Chapter Text
“Fuck.”
This had, Peter realised, perhaps been somewhat of a mistake. There were fangs so very close to his throat, and he didn’t particularly care for it, he found, but his hands were held above his head. Claws were digging into his wrists, and the wooden stake with the silver core which had been, for lack of a better word, marinated in garlic and holy water (just to be on the safe side), lay useless on the floor. He had a knee wedged between himself and the vampire’s torso, but his strength was waning fast, and sunrise was still hours away.
After the whole thing with Charley and Amy and Jerry the Vampire, Peter had felt the need to do something. Something real, something meaningful. Not that he had quit doing his shows; the money was excellent, and so were the groupies, but he had wanted to do something important, too. Partly it was that felt like he should be avenging Ginger, although her killer was long dead. It hadn’t been by his hand, though, and so it didn’t quite feel like it had counted. Another reason was that it had felt just pretty bloody great to kill the monster who had murdered his family. If he could, by killing more of them, keep any more kids from going through what he had? Well, then maybe he had done something more impactful with his life than give people an hour and a half of flashy entertainment.
So he had killed three vampires. He included Jerry in that count, as he had, after all, been part of that killing. But Jerry was by far the most powerful of them, so far, although the one who was currently very close indeed to draining his blood was pretty high on the list, too. The two he had killed on his own had been fledglings, newly turned things not yet used to their new powers. Just hungry humans with sharp teeth and extra strength, really.
He had been keeping up with reports of supernatural sightings, as he had before, only now it was a to-do list, rather than a place-to-avoid-going-anywhere-near-ever list. This one had seemed similar enough. Couple of people gone missing, some exsanguinated bodies discovered in the basement of a run down block of flats. It had been easy enough, following the trail to what had clearly until recently been a squat. Or, he supposed, technically still was, only now it was a vampire doing the squatting, rather than homeless teens with a high enthusiasm for decorative graffiti and cheap beer.
It had gone well at the start. He had all the weapons and tools with him, had found the vampire sleeping, and been just a meter away, stake in hand, ready to kill the fucker before it even woke up, but then something had happened, higher up in the building, something like an explosion. Peter had been careless. He’d looked up, just for a second, but that had been enough for the monster to wake, to surge up from the pseudo coffin and grab at his throat. Which was how he had ended up here.
The vampire licked at his throat with an inhumanly long and pointed tongue, it’s corpse breath making him retch.
“I’m going to enjoy you,” it hissed, maw opening to reveal far too many needle like fangs.
It was over. He was going to die. He had gotten himself in this stupid fucking shit situation, and he was going to be eaten and it was all his own fault, and-
He heard a roar. Did vampires roar? No, right? The grip on his wrists loosened as another roar sounded, this one far closer. He fell to the ground, and hit his head, the world going black for a few seconds. There was pain, warm wetness by his temple. His shoulder and knee were definitely going to be bruised tomorrow, if indeed he managed to stay alive that long- what was going on? He struggled to his knees, seeing something hunched over the vampire, ripping it apart. The floor was a spreading puddle of blood and viscera. The thing paused, and looked at him.
“Fuck,” Peter whispered, although no doubt the new monster could hear him.
It was, he thought, a werewolf. At least it was huge, and hairy, and had a muzzle full of fangs, currently with bits of vampire stuck in them. Great! Great. Just as he avoided getting killed by a vampire, he was going to get eaten by a werewolf instead. Fucking excellent. This was what you got, wasn’t it, trying to do something good and useful. He should have stuck to the shows, he really should. Or maybe he should have gotten those crucifix tattoos on his neck for real? The vampire had not seemed particularly impressed as it peeled them off him.
The werewolf growled, and bent back over the vampire, severing the head with a deeply unpleasant squelching and crunching noise that made Peter’s skeleton crawl. Then it looked at him, sniffed the air, and turned its head to the side, like a puppy not quite sure whether it was supposed to sit or heel. It looked absurd, but did not in any way take away from how horrifically terrifying the werewolf was. Peter held his hands up, signalling surrender.
“Err, good dog? Don’t eat me, please?”
The werewolf growled, and Peter wondered, belatedly, whether perhaps comparing it to a dog was not the right move. It rose to its hind legs, towering over him, the top of its head nearly scraping the ceiling. And then, it didn’t. It started to shrink down, muscles convulsing, fur disappearing, until a man stood there in its stead. A very naked man, skin still covered in blood and vampire guts.
