear.” Arthur hastened his pace briskly towards the woods. “It’s surprising what horrible things people should do to their dead for protection.”

“Has anybody ever told you,” the boy asked, lanky pace keeping up with their walk, “that you’re not that nice?”

“Has anybody told you that you’re a cheeky brat? You’ll be dead in the first day of hunting vampires.” Arthur paused at the edge of the town, where the clumps of buildings stood together. Northick was a small town, with only small differences from the other small towns that he had been through. Their houses were built to be stately, but one edge of their roof abruptly slumped, as if giving up in exhaustion. In a town festival, they celebrated by painting red stripes on their houses, but now it merely looked sad and faded, like a deep scar running through the white walls.

The inhabitants of the town, for the most part, left him alone. They were a good lot, simple folk but with well enough intentions. That was why it annoyed him. This boy was everything human about those stupid people.

“I want to hunt with you,” the boy insisted.

“Choose another hunter.”

“It has to be you!”

“Why?”

Because he was a Kirkland.

He already knew the answer, with bitterness in his mouth and throat. They came to him in flocks and swarms, eager people who wished to learn the ways of vampire hunting. Filthy masses who only heard the whiff of Kirkland before they came charging after him, heralding him, while their eyes waited for his blood.

“Because…” The boy appeared doubtful for a moment. “Because you looked lonely.”

The rejection died on his lips, and he had to turn away abruptly to keep the shock away from his face. He could have laughed at the stupid conjecture. He wasn’t lonely at all, but—yes, the boy must have been mistaken.

He wasn’t lonely at all.

“Night is falling,” he said, breaking off his thoughts. “Go back to your home. It’s dangerous here.”

“I wanna learn.” The boy broke into a relaxed grin, stretching ear to ear. “What’s your name?”

“Don’t you already know? It was your town that called me here.”

“Nope.” The boy laughed a bit into his hand. “Unless you think you’re too good to tell me! But since I’m your apprentice now, you should tell me, anyway.”

He bit back the urge to recite everything that was wrong with that approach. First, apprentices went through a process of applying through the guild. Academy training would come first, then hands-on training, before apprenticeship was even considered. To say the least about the appropriate levels of apprenticeship and the guildwork involved to get to that level, to suddenly call himself an apprentice was nothing short of arrogant.

But, still, he heard himself say, “Call me Kirkland.”

He wasn’t used to his name being met by casual grins, but the boy only laughed and said, “My name is Alfred F. Jones. I named myself that, because I thought it was a good name. Isn’t it a good name?”

“No.”

“Don’t be such a hardball! It’s a great name. It really sounds like a hero.” Alfred rocked back on the signpost that directed poor wayfarers to the little town of Northick. “I really wanna be a hero. That’s why I’m gonna be a vampire hunter. Because hunters are heroes, and vampires are the bad guys!”

“Spoken,” Arthur said, unclasping part of his upper cloak, “like a true idiot. There is nothing glorious or victorious about being a vampire hunter.”

“Of course there is.” Alfred leaned back on the post and widened his arms until he nearly fell over. “All the people say they get thiiiis much money and they owe them thiiiiis much stuff! He saves lives! That guy, who was killed—other people won’t get killed because you hunted down his killer!”

“It’s not as simple as that.” Arthur tested out his crossbow. He usually slung it across his back, but he needed to be prepared for anything. The woods were close, and with the night descending rapidly, the vampire might grow thirsty and greedy. When vampires grew greedy, that was the time to strike.

“Then tell me why it’s not so simple, hotshot,” Alfred said, crossing his arms.

“Do you know why vampires scream?”

Alfred blinked, then shrugged. “I dunno. I’ve never met one.”

“They scream because they’re in pain.” Arthur drew out an arrow, equipping it gruffly. His hands felt calloused from the years of experience. Shoot. Kill. Arm himself again. Pull the trigger. Keep his eye on the kill.

“So?”

“Humans scream when they’re in pain.” He had been testing the crossbow at eye level, but he lowered it then, to look at the boy with some sort of sadness. The boy suddenly appeared so human to him, and so young.

“… So?” The boy was growing visibly discomforted by the talk. He probably expected some jargon about vampires, such as they were beasts, and killers. Maybe some other time, some other vampire hunter would indulge him. There were some idiots out there who probably believed it. He, however, could not.

