Work Text:
Here was the thing: Ilrere's neighbours were vampires.
Ilrere wasn't a particularly superstitious person. He didn't tend to believe in the kinds of things people told scary stories about. He definitely, absolutely did not believe in vampires. They were made up! In fact, they were made up and retold to reinforce xenophobia in Fódlan. And he would have happily continued to live his life in complete disbelief of vampires. Except, well, his next door neighbours existed.
The realisation process came in a few parts. The first:
“Well, I think I’m a little old for gender.” Yuri, the next door neighbour who absolutely could not be a day over twenty five (their skin was flawless? Their hair was beautiful? They just generally looked young in a way that was almost impossible to quantify), said. They laughed as they spoke, nudging their partner in the ribs.
Byleth responded with a very, very small smile. Almost imperceptible. “I think I outgrew gender before I left the womb, actually.”
Yuri snorted. “Some of us have it so easy,” they said, directing their next winning grin towards Ilrere. “Gender is invested in context-specific meanings. Sometimes you outgrow them. Thanks for the head’s up about the testosterone delivery potentially coming to the wrong place, we’ll send them down the hall to you.”
“Thanks,” he said, and he smiled at their joking — because at that point they were just the fun queer couple next door who probably didn’t mean anything by implying that they had lived so long that the gender they were raised with ceased to have meaning in a modern context.
The second part came not long later:
“Have you ever seen those two leave the flat?” Hari poked her head through the curtains, blatantly peeking at the balcony next door. Ilrere couldn’t tell, because his eye prescription was horribly out of date, but he was pretty sure the Leclerc-Eisner flat curtains were drawn closed.
“Only at night,” he answered. “I saw Byleth taking the bins down once.”
“Huh.” Hari’s brow furrowed. “Yuri seems perfectly sociable. I wonder why they’re such shut-ins.”
“Maybe they’re just fine with being inside?” It wasn’t that weird not to see your neighbours out and about — the only place they were likely to encounter each other was the hall or the lift. “I don’t know if they’re interested in company other than each other.”
“Yeah,” Hari mused. “They turned down the invitation to floor drinks. And I’m pretty sure they just stayed inside when the fire alarm went off last week.”
“Okay, the second one is a bit weird.” Those alarms were loud. You couldn’t exactly enjoy someone else’s company when they were going off. “But I’m sure there’s a normal explanation. They’re not that weird.”
“Didn’t you say they told you they were too old for gender?” Hari asked. Ilrere nodded. “They’re not old, are they?”
“I think it was a joke.” It was probably a joke. “I guess they’re in their twenties? Maybe it’s like my old man back.”
Hari snorted. “Yeah, or they’re like. Vampires.”
Ilrere stared at her. “Vampires.”
“Vampires!”
“Vampires aren’t real.”
Hari clutched her heart. “All my fantasies, flushed down the drain! I don’t know, I think vampires are probably real. The stories are a bit detailed for them to be fake, right? And there used to be, like, actual dragons in Fódlan.”
“For what it’s worth, I think the dragons are fake too,” Ilrere said. In fact, dragons were probably more fake than vampires, seeing as they were non-humanoid and also shapeshifters. Like turbo, scaly werewolves (which, for the record, also did not exist). “But sure. Our neighbours are vampires, I’ll roll with that. Why?”
“Because they don’t go out during the day!” Hari said. “They always do the bins at night. That fire alarm, that drinks event… both during the day.”
“They answer the door during the day.”
“There are no windows in the hall! They can answer safely. Oh and they always have their curtains drawn during the day. Like vampires. Or mole people.”
“Mole people are a xenophobic conspiracy too,” Ilrere pointed out.
Hari blew a raspberry. “It was a comparison, I don’t think mole people are a thing.”
“You draw the line at mole people, but vampires are real,” they clarified. Hari nodded, clearly proud of herself. “I still think you’re talking shit.”
“I’ll prove you wrong,” she said, her tone triumphant, and Ilrere just scoffed. There was nothing that could prove the existence of vampires. Absolutely nothing.
Incident three, coincidentally, proved the existence of vampires. It went a little like this:
There was a crashing sound nearby at four in the morning. Ilrere was up because of reasons (look, he’d been working until eight, and then he accidentally took a nap that accidentally turned into four hours of sleep and then he couldn’t get back to bed. Bad decisions, freaky fucking outcomes).
