Chapter Text
Nathaniel - or, as he existed now as Neil Josten ‐ woke up in his plush, padded ebony coffin in Millport, Alaska. He rose up out of his box with a hatred for the night and when he peeled back the blackout curtains, the mellow light of twilight peaked through the cracks of his windowsill. Another twilight spent alone. He still has not fooled himself into thinking he wants it this way.
He has been seventeen years old for about a century or two - maybe three. Truly, there is no use to celebrating birthdays anymore - nobody to celebrate with him, after all. He has had companions across the way but, as mortals love to do, they died, and with them, so did his social skills. Despite how his solitude transformed life into a monotonal burden, he made no attempt for new friends. Both of his parents were dead, now at least. In 1820's Poland, he was ripped out of the body of his mother, a woman pregnant by the world's worst vampire in Nathan Wesninski. Despite this, she didn't seem to despise him too badly - despite the fact that he was a mutant. A hybrid, a half-breed. Mortal or immortal? Probably immortal, possibly not. Nathan turned him anyway, just to make sure.
Nathaniel remembers it like it was yesterday; the venom coursing through his body, poisoning his blood. The intense agony, the way his body convulsed. His throat should have been gone for a full week with how hard he screamed. Before he was turned, he had his mother's eyes - big and brown. It was the only thing he truly cherished about his face, otherwise plagued by the genes of his father. But waking up after his rebirth, when he looked into his mirror (yes, vampires do have reflections), he found his eyes a cold, electrifying blue, and the tan skin his mother gave him paler. But his hair - once a softer ginger - had now darkened into a flaming, blood red, the full manifestation of his father’s monster.
Soon after he turned seventeen, Nathan - deciding that Mary had served her purpose - threw his wife out into the sun, letting the solar rays crush her to ash. Nathaniel didn't watch - despite all the death he'd witnessed in his life, he couldn't stomach it. He cowardly returned to his coffin, closing himself away until nighttime returned.
Nathaniel let his grief fester into rage as the years went by; Mary's death had released an ugly black feeling inside of him, a craving for vengeance that began to take over his body. He stewed in his bitterness for two hundred years before he finally gained enough willpower to avenge his mother.
There were but three ways to murder a vampire: Soak them in sunlight until they turned to dust, let them drink the blood of the dead — and behead them.
After beheading, the vampire must be burned, so the skin does not regenerate, and the head does not find its way back to his body. Nathaniel made quick work of sharpening his axe and removing Nathan's body from his head. He kept it on his mantle as a trophy, before tossing it into an incinerator and leaving it there to rot.
Nathaniel sighed; he had many "first days" of his senior year, and each one was as tedious as the others. Teachers always nagged at him and his classmates about the importance of senior year and high school, but he had done this same year enough times to grow sick of it. All his tests were light work, and he saw no point in making friends anymore. Tomorrow, he would need to make a visit to - what did they call it now? The mall? Close enough. Anyway, he needed to make a visit there for some new clothes for tomorrow's daytime, so he could get some full coverage clothes that were inconspicuous enough that he could blame it on a lack of extroversion.
There was a hollowness in his stomach that he couldn't shift - after refraining from feeding as long as he could, it seemed Nathaniel was finally hungry. He had an aversion to hunting, especially humans — too many bad memories surrounding Nathan. But his eternally teenage metabolism could only handle so long without food; he draped himself in an all-black getup, pulling a black cap over his flaming hair for a little plausible deniability and bolting his coffin shut. Olden houses had too many secrets; with a yank of a lever on his bedside cabinet, his coffin had been tucked away, replaced with a plain blue bed that sat collecting dust.
With his secrets all hidden, he left his house for the first time in weeks.
♱
One advantage about living in Alaska meant the lack of sun; he was free to roam anywhere at almost any time, though his natural instincts preferred the dark. Millport was lethally cold, and it chilled Nathaniel’s dead skin as he walked through the streets. Winter had plunged his home region into an endless twilight, and Nathaniel couldn’t be happier.
He listened to the world around him, feeling the heartbeats of the mortals around him, the blood rushing through their veins tantalizing him. He sees a dark figure still in an alleyway, out in the open like a silver platter dish. The aching in his teeth let his canines sharpen into fangs. His eyes lightened back from his masking brown into his natural electric blue. He paused to hear - there was nobody else around. He approached closer with a grin, surveying his lunch. A tall, bulky man, with a healthy heart to pump delicious blood around his body. He let his grin spread a little wider.