“Vampires were human once, too.” He gazed at him with some sadness. “Isn’t that something?”

And the sudden screeching reached his ears a second too late, even as he was raising his bow on instinct. Something hurtled across his vision, knocking the boy back, but completely tearing off the sign post from the edges, leaving only raw shivers of wood behind. He spun around again, crossbow ready, but the vampire was already there.

Damn, damnit. Damn. Damn. He was too late. He had been too involved with his stupid talking with the stupid boy, and the night had fallen. It had not completely fallen, but it was enough so that the sliver of moon had emerged. And with the growing aggression of the vampires, they were no longer simply satisfied to wait until nightfall.

There was enough light to see the vampire in his full glory. It was an older one, but relatively isolated until recently. He must have been brought out by the King’s Awakening, if anything. It was a beast with heavily curved fangs, drawn back to show blackened gums and yellowed teeth. He snarled from the back of his throat, waiting on his haunches for movement. His skin was pale and kept close to his skull, and some skin dangled from underneath his throat where it had torn away from his jaw. His limbs were long and bony, with his joints sticking out, but most noticeable was the eye dangling from his socket, wavering from end to end.

He aimed forward again, shooting at the vampire, but the arrow only cut away the eyeball and landed loudly in a tree, and he was forced to try and shoot again but the vampire was hurtling his way and he threw himself to the ground, already reaching for his dagger for a hand-on-hand fight, and the vampire was snarling on top of him, even as he was trying to hack his way through the muscles and the wiry chest and the stolen blood sprayed onto the road and he had heard a cry.

It was a soft cry, but if he could hear it, a vampire could most certainly hear it. The vampire turned, and Arthur tried to take the chance to cut through his head, but it was too late, for the vampire was already springing off, and when he turned his head, he could see Alfred sitting on his stupid fucking arse on the edge of the road, as if just waiting to get killed, and for a second, he felt absolute panic, that he hadn’t felt when the fight first began, and he was scrambling for his crossbow but all his actions felt slow, sludgey, too late, air pulling him back, and the vampire leapt for the boy.

And the vampire suddenly slammed into a tree.

Arthur didn’t waste the opportunity, and shot the crossbow as fast as he could. This time, it got a portion of the vampire’s shoulder, and the second shot got the other shoulder. The vampire screamed, and Arthur was raising his crossbow for the final kill shot, when he heard Alfred cry again, just as softly.

He hesitated, but the vampire was too caught by the arrows to escape. Reluctantly, he turned partially to find Alfred. In the academy, they had taught him never to turn his back to a vampire. In his house, they taught him never to take his eyes off a vampire.

“Are you all right?” he called back, trying to appear unconcerning about the answer. It was stupid that he had to feign the coldness. There was something about the boy’s smile that got him. Damnit, Arthur Kirkland—not in front of a vampire—not now—not ever.

“Y… Yeah.” Alfred sounded shaky as he dusted himself off, approaching him. Darkness had truly fallen now, though the vampire’s pale skin left him a visible target. Arthur never lowered his crossbow. The vampire screamed in pain, writhing away against the tree.

“What did you do?” Arthur pretended to laugh. “I thought you were going to be eaten.”

“No, I just… pushed.” Alfred didn’t appear shaken by the incident, though he stared wide-eyed at the screaming vampire. He had to raise his voice to talk over it.

“Is that how you defeated those bullies?”

“Yeah, I just pushed them… Is he saying something?” Alfred took a step closer, even as Arthur tried to shove him back.

Arthur had grown too use to the whisperings, so he had ignored them. But now, that he paid attention, he recognized the familiar sounds. If he listened closely enough, it sounded human. It sounded like, please, don’t kill me, please, let me go, it hurts, it hurts.

“He’s in pain,” Alfred said, his face growing pale.

“Perhaps.” He lowered the crossbow, and reached behind his back. He took out an old stake, hazel, one of many.

“What are you going to do?” Alfred seemed more panicky than he did when the vampire was attacking him. His hands flew about uselessly.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s human. He’s, he’s like human.”

“It’s a vampire, Alfred.” He spoke very clearly, even as he stared at the vampire with both eyes. “I kill vampires. That is what a vampire hunter does.”

“You can’t do that! Listen to him! He’s screaming!”

