RUSAME - one shots

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫

Everybody remembers the first time they see a vampire.

It was a common phrase in the hunter's business, one that had been tipped Russia's way by a dozen superiors. He took the things they said with two or three grains of salt, though; vampire hunting was quite possibly the most superstitious business out there. It was hard to take somebody seriously with five garlic cloves dangling around their neck.

Still, as he stepped out of the chapel into the rain-beaten, bitter night, Russia's fingertips strayed to his wooden cross necklace. Tonight marked his first time on transport duty. The battered black van in the back parking lot, one he'd passed a million times before, now seemed to loom gleeful and sinister while he turned the keys over and over in numb fingers and tried to convince himself he wasn't afraid. There was a vampire in there. Real. Alive, though they'd assured him it was securely caged and on enough sedatives to keep it asleep through the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. And it was his sacred duty to get the thing the fifty miles to the nearest containment facility.

Beep beep, the van bleated as he unlocked the doors, and gritting his teeth, stepped into the shadowy cavern and flicked on the overheads, and—

Saints above.

You weren't supposed to look at them for too long, protocol said. If you can help it, don't look at all. Inexplicably, though, Russia couldn't tear his eyes away through the iron bars.

The creature was... small. Smaller than he would have guessed. Angular, bony enough to look breakable. The way it had curled into itself made Russia think of some small, feral animal. Messy stark-white hair fell around its shoulders, and a jolt shot through his stomach like he'd just missed a step on a steep staircase when his gaze fell on the shining white tip of a sharp, vicious canine, peeping out from under its top lip and pressed into the bottom. The higher-ups were right, it turned out. Russia doubted he would ever forget the way it looked.

Shaking frigid rainwater from his hair, Rus stumbled into the driver's seat and started the car in a billow of sour black exhaust. He found his eyes drifting to the rearview mirror every few seconds to the vampire's sleeping form, irresistible. Why did it look so— normal? Was he allowed to think a thing like that? ...No, came the obvious conclusion. No. Still, he had to marvel. It was an eerily good disguise the thing had, curled up so neat and self-contained. Another time, another life, it might have fooled him.

Russia had reached the vast, lonely stretch of highway, tearing past darkened bodegas and bookstores and cafes, when it spoke.

"What do you keep looking at?"

"AAAAGH!" He swerved on instinct, van sliding across rain-slick asphalt, a couple of roadside crosses veering sideways past the windshield. The vampire was flung against the wall of its cage with a clang; supply boxes toppled and spilled as Russia wrestled the wheel back straight, heart hammering against his ribs. Hell. It was awake.

The two locked eyes in the rearview mirror, Russia's panicked, the creature's slitted and somewhat annoyed.

"Dude, what the hell."

"Why the honest and genuine F—K can you talk?!"

"Um, probably the same reason you can."

"SHIT. Okay, okayokay." Hands shaking on the steering wheel, Rus jerked the car across three deserted lanes until it skidded to a standstill in the wet dirt, idled, and went still. Somewhere nearby, thunder rolled.

"Hang on, you didn't know we could talk?!" In the rearview mirror, he watched the vampire uncurl and crawl to the front of the cage, grip the bars with long, pale fingers, all its sharp little teeth bared in an amused grin. "They really let anyone become a vampire hunter these days, huh?"