“Excuse me, sir.” Nathaniel introduced himself, turning his predatory snarl into a friendly smile. “Could I speak to you for a moment?”
♱
Nathaniel drained the last of the blood from the man’s neck, slumping against the dirty brick of the alleyway to take a breath, feeling more refreshed than he had in decades. But then again, when was the last time he drank human blood? It must have been around the 1970s, when he fled to the US after Russia got a bit too serious. Some hippies were wandering around dark California on their way to smoke some weed, and Nathaniel couldn’t resist the feast, getting a little bit addled by all the marijuana in their blood.
His point is, human blood tasted good. Too good to resist, most nights, if he wasn’t so afraid of being found out. Nathaniel wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, shoving himself off the wall and stalking home, his feet crunching through the ice on the ground on his way.
After the high of the blood wore off, Nathaniel was left to ponder his starvation, and what had become of his life. It had been around two hundred years since he had been reborn; in fact, he could still remember the night that he was turned.
♱
The year was 1837, and the date was January 19th.
Nathaniel Wesninski awoke in his plush, human bed in his father’s gothic townhouse in rural Poland - well, the Congress Kingdom of Poland to be specific, but Nathaniel never kept track over the centuries. He awoke, the heir to his father’s vampiric legacy, a seventeen year old boy. That was the first year he was actually seventeen.
His family were never as picturesque and jubilant as celebrating birthdays with cake and candles - the human maids served him breakfast to the music of his parents arguing in the background. Nathaniel ate his way through seasoned meat and wheat bread slices, uncaring about another of their usual conflicts until he heard his name.
“-It’s too early!” He heard his mother screech in the drawing room, as thuds sounded on the walls - most likely his father throwing things at her head again.
“He’s old enough - I have waited for years, I have restrained myself-”
“From biting your child?” His mother screamed back, scandalized. “I forbid it!”
“You have no authority to forbid, woman - that child is mine!” His father roared.
Nathaniel’s heart sank, a sense of foreboding creeping down his spine like cold ice. They were planning to turn him. His parents continued their angry rebuttals until Nathaniel heard a sharp slapping sound sting across the room, and he felt a queasy feeling in his stomach. There were more thumping sounds and screeches of pain until it all went silent - Nathaniel didn’t need to guess twice to know what happened.
He ate his last bite of meat on a slice of wheat bread, savouring his last memory of human food before his father turned him into a monster.
“Thank you,” He said to the maids, standing up and leaving the kitchen. He lightened his footsteps as he walked by the drawing room, not daring to alert his father to his presence. He walked up the flights of stairs, pressing silk under the soles of his feet until he reached his bedroom. He looked at his linen bed, warm and comfortable - and imagined a cold, wooden coffin in its place. He looked into the mirror - by that time tomorrow, would he even have a reflection anymore? Would he still be allowed to run? Or would they lock him inside the house, for fear he couldn’t control his urges?
And what about fifty years from then? All his peers aged into their sixties, but he would still be stuck as a little boy. How was his life to develop? Nathaniel had never been one for love, but what was he to do in the future? Sixty years from now, if he would ever find somebody he loved (not that he’d ever really been one for love anyway), would his only options be pedophiles or teenagers? Seventeen forever - so close to reaching adulthood, yet… so far. He looked at the teenage body in the mirror, and despised its incoming permanence.
At least when he was a vampire, he mightn’t have a reflection. Maybe one day, if he deludes himself, he might see a man.
Brown eyes, ginger hair, tan skin. He forced himself to get used to these features before vampirehood changed them forever. Brown eyes, ginger hair, tan skin. He had his mother’s eyes and skin. Brown eyes, ginger hair, tan skin. Well, at least until Nathan turned her. Her eyes were a piercing gold now - if she was able to stand daylight, Nathaniel was sure they would have glistened in the sun. Brown eyes, ginger hair, tan skin. Some days, if Nathaniel was observant enough… Brown eyes, ginger hair, tan skin, on the nights when Nathan starved her as punishment, Brown eyes, ginger hair, tan skin, he was quite sure Mary wanted to eat him.
Brown eyes, ginger hair, tan skin. Brown skin, ginger eyes, tan hair. Brown…
“Nathaniel!” His mother’s voice called from downstairs - speak of the devil. Nathaniel exhaled, forcing his body still.
“Tak?” Yeah? Nathaniel shouted back. She didn’t respond. “Tak?” Yeah? He repeated. No response.
