Chapter Text
After several years’ practice, Ronaldo has gotten much, much better at handling the Dragon Clan gatherings he’s expected to attend with Draluc, by which he means he’s gotten better at either hiding in a corner or sitting with the Clan’s familiars and allowing himself to be so charmed by them that the majority of those gathered can’t bring themselves to interrupt. Bless John, bless John’s family, and bless their combined willingness to help Ronaldo live to see his next publishing deadline. (It might often slip vampires’ minds about how delicate humans can be compared to them, but armadillos understand these things, even ones that have been vampiric familiars for multiple decades or centuries.)
The only vampiric fly in the holy ointment tonight is that, for once, when Ronaldo makes his expert escape from Gorgona and her undying interest in his pole dancing career (a topic he is actually having to research at this point in order to keep the lie going), his corner is already occupied by someone else.
First glance says: stranger.
Second glance says: vampire stranger.
Third glance says: low-key coat envy. Ronaldo is fond of his red jacket, with its caplet and black loops and crosses – it’s the perfect balance of flashy and functional, coordinates with his hat, and brings out his eyes. All in all an ideal article of clothing for a vampire hunter of his standing. But this other coat… long and dark, a twirl to the hemline that exudes promises of beautifully dramatic flaring with the least bit of effort and a heavier hang as it goes up that speaks of material quality good enough to keep the wearer warm even in the face of a heavy wind that would make its lower parts positively billow…
…
Not really Ronaldo’s style at all, and he’s aware of his luck enough to know that any attempts on his part to trying pulling off such an item will likely lead to him getting it tangled around his legs, then falling flat on his face, and then having the video that a certain death-prone idiot would take of the whole thing go viral on the internet. And Handa would make an especially unflattering still of that video his new lock screen, and Ronaldo would probably land in such a way that his main hand would get hurt and he’d be behind schedule on his next novel and it would be a day before Fukuma-san was due to pick it up. He is aware of how his luck with trying to look cool works, but, gosh darn it, a hunter can imagine, you know? He can have a private little fantasy about standing on a rooftop with the full moon behind him, wearing impractical-but-stylish sunglasses and a wonderful coat that's flaring around his legs and making him look cool and dramatic and like a character from the Vamatrix movies! A guy can dream-!
“Ronaldo-san?”
Ronaldo snaps back to awareness with just enough wherewithal to not confess, ‘sorry, I was busy being seduced by your coat’ to an absolute stranger, instead managing to actually look the guy in front of him over more fully. A little hesitant, curly black hair and bright red eyes, that vibe you got from vampires who have only been vampires for a year or two, and, now that he can draw his eyes away from that tantalizing coat, wearing a far less cool wooly white sweater and a long blue scarf with a snowflake emblazoned on each end.
…
…okay, maybe they are more average than the coat, but, Ronaldo had to admit, the overall ensemble looks very cozy, and the coat was obviously made with sweater-wearing in mind, because it fits over the vampire’s in exactly the way Ronaldo’s first hunter jacket hadn’t fit over his own sweater his first winter as a hunter. It’s a memory of heartbreak and betrayal, but they’d made it through it in the end, all three of them. All four of them, once Ronaldo had gotten a thinner sweater to wear on hunts. He should get that original sweater out when he gets home again-
…wait.
Wait a minute.
‘Ronaldo-san?’
The vampire had called him Ronaldo-san… in this one venue where everyone calls him Paul, ENGAGE EMERGENCY EVASION MAUNVEURS-!!!
“Ah-haha, nonono, I think you have me mixed up with someone else-”
“No, I do not!” the vampire’s tone is firm but surprisingly excited, “You are Ronaldo-san, who is friends with Draluc-san! You and your partner helped me when I first woke up here! But, ah,” he looks down at himself and laughs, “I look very different now. I’m Robert Clergy.” He starts to hold out his hand, pauses halfway through the gesture, and bows politely instead.
…Clergy…? Why does that ring a bell… Okay, go over the facts Ronaldo, you’re so much smarter than that idiot vampire thinks you are! Curly hair, early-in-turning vibes, knows him, uses ‘san’ for Draluc, curly hair, long dark clothes, Ronaldo apparently helped him when he ‘woke up,’ kind of a stern, priestly look to hi- wait! “Clergy-san?!”
“Yes, that’s me!”
“Holy shit!” Ronaldo gapes, gives the guy another once-over and, yup, he’s better fed and better dressed now, but this is definitely the same vampire that had stumbled into the office about a year and a half ago, gaunt, dressed in rags, hair and beard a long, scruffy mess, and speaking a mix of weird English and terrible Japanese. “I didn’t recognize you, you look amazing!”
“Thank-you,” Clergy-san blushes, hands playing casually with his scarf, “I have been doing well for myself, and Northdin got me some nice clothes for the gathering, since it is my introduction to the rest of the Clan.” He turns back and forth a little bit, giving the hemline of his coat a properly appreciative look, “I like the coat very much, it is like my old cassocks, but not. Not too different, not too the same? It’s nice.”