Naturally, he got up. It wasn’t a noise in the flat; he poked his head into Hari’s room, and she was still fast asleep. Nothing had fallen over in the kitchen, or the bathroom.
And then, just in case a cat had made it six floors up to knock over one of Hari’s plant pots, he poked his head out onto the balcony. That was when he saw it.
The Leclerc-Eisner flat curtains were open, and the light was on. Byleth, completely alone, was on the floor. Shattered around them was a vase, and Ilrere didn’t need to be a genius to work out what had happened.
He waited for a moment, slightly frozen on the spot. If asked, he would totally rationalise it as waiting to see if Yuri was in the flat or not to respond to what had happened. In reality, he had no fucking clue what he was meant to do, but the worry faded into urgency soon enough. He had to make sure they were okay.
He didn’t have a key to their door, but maybe… well, it was worth a try. He raced out of the flat, not even putting his shoes on, and knocked on the door. No noises within the flat. He tried the door; thankfully the handle moved, and Ilrere half-stumbled into the semi darkness.
Byleth was still on the floor, not having moved at all. It was the middle of the night, but they were thankfully fully clothed; he probably would have passed away on the spot if he’d seen something he wasn’t meant to.
As it was, he cursed his choice not to wear shoes. Stupid, stupid — there was a shattered vase. It was everywhere, he couldn’t just pick his way around it.
“Sorry, I’m so sorry,” he whispered to Byleth — still out cold — and dashed back for his shoes.
When he returned, nothing had changed. He was starting to get a little worried; pushing some of the fragments away with the toe of his trainer, he got down at Byleth’s side. He’d done first aid training before, and he remembered most of it. Enough to know that he should check the pulse before calling an ambulance, at least.
He murmured an apology to Yuri and a wish that they wouldn’t come in to spot him crouched over their spouse, then pressed his fingers to Byleth’s throat.
Nothing.
Fuck.
Their heart had stopped.
Okay, okay, that was fine. Ilrere just needed to get control of his own breathing. Maybe they had a weak pulse. Maybe he hadn’t checked it properly. Nominally, he knew how to perform CPR too, so maybe he could do something. He could definitely call an ambulance. This was fine, this was totally fine, and even if it wasn’t, nothing bad would happen to him. Yuri wouldn’t blame him for their dead spouse.
Actually, they might. Anyone could. So maybe he was a bit screwed, maybe not, Byleth and Yuri were pretty glued together. A set, do not separate, except apparently they were being separated by a vase and—
Okay. Breathe. Breathe, and check again for Byleth’s breathing, and then work out what to do from there. Ilrere hovered his hand in front of Byleth’s face, feeling for airflow, and- there it was.
They were breathing. Huh, he hadn’t seen anything change. He moved his hands to their neck again, and yeah. No pulse.
What the fuck?
Ilrere stood up too quickly at that particular revelation, his legs clicking in that totally-not-an-old-man way as he went, and he backed up a couple of steps. Okay. Neighbour didn’t have a heartbeat. Neighbour was still alive, and out cold on the ground. There was still a shattered vase, so Ilrere should definitely…
Byleth’s phone started ringing. Fuck.
Ilrere blinked for a moment. He hated phone calls. He didn’t want to do this. But also, Byleth was out cold on the ground, and this might be someone who could help.
He scuttled over to the phone, which was on the coffee table. It was lit up with Yuri’s name. Okay, perfect. He could get them to come back and then explain why their spouse didn’t have a heartbeat. He picked up.
Yuri’s voice definitely came through the other end. But it wasn’t in any language Ilrere recognised; the accent was still Faerghan, but the words…
Okay. Not the time to be thinking about that. “Um, hello?” he said. “Uh. It’s Ilrere, sorry. I-”
“Is everything alright?” Yuri’s voice shifted instantly, concern permeating every word.
“Yes, uh, I mean. No. I’m sorry I’m in your apartment, um, Byleth- I heard a noise, and when I looked through the window Byleth was on the floor and the vase fragments were everywhere and I came in and they didn’t have a heartbeat but they’re breathing don’t worry please- I mean, maybe worry. They’re still unconscious.” They’d been speaking for too long. Yuri hadn’t said anything. “Sorry.”