Huffing, he left his bedroom, closing the door and descending the steps down into the dining room, where her voice had come from.
When he arrived, he was unsettled by the arrangement. The dining table had been stripped of its clothes and dressings, and all the chairs had been shoved away and stacked into a corner. The maids had been shooed away into the kitchen - it was simply him and his parents left. He noted the growing bruise on his mother’s face, and swallowed down his resistance.
“There you are,” Nathan smirked like a wolf who’d caught the rabbit. “Synek.” Son. Nathan had never called him such a name so affectionately before - if Nathaniel was any stupider, he would’ve thought that this would be a good thing. “Do you know why you’re here?”
“Yes,” Nathaniel whispered. “I am going to die.”
“Not die, Synek. You will be reborn, like I and your mother was. Don’t be afraid, Nathaniel.” Nathan grinned, his fangs glinting in the candlelight. “This won’t hurt a bit.”
Make it quick, Nathaniel wished. Please spare me.
“Onto the table, Nathaniel. It’s time.” Nathaniel moved himself obediently, laying down onto the table, shaking with trepidation. “Relax yourself,” Nathan ordered, sounding slightly irritated.
“I can’t help it,” Nathaniel gasped.
“Relax yourself.” Nathan said again, compulsively, and Nathaniel clenched his fists to stabilise his body. “Good.” Nathaniel felt a cold, cold, hand on his neck, and another shiver rippled over him. “You’ll really be my son now.” Nathan tilted Nathaniel’s head up towards him, and Nathaniel squeezed his eyes shut. He felt a sharp, insufferable pain in his neck as Nathan’s teeth sank into him; he couldn’t help his yelp.
Tears of pain pricked in his eyes, and his wallows of agony became quieter and quieter as his body became weaker, as more blood was drawn from him. It felt like eternity as Nathaniel’s vision spotted away in black, as his cries became fainter and his heart beat slower. He didn’t even feel the fangs leave his neck, or the blood dripping down his collarbone as Nathan’s face came back into view.
Nathan used a dagger to the left of him to slice his forearm open in a wound, forcing Nathaniel’s mouth open and letting him drink.
The first drops were like salvation - drops of life in a void of death, bringing him closer to consciousness. Nathaniel’s eyes widened, and he grabbed his father’s forearm to bring it closer to him, in an attempt to drain his veins of every last drop. And that stream of blood - it came like strength. A flourishing current of revitalization on the edge of death, a rope helping him pull away from the cliff, a sea of life in an arid valley of death. Such contradictory, yet such strong feelings - the sensation of water in his lungs, fire burning his heart whole. He was dying, but he was being reborn, revived. Is it possible to feel such euphoria on the brink of death? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. He gulped the blood down like a starving man, before Nathan finally wrenched his hand away from Nathaniel’s grasp.
Nathaniel was left gasping on the dining room table, feeling stronger and more alive than ever. “You…” His voice came in a rasp, before it returned to him in a boom. “More.” Nathan grinned at him, fangs out again.
“In due time, Nathaniel.”
“I want it now,” Nathaniel argued, before gasping in pain at the dull ache in his teeth. “What-” He hissed, grasping at his mouth.
“You’re teething, Nathaniel. Let it happen, and it’ll pass.”
The aching passed, but the deep, guttural hunger didn’t. “I need…” Nathaniel groaned, clutching his stomach, utterly ravenous. “I’m starving.”
Nathan chuckled, but Mary frowned, finally speaking. “We’ll feed you soon, Nathaniel.”
“Soon isn’t enough,” Nathaniel hissed, feeling on death’s doorstep suddenly. “I need…” And then he smelled it. In the kitchen, a whole bunch of them - humans. Food. Blood.
He shoved himself off the dining room table - dashing to the kitchen in a flash. They looked at him, startled.
“Young Master,” one of them began. “Have you-” Why was it speaking? Was his food meant to speak? Did it matter? He was just so hungry. He was so hungry he couldn’t control himself. He jumped on her, finding her neck and draining her of all the blood she had. It rushed into his stomach like hot, delicious adrenaline, so sweet like honey on his tongue - but even as he finished feeding, he wasn’t satiated. He needed another. Body after body, drain after drain - when his parents finally came into the kitchen, they found him draining his last victim on the kitchen floor.