“It’s a monster.” With a single swift stroke, he slammed the stake into the vampire’s heart. He was an expert by now, at the exact anatomy. He knew exactly where the heart was placed, only because he knew how to destroy it. The vampire screamed even louder, screeching, writhing against the crossbows, but it was already too late. The blood splurted across the ground, at the remains of his clothes, on his mouth. His eyes were wide as they stared at Arthur, stared at him until the vampire slowly slumped, and died.

When Arthur turned again, he saw that Alfred had slumped on the ground. He sat with his mouth open, his eyes blank. Alfred swallowed a few times, before looking up at him.

“How could you do that?” he whispered hoarsely. “Aren’t you human, too?”

“I never said humans weren’t monsters.”

Those words seemed enough. Arthur picked up his crossbow, fitting it against his back again. He wrapped up the stake clumsily, and clasped his cloak again. But he still thought about it. It remained in his mind, that stupid boy’s comment. He wasn’t lonely at all. He was a first class vampire hunter. He had been bred to be the best. If other people considered him an ugly creature, then so be it. He would skulk. He never minded them.

But, the boy could defend himself. He could provide an ample support on his journeys. That was the only reason, he told himself, over and over again. It wasn’t that he was sick of the cold nights where he was alone with his thoughts, or the way he watched others laugh around with their so-called friends. He never believed in the formation of human relations, and he wouldn’t start now.

“It would only be temporary,” he began, “but you can come with me.”

“No.”

He had more to say, but he had to cut back the words in his throat. No? The boy had been begging him earlier, and now he said no? His face suddenly heated up in humiliation, and he turned to make a scene, yell at him, be angry with him. But he couldn’t say anything at the expression the boy was making, how his eyes weren’t even towards Arthur. The boy was staring at the vampire emptily.

“You just killed him,” Alfred said shakily. “How could you do that?”

It was a foolish dream to want a companion, anyway. He didn’t need one. He could do well enough on his own, like he always did.

“Take care on your way home.” Arthur turned, and left him. It was a long walk to the village, though the walk to the forest seemed so much shorter. The conversation must have distracted him. But it was nice, he thought, when it was quiet. It was even nicer when it was quiet, even though he only had the loathing thoughts in his head to lurk behind the corners of the buildings.

Being a vampire hunter had attuned him to a difficult sense. He couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching him behind every shadow, and that every shadow whispered as they ran across the lights. Today, in particular, felt heavy. He felt like he bore the burden of fate, and he couldn’t tell why.

He reached the inn quietly enough, and paid the copper for a night’s room. The innkeeper’s wife whispered at her husband, and they both stared at him silently as he climbed the creaky steps. The stairs were lined with horrendous paintings, ugly figures of a man with a dark mustache who stared at him as he climbed. His own room was too small for the copper he paid, which he normally would have been loud to proclaim. Tonight, though, he slumped on the bed, dumping some of his weapons onto the floor.

He never slept without his weapons. It had come to practical use, a few times, but it was more for a paranoid’s use now. He couldn’t turn off the lights when he went to sleep, for that brief flickering of protection the pale firelight could stand against the vampire’s sensitive skin. When he closed his eyes, he thought he could feel vampires waiting in the corner for him, and the dark of his eyelids pressed upon him.

The kill hadn’t been particularly disturbing. He should have burned the corpse, but Alfred had been there. For some reason, that had thrown him off. He hadn’t wanted to disturb him more than he usually did. But he really should burn the corpse.

The thought haunted him enough that he clasped his cloak again, pulling on his boots, clipping on his weapons, and he opened the door—

To find Alfred there, raising his hand to knock.

“Oh,” Alfred said, face reddening. “You’re here.”

“Was this your room?” Arthur curiously looked behind him. The room was mostly empty, except a pallid painting of a sunflower in the middle. The walls were yellow, the bed was sparse, and only a table and a chair acted as true furniture.

“No! I mean, I do rent a room, but it’s not… I came to see you.” Alfred let out a weak laugh, even as his face was clearly red. “To thank you.”

“For what?”

“For—saving me. Thank you, Arthur.” He seemed earnest, and it was very awkward, standing in the doorway. Arthur had been raised a gentleman, but he had never needed to put his skills to use. In fact, even at the foreign mention of his first name, he barely didn’t notice. But he started, and then coughed slightly.

“Would you like to come in?” he asked awkwardly.

“… Yeah.” Alfred shuffled in, and they sat in awkward silence for a little bit longer.