“Don’t,” the man growled, “call me that.”
As he spoke, Peter could see the man still had sharp fangs, though significantly smaller in his now human sized mouth. His eyes, catching the beam of the torch Peter had dropped, were a pale blue, iris blown wide and no pupils visible.
“Sorry,” Peter, muttered, not quite prepared to be confronted with his words, though reasonably sure the werewolf’s return to human form meant was probably not getting eaten tonight.
“Are you, uh, this is, awkward. Are you going to kill me? You killing that vampire an all, feel a bit of an arsehole killing you.”
His eyes went to the silver tipped stake, and when he looked up he saw the man had noticed.
“Wouldn’t go for it, if I were you,” the man growled.
Peter wondered, briefly, whether it was the fangs making the man growl or whether that was simply how he talked.
“I’m not,” the man added, “going to kill you unless you try to kill me. And frankly, far more dangerous creatures than you have tried and failed, I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“Good,” Peter said, “yeah, excellent, no killing each other, good deal that sounds like, yeah. Thanks, I suppose, for, uh, killing that one for me.”
The man snorted in laughter.
“Yes, that looked like it was going well for you. Been at this long? Great experienced vampire hunter?”
“Killed a few, yeah,” Peter replied, defiantly, and immediately stumbled over a broken chair as he tried to get to his feet, which ruined it a little bit.
“Hang on,” he added, frowning, “hang on. How are you changing? Tonight’s a new moon, I checked, ‘s the reason I’ve only got the one silver weapon. Werewolves’re only supposed to change on the full moon, anything else is cheating.”
“Not a werewolf,” the werewolf said.
“I just saw you turn from a great big wolf thing to a human, that’s pretty telling,” Peter argued, before thinking better of arguing with the man who could turn into a large monster and eat him.
“Lycan,” the man said.
“Eh?”
“I’m a lycan, not a werewolf. The moon does not control me as it does my distant brethren.”
“Brethren,” Peter mocked, “sounds like a word a vampire’d use if you ask me.”
The man growled again, and Peter thought to himself that perhaps, if he’d gone into this hunt sober, he would be making better choices faced with large, scary, and admittedly quite hot monsters. The man, though excessively grimy, had a nice body. Good muscles. Good face, probably, beneath the blood. Long dark hair matted with blood, and what might be either a short beard or just a very large smear of gore. He noticed, when the man blinked, that his eyes were no longer than inhuman pale blue, but a normal greyish brown. His speech no longer seemed affected by fangs, either, though he scowled at Peter for his last remark.
“I am,” he said, teeth gritted in a sarcastic smile, “from the middle ages. Forgive me if I sound a little old fashioned.”
“I- you what? Thought you weren’t a vampire?”
The man- werewolf- lycanwhatever just looked at him.
“What kind of hunter are you, haven’t you done your research, human? Don’t you know the things you’re meant to be hunting?”
“Err,” Peter replied intelligently.
“Fuck’s sake,” the werewolf muttered, looking away, then back to Peter, frowning.
“Wait. Wait, you’re that-”
Oh no, Peter thought, bracing himself.
“You’re that ridiculous vampire magician? With the terrible shows?”
“Hey,” Peter said, although without much weight to it.
The werewolf was looking far too amused.
“Still got the silver stake, just saying,” Peter muttered.
“And you thought you could just try it for real, is that it? Doing some hands on research for a follow up show?”
“Fuck off,” Peter told him, folding his arms just a little defensively.
The man or werewolf or whatever was still very much naked, and it was taking not an inconsiderable amount of Peter’s concentration to keep his eyes on his face. The man seemed to notice this, because he kept looking far too self satisfied.
“Tell you what,” he said, “since I’ve been kind enough not to kill and eat you, you can give me a ride back to where I’m staying, and in return for that, as well as your life, you can get to stare at me the whole drive.”
Peter opened his mouth to protest, closed it again, and glared at the man.
“Excellent,” he said, “it’s a deal, then. The fight with the other vampire ended in my motorbike blowing up, that was the explosion you heard, earlier. And my place is too far to run naked.”
“I- Well- I...” Peter began.
“Okay,” he added, in defeat, “fine, yeah. Drive you home, all right. Jesus christ, I should’ve just stayed home and gotten high.”