Yuri let out a long exhale. “Okay,” they said. “Firstly, don’t apologise. Thank you for checking on them, and don’t worry about their pulse — it’s a complex medical thing, I won’t explain it, but they’re fine.”
Well, that was something. Maybe not entirely reassuring, but good enough for now. “Okay. Sorry for freaking out.”
“Didn’t I just say not to apologise?” There was a hint of a smile in Yuri’s voice now. “If you could, it would be great if you could stay with them for now. I’m actually on my way back, so I shouldn’t be more than fifteen minutes. I could stay on the phone with you, if that would help?”
“Uh, I’ll put it on speaker?” Ilrere suggested. “There’s still vase fragments everywhere. And I need to put Byleth into the recovery position, in case, um. Something weird happens, I guess?”
Yuri chuckled. “Alright,” they said. “And thank you again. I like to think they would have been fine without your intervention, but this is very sweet of you.” And okay, that was a weird sentiment. He’d functionally broken into their apartment at four in the morning and they were being really strange about it.
Another thing to examine when there wasn’t pottery all over the floor, maybe. He went into the kitchen (really well-stocked, no labels on anything, all of their crockery old in the way his grandpa’s was) and grabbed a dustpan and brush from under the sink. Byleth still hadn’t moved when he got back, or once he’d swept all the bits up that he could see. There were bigger pieces too, which he put in a little heap on the coffee table. Yuri laughed when he relayed that too, but he couldn’t fathom why.
A few minutes later, Yuri showed up at the door — they made a beeline for Byleth, who still didn’t stir. So Ilrere just sort of stared as Yuri shifted them easily (how strong were they? They totally looked like a twink, but they had no problem gathering Byleth up in their arms and putting them on the sofa with their head in Yuri’s lap).
“I, um-” Yuri’s gaze snapped up to him when he spoke, surprise in their eyes. “Sorry?”
“No, no.” Yuri laughed. “I forgot you were there. Thank you for sticking with it after you got a fright, and thank you for staying. You can get back to bed now.”
Ilrere nodded, honestly happy to leave the whole incident far, far behind him. That flat was weird. Yuri was weird. Byleth was…
Byleth didn’t have a heartbeat. Oh sweet Sothis, Byleth was dead. And neither of them went out during the day. And they were old, much older than they looked. And, most importantly, Byleth was fucking dead.
Ilrere tried not to panic as he practically sprinted back to the safety of his own flat. His hands shook as he locked the door, and he was probably making so much noise that Hari would chide him in the morning, but holy shit. Holy shit.
Okay, so maybe the Leclerc-Eisners were some ancient vampire couple who happened to live next door to Ilrere. But he hadn’t been eaten yet so he was safe, right? Maybe they were vegetarians?
Ilrere avoided them after that, just to be safe. Hopefully they wouldn’t get any ideas. Out of sight, out of mind and all that — he stopped going out at night unnecessarily just in case he saw them in the hallways, always closed the curtains at nightfall, and maybe kept a sharpened pencil on his bedside table. Just in case.
He felt a little paranoid doing it, sure, but he had reason to be! At least one and probably two of his neighbours were literally undead, and he had no idea what they’d do now that they knew that he knew. Maybe they’d come in at night (was the thing about needing permission to enter true?) or attack him when he least expected it. Maybe they’d attack Hari (who was, somehow, completely unconcerned by the revelation).
It had him on edge, but it wasn’t all the time. Daytime, for instance, was safe — he would never see them because they couldn’t go out during the day. Things like shopping were completely safe.
Until they weren’t, and Ilrere literally ran into Yuri in a supermarket.
“Watch where you’re going, neighbour!” Yuri said. Laughing again, just as they had when their spouse was out cold and had no heartbeat. Except now they were laughing at something normal, and Ilrere definitely had a heartbeat. One that was going maybe three times faster than was healthy right now.
“O-oh, Yuri!” There were people around. There was nothing they could do to him, obviously. He should just act normal, like he hadn’t been avoiding them for weeks on end because he was convinced they were a murderous creature of the night.
Except they were out during the day, just… shopping in GarregMart. Shopping that included, when they glanced downwards, garlic. They blinked at it for a few moments.