“I—”

“It’s—” They both started to speak at once, before Arthur flushed and motioned for Alfred to speak first.

“I’m sorry,” Alfred said, “And, I mean, I think I got the wrong idea. You act like you’re such a bad guy, but maybe you’re not such a bad guy. I mean, basically, you… you didn’t have to come here, did you?”

“What?” Arthur scowled. “It’s a job. Why wouldn’t I come?”

“But I heard about you! That you’re really famous, and you can get any job you want. I heard the town over would have paid a lot for you.”

“Johnson is taking care of that,” he said carelessly. “They pay by the pound. They’ll be safe enough. He’s an idiot, but he does thorough work when he’s paid well.”

“But that’s the thing,” Alfred said eagerly, “you could have been paid well, too. This town, it’s… it’s nice, but it’s poor. It can’t give you a lot. And nobody really likes you here.”

“You don’t have to put it like that,” Arthur muttered, but Alfred ignored him easily.

“You came here because nobody else would, right? They’ve been asking for a while.”

“I came,” he said clearly, but flushing rapidly, “because there were rumors about the King sleeping nearby, and I thought it was a potent—”

“You didn’t know about those rumors until after you came.” Alfred spoke with surprising clarity. He seemed aglow with some sort of happiness, his face nearly beaming with pride, even by the dim fire of the candle. “I’m glad.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know it.”

Arthur stared down at his hands. He felt increasingly uncomfortable with the situation, and he had to say something to break the silence. After clearing his throat a few times, he finally reached for some desperate words to salvage the situation.

“You shouldn’t come with me. If you’re so upset about the vampires.”

“I dunno. I mean, that’s the thing, too,” Alfred said, leaning forward. “I don’t think you like hunting vampires. You seem to really understand a lot about them. Even if it’s hard, I’d rather learn from you than somebody who just kills them without understanding. You hate yourself, and that sucks.”

“I do not hate myself,” he said indignantly.

“Yeah, yeah. So I’ll come with you, all right? You’re hunting after the King, anyway. So I’ll help you out. He’s supposed to be super powerful, I heard, and you need someone super powerful to beat him up.” Alfred hesitated. “But why are you going after him?”

“Because if I kill him,” Arthur recited with a droll tone, “his death will send out a psychic shock that will kill most of the other vampires instantaneously.”

Alfred stared at him.

“What?” Arthur was taken aback. “It’s true. It’s not like that garble they tell you at the academy, about how the kings just lead the pack. My family has parchments that go back decades, and they recorded this down. The King has psychic powers, and I know far more than you about this rot—”

“I wasn’t doubting that,” Alfred said, holding up a hand firmly, his childish face set stubbornly. “I was just thinking, there must be something else.”

It was surprising, how Alfred could see right through him. Arthur gritted his teeth, but his weakness won out. There would be no harm in telling him, especially if they were to journey together for a temporary while.

“When I was younger,” he said, “Nine or so, I read this parchment from the family documents. It described the King of the vampires, and there was something… peculiar about it.” But his eyes shot back towards him. That was all he was going to say.

It was all Alfred needed, because he was grinning. “You’re curious, aren’t you.”

“What? No—”

“You’re curious about vampires,” Alfred laughed. “You’re not such a big bad vampire hunter after all! Everybody was making you sound super scary, but in the end, you’re just you!”

“You’re an arrogant brat who has no room to talk. Remember your past before you mock my present.” He meant his words to deliberately hurt, and regretted it when he said it, feeling he had gone too far with his sharp tongue, like he always did; but he was pleasantly relieved when Alfred only shrugged.

“I’m going to make my own future,” Alfred said. “So can I sleep here tonight?”

Arthur blinked, and then began to shove him out of his room.

“Not at all,” he said firmly, “Go back to your own room. I’ll come by in the morning, and we’ll leave at dawn. You’ll be leaving all your friends behind, and—”

“I don’t have much,” Alfred said excitedly, turning at the doorway. “Thank you, Arthur. You really won’t regret it!”

“Going back to sleep now?” he asked with some amusement.

“Nah, I’ll go down to the kitchen. For some reason, I’m thirsty.” Alfred turned with a wave, though the candlelight that lit the hallway shone for a second on his teeth, making his canines stand out in particular, glimmering in white.

Arthur watched him leave. It occurred to him, momentarily, that he had never told Alfred his first name. A strange sensation floated over him as he watched Alfred disappear.