“Nathaniel,” Mary said angrily, over his father’s cackles of laughter. “He has killed the maids!” She walked forward and dragged him off the last body with sharp nails, slapping him around the face until she set his mind back right. He looked at what he’d caused, and felt a burning shame ripple down his spine. He accepted his mother’s punches on his body without return, feeling that this was his penance for not controlling his impulses. The force of his hindsight nearly burned him whole.
“Absolute-” She cursed him between blows. “-demon-” “-just-” “-like your father-!”
“That’s enough, Mary,” Nathan stepped in with a menacing grin. “He’s only a boy, isn’t he?”
“Murderer!” Mary screamed, Nathaniel’s hair still in her fist. “You’ve made him into a monster, you’ve killed him! You’ve made him like you!”
“Aren’t we all monsters?” Nathan shouted back. “Isn’t this what we do to survive? I haven’t killed him, I made him better!”
“Look what he’s done!”
“He killed a couple of maids, we can get new ones. We’re all monsters here, Mary. That’s what we’re here for.” Nathan finally lowered his voice, rolling his sleeves up.
♱
He didn’t like to recount Mary’s death.
Nathaniel hung his bloodstained coat on the hanger by the door and locked his home back up. He’d passed by a department store on the way - empty enough for him to peruse, and ask some employees what regular clothes for teenage boys looked like without getting crazy looks from the public. North Alaska was hardly populated either way; Millport, Alaska was an utter ghost-town in the winter, and he’d been there long enough to be considered a local of no interest.
Well, he’d be starting at Millport High School tomorrow, anyway. In reality, the only reason that he’d picked Millport was because of it’s Exy team. The Millport High Bats were an utterly mediocre team, filled with students who didn’t care for the sport other than an unimportant hobby, which masked him from any attention, as nobody thought Millport High’s alum was worth paying any attention to.
He’d been playing Exy since the day it was officialized as a sport - 23rd March, 1906 to be exact. Nathaniel had been in the States at the time, having been dragged there by his father for one of his menial business dealings. He’d met Tetsuji Moriyama; a young, grave young man who’d designed the sport with his best friend, Kayleigh Day. Nathaniel preferred Kayleigh - she seemed stronger, more confident with the sport. He’d watched them demonstrate the rules of the game to Nathan, in an attempt for him to invest in funding the new beginnings of their sport. Nathan didn’t care for the sport, but Nathaniel - oh, Nathaniel - he was simply enchanted.
They’d taught him the sport at his request, and in exchange, Nathan decided to invest. To this very day, Nathaniel is sure that his father’s account still receives money from the investments. Nathaniel continued his practice of Exy to the modern day; Nathaniel wasn’t one to brag, but he was quite sure his hundred year experience had paid off. Exy was his first love - over those lonely two centuries of existence, he had replaced any need for companionship with his pursuit of Exy. If he was able to grow into a man - he believes that one day, he would have been able to go Pro. If only he hadn’t been turned so young.
Against his nature, Nathaniel climbed into his coffin at night, clothes - which he’d purposely picked to be as inconspicuous and lacking of any identity at all - laid outside his coffin, ready for the morning. He thanked God that there was no sun in Millport.
Tomorrow, he would begin his new life as Neil Josten.
♱
“There’s someone here to see you, Neil.” This shouldn’t have worried Neil as much as it would’ve around a few years ago, when he was worried about his father coming back to life and killing him. What use was there for fear? Especially when almost everybody he’d ever known was long dead.
Still, Neil was getting quite hungry, and he didn’t want to risk a small-town massacre as a result of his avarice. “Can this wait?” He asked impatiently.
“No,” a distant voice answered, and Neil turned to see a large stranger standing in the doorway, his white tank top showing his sleeves of inky tribal tattoos. He had one hand shoved into his jean pocket, and another holding a thick, manila file. Neil eyed it warily. His stance was casual, but there was intent in his eyes.
Neil didn’t recognise him - his part of Alaska was almost completely abandoned in the winter because of the lack of sunlight. The only ones remaining were those too far gone to leave, and those who were stupid enough to stay. “And you are?” He raised an eyebrow.
“From… a university,” Hernandez explained, his testing tone a betrayal to Neil. “He came to see you play.”
“You’re recruiting from Millport?” Neil almost felt inclined to laugh. “Nobody even knows where this place is.”
“There’s this thing called a map,” The recruiter shrugged. “You might’ve heard of it.”
“He’s here,” Hernandez cut them off, shooting Neil a look, “-because I sent him your file. He put a note out saying he was short on his striker line, and I figured it was worth a shot. I didn't tell you because I didn't know if anything would come of it and I didn't want to get your hopes up."