That didn’t make sense. Vampires couldn’t eat garlic. Vampires didn’t eat at all, unless it was people. Why was Yuri buying garlic in broad daylight?
“You seem a little surprised to see me,” Yuri said, and Ilrere just nodded. Why wasn’t Yuri a pile of smoking ashes on the ground?
“I don’t see you out much,” he said. He had to pretend like this was cool and fine and not a terrifying encounter. “I thought you… didn’t go out during the day.”
Yuri tipped their head back, laughing even louder. Was that evil laughter? Did vampires get evil laughter? “Of course I do!” they said. “Byleth gets light-induced migraines, that’s all. I’m not some kind of vampire.”
“You’re not?” he asked, and then realised exactly what he’d said. He slapped a hand over his mouth. “I- I mean. Uh, ahaha. Hari thought you were.”
“Hari still greets me in the hallway,” Yuri said. “Somehow, I don’t think she’s the problem here.” They glanced around, then down at Ilrere’s basket, and at their own. “Tell you what, finish your shopping and I’ll pay. And then I can explain what’s gone wrong here.”
That led Ilrere to a moment thirty five minutes later, a bag of slightly-more-expensive-than-usual shopping at his feet and a mug of tea cupped in his hands. Opposite him, Yuri and Byleth sat on the sofa, their bodies very very close. Ilrere was honestly surprised they weren’t in each other’s laps.
“So you thought we were vampires?” Byleth asked, and if Ilrere read them right, they were amused. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Byleth entertained before.
“You were dead and Yuri talks about being old,” he answered. “It was the… reasonable conclusion?”
“Despite the fact that vampires don’t exist,” Yuri said.
“I didn’t believe they existed until I met you!” Yuri had promised an explanation, and this was anything but. He was just being mocked.
“They still don’t exist,” Byleth confirmed. “Dragons do, though. Do you believe in dragons?”
Ilrere just looked at them. They were really going to try and play this like that? “No, dragons are fake.”
“Dragons are dead,” Yuri corrected. “They died a long time ago. But even longer ago, they were real. And they had the ability to do very strange things to the human body.”
“Is it normal to believe dragons are fake?” Byleth asked, squinting at Ilrere.
He nodded. “It’s sort of a fifty fifty kind of thing, I think. But people who believe they were real don’t usually feel strongly about it. Same with people who think they’re fake. They’re just kind of… irrelevant?”
Yuri snorted. “It seems a certain someone got her way in the end,” they said, and then Byleth laughed. Holy shit, he’d never seen them laugh before either. This whole conversation was way too weird.
“Either way,” Byleth continued, “a very long time ago, two different dragon people did something to us. When Yuri was very young, and when I was born. And because of that, we just sort of… stay as we are.”
“So you’re really old?” Was that the heartbeat thing too? Did Yuri have no heartbeat as well? Ilrere was meant to be getting answers, but he felt like he was just getting more questions.
“There’s a quaint little phrase,” Yuri said. “It goes ‘age is but a number,’ and I never understood it. But for us, it’s sort of true. I won’t get into the details, but we’re very old.”
“You look young,” he offered, because he didn’t know if there was anything else to say.
“I wish I felt it,” Byleth said. Grumbled, really, and Yuri put a hand on their back. “Does that explain our general strangeness in a way that convinces you that we’re harmless?”
Did it? Ilrere didn’t know if anything could. Besides, weren’t the people of the time when dragons supposedly existed all terrifying warriors? Didn’t Fódlan nearly fall apart under the flames of war?
Except he couldn’t say any of that, because Byleth looked tired and Yuri had seemed pretty impatient from the very beginning. This was the explanation they wanted to give — and Ilrere didn’t believe they were harmless for a second. Paradoxically, that made the lie that tripped off his tongue the only possible answer.
“Yeah,” Ilrere said, offering up a smile he hoped was reassuring. “Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for telling me.”
It did not, in fact, make sense. But with the two of them smiling like that, telling him those things completely straight-faced… what was he going to do? Call them out? Insist that they were still vampires and give them even more reason to wish him ill?
No chance. So, gay agender dragon vampire neighbours it was.
Sothis, Ilrere couldn’t wait until his lease was up and he could never see these two again.