“It’s wonderful,” Ronaldo replies with feeling, then blushes as well when he realizes what he’s done and waits for vampiric teasing.
“Yes, that is a good word for it, wonderful!”
Wait, what?
“I’ve been studying, but I’m still learning – it can be hard to tell which words are right to use.” Clergy-san smiles and calmly takes his new eternal role of ‘Ronaldo’s Favorite Member of Draluc’s Huge and Horrible Clan.’ “Your books are also very helpful.”
“…my books?”
“Yes. They’re printed in English as well as Japanese, so if I have a copy of each, I can check the English copy if I get confused. And the material is very interesting! Useful for learning how current hunters hunt. And you must be very skilled, to have taken down so many dangerous foes.”
There’s something about the man’s earnest expression that has Ronaldo glancing around before leaning in and admitting, “It’s not as flashy as I make it sound in the books. I only add the exciting stuff in there, you know? Not the… mundane bits.”
“Mundane?”
“Boring.”
“Ah!” Clergy-san nods in agreement, expression too world-weary to be anything but deeply familiar with what Ronaldo is talking about. “Vampiric vegetables are the worst. That I need to be careful around vampire garlic now is embarrassing, that is beginner enemy.”
“You were a hunter?”
“…An exorcist, for most of my life.” He pauses, reconsiders. “Most of my life that I was awake for. I’m two hundred and thirty-five, but I only… experienced thirty-nine of those years. The rest was dreams of ice.”
“Oh. …sorry?”
“It’s all right. It was… pretty? Beautiful. I did not have much time before that to notice that ice could be beautiful.” He shrugs, gives a shy grin. “And it allowed me to be here, to meet people like you and Draluc-san. So it was, what’s the phrase? Ah, ‘worth it’! It was worth it.”
Aaaaaand now Ronaldo’s blushing again, come on, give a guy a break! “We’re not that special.”
“You are.” And oof, for such a sweet guy he can go super serious and sincere at the drop of a hat, not fair! “A vampire and a hunter who live together, share meals, are close. You are a dream of peace no one born in my time could have imagined. I was excommunicated for suggesting perhaps vampires are not so different from humans. You write of your friendship with Draluc-san and share it freely with the world, and are praised for it. You are a miracle.”
Not fair not fair not fair! Also, “Draluc and I aren’t friends.”
And now Clergy-san is the one confused, ha-ha, take that, you can’t catch the Great Ronaldo-sama out so easily! “But you share a home? You spend time together even when you don’t have to, and meals, and both care for his familiar. Aren’t those signs of being close?”
“Uhhh…”
“Oh! Is this what they mean by ‘tsundere’?”
“ABSOLUTELY NOT!”
“Really? Oh. I apologize, as I said, I’m still learning.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine!” It is not fine and Ronaldo needs a distraction from both this subject and those valiantly repressed memories of the incident a few months back following his encounter with the Dreadful Vampire Sexpollen Makeyourockhard. (Thank chinchin she’d only been in town to visit her ‘cute little clanmate’ Nudenium briefly (and that Draluc had freely agreed not to mention it again (and that the dreams were only happening maybe once a week now)).) “But anyway, Lord Drac’s mentioned you used to be something of a hunter yourself, back in the day. Ever think about stopping by the Guild? We’re always open to new members, especially ones with prior experience.”
Clergy-san blinks, then chuckles ruefully. “Maybe a visit to say hello, but not to join; that would be a bad idea. I was an exorcist, not a hunter. Too different.”
“But… weren’t exorcists just early hunters who specifically worked for the Church?”
This gets him a sort of bemused, slightly sad look. “No, very different. A hunter is… hm. A hunter is like… ah, I don’t know the word, please let me check?”
“Um, sure, go ahead.”
“Thank-you!” Clergy-san pulls a smartphone from an inner pocket of his (wonderful) coat, taps some things into it much faster than Ronaldo had expected him too, then, after a moment’s reading and lip movement that’s probably a quiet pronunciation practice-run, he continues, “A bodyguard. A hunter is a like a bodyguard, trained to protect and subdue. An exorcist is like an assassin, trained to kill. My training is too unkind for this era, and it is no longer something I am proud of. I have caused enough harm in my life, I don’t want to cause more if I can avoid it.”
“That’s… fair.” Kind of interesting, blunt and terrifying in its implications about what the guy standing in front of him was capable of as a human, let alone a vampire turned by someone as powerful as Northdin-san, but fair. And also probably not a topic of conversation Ronaldo should be encouraging in this particular setting, now that he thinks about it, especially if topics like ‘exploding castles’ and ‘angry Clan members who don’t like nasty hunters picking on the Clan baby’ could come of it… “Is- should you be talking about this here?” This gets him nothing but a look of blank confusion, argh, he’s gonna make him say it-!!! “Talking about, you know… being a hunter or an exorcist. Here? Surrounded by really old, powerful vampires? Maybe not the- the best topic of conversation, especially the exorcist thing, probably not the sort of thing you want to tell them about having been?”
In a truly diabolical twist of events, this does nothing to erase his companion’s confusion. “But they already know?”
“…what.”