Neil glared at him.
"I tried contacting your parents when he asked for a face-to-face tonight, but they haven't returned my messages. You said they'd try to make it."
“They did,” Neil said awkwardly. “They… couldn’t.”
“Well, I can’t wait for them.” The recruiter cut him off. “Had some technical difficulties with my last recruit, and Coach said you still haven’t chosen a school for fall. Well doesn’t that work out nice? I need a striker, you need a team, just sign the dotted line and you’re mine for five years.” Neil glared at him. “I’m serious, kid.” I am much older than you, Neil bit back in his head.
He tossed his file onto the bleacher where Neil had been sitting. Neil's name was scrawled across the front in black marker. Honestly, Neil was kind of impressed. Neil Josten had technically existed for less than a year, but the recruiter still managed to accumulate a file’s worth of information on him.
But Neil still had his worries - he’d isolated himself for centuries in fear of inciting a massacre. In a college building he would be surrounded by fresh meat, none of which would be able to fight him off. And of the exposure? He could just imagine it now - mere days after his first television interview, he’d be found with blood splattered all over his hands and fangs in a momentary loss of self-control.
“Go away,” He told the man shakily.
"It's a bit sudden, but I really do need an answer tonight. The Committee's been hounding me since Janie got locked up." Janie - Janie Smalls.
“Foxes,” Neil pieced it together. “Palmetto State Foxes. You’re… David Wymack.”
Wymack looked stunned. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. I guess you saw the news.”
“Yeah,” Neil confirmed. “I did.”
Well - that explained why he’d been chosen. Hernandez must’ve seen every bit of proof that Neil lacked parents - him never eating lunch (because he feeds on blood), him falling asleep in class (his natural instincts implore him to sleep in the daytime), the lack of guardians at Parent-Teacher conferences (they’re both dead), and the simple fact that sometimes, during special circumstances, when Neil was too hungry to leave the school building, he’d banish himself to sleeping on the locker room bench to minimise casualties (actually quite responsible on his part.) Oh, he was sure, to Hernandez he must’ve been a Fox through and through.
"You can't be here," Neil said.
"Yet here I stand," Wymack said. "Need a pen?"
"No," Neil said. "No. I'm not playing for you."
"I misheard you."
"You signed Kevin." And oh, Kevin. An impossible hurdle to leap. See, when Nathaniel had last seen Kevin, he was seventeen (for about one-hundred-and-ninety-something-years) and Kevin was fourteen. Of course, he was Neil now, and Kevin was - in terms of physicality - older than him. But there was a tugging feeling at the back of his head that told him Kevin may not forget this so easily.
“And Kevin’s signing you, so-”
Neil didn’t stick around for the rest of that sentence.
He turned on his heels and dashed for the exit, using his supernatural speed to sprint to the locker room. He was halfway through the locker room when he realized he wasn't alone. There was someone waiting for him in the lounge between him and the front door. Light glinted off a bright yellow racquet as the stranger took a punishing swing, and Neil was going too fast to stop, too fast to see properly. The spinning world around him took a brutal halt as wood crunched into his stomach. He dropped to the floor, gasping for air, heaving desperately. He wasn’t quite sure if vampires could puke, but it seemed to be coming awfully close.
“Goddamn it, Minyard! This is why we can’t have nice things.”
“Oh, Coach,” The presumed offender replied, with a smug smirk to his voice. “If he was nice, he wouldn’t be of any use to us, would he?”
“He’s no use to us at all if you break him.”
“You’d rather I let him go? Look at him, he’s just peachy! Put a bandaid on him and he’ll be good as new.” Now Neil’s vision returned to him, he was able to focus a sharp look on his assailant. Andrew Minyard - in short summary, bright blonde, nasty smile, and five miserable feet of collateral damage. If Neil was ever going to risk eating one of the Foxes in South Carolina, this incident confirmed who would be first.
He gave Andrew an icy glare, clenching his jaw shut to hide his protruding fangs. Andrew grinned back, with full teeth, a mockery of sorts. “So fast,” Andrew laughed. “But not quite fast enough. Better luck next time.” He tapped two fingers to his temple, and gave Neil an infuriating salute.
“Fuck off,” Neil hissed, feeling his fangs protrude. He turned to Wymack, covering his mouth. “You think this will help me sign with your team? Go fuck yourself.” He spat at the grinning Andrew, leaning against the wall for balance. “I’ll never sign with you people.”