Chapter Text
“I just don't think the theory's plausible in any sort of way… I mean— I don't see why the universe would find the need to match a cat to an owner."
Kiku sighed and leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “If you are wanting me to, I can ask Herakuresu-kun to bring you a sample of the Cat Distribution drifts.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Arthur groans as he palms his face. “I’d appreciate it if you could… And you're sure that it can't be anything else?"
The shorter one nods. “I must warn you— the drift is quite difficult to capture. You will have to be patient,” Kiku acknowledged, as a furry lump of black and white he so affectionately called 'Tama' hopped into his lap. The thing meowed, nuzzling into his hand.
Cogs turned in Arthur’s brain at the sight. “Well— how about that cat you’ve got right there? He's been "distributed" to you, right? Can’t you just extract the drift from your bond together?”
“It is not that simple. The drift now has no physical body any longer. Only its metaphysical form exists, and it is welded to our souls.” The Japanese man corrected. “If you try to extract it, you might rip apart both of our souls.”
“Oh.” Arthur cracked a nervous smile. "I really do apologise, but— did you have real findings on a different theory?”
The other huffed. Kiku stared down at his lap to his cat, then back to the thick-skulled Englishman in front of him. “Do you want my sample?”
Arthur sat up immediately. "Absolutely."
Kiku got off his chair to pull an apparently unfilled conical corked glass off a shelf behind him. “Here you are. Please be bery careful with it.”
Arthur squinted at the flask and leaned in. “Erm, is there anything… inside.?”
“Oh, there is,” Kiku explained, “it's just that the drift has a very loose physical presence so we may only rook at it with a phasepane.”
“Uh, pardon me, a phase-what?” Arthur's brows furrowed as he crossed his legs.
Kiku idly shook the container around, as if trying to slosh around something inside. “It’s a type of glass that refracts light so we can see through different phases of existence.” The shorter one then procured a small, frosted glass pane—emerald green in colour and slightly opaque.
Arthur snorted, took the bottle, and held the pane up to it. When the alchemist had peered through the glass, the bottle's interior looked pink and oddly hazy in a way. He bit his lip.
“It looks exactly like leftover energy from conjuration magic. Perhaps it’s just the magic trying to leave our phase?”
"It may look similar, but I assure you it is not, Arthur-kun. The two present the same here in our phase, but it has a completely different purpose and is summoned by the universe."
Arthur tutted, shaking his head and leaning forward. "Well, how can one be so sure of the magic's purpose? We can always guess, but we can't know unless we are the caster. I mean— come on, you studied with me at the Academy. Since when did the universe ever meddle in companionship like this?"
Kiku averted his gaze with a small smile, thinning his eyes as if he were holding something back. "I don't shink that you should take this in such a face value manner."
Arthur quirked a brow at the expression, but brushed it off, nodding his head in acknowledgement.
"I just simply ask of you to pleaseu stop throwing away Herakuresu-kun's letters about the topic."
"Oh." Arthur hesitated, "you knew about that?"
"I'll tell him to stop writing."
Arthur found himself on the floor of his alchemy shop's lab, with chalk dusting his fingertips and papers covered in ink surrounding him. In front of the man was a glass lens— made of the same type of glass that the phasepane was made of— and the bottle of pink air Kiku had called "drift." He stared intensely at the flask, his jaw set. The alchemist was fully ready to document and prove that the Cat Distribution System's "drift" was just a hoax.
The blond sat up straight, aligned his lens, and wrote his hypothesis: The drift that is contained is not drift, but leftover magic energy that escaped while a user was conjuring. If this is true, I should be able to control the energy.
He pressed his lips together. Although he was confident that he would be able to control the "drift," he was also aware that he also promised Kiku that he'd be careful with it.
With a resounding sigh, he popped off the cork.
Arthur watched the pink gas-like matter through the lens. The alchemist carefully proceeded to draw out and use the magic energy inside to conjure something small, like a quill (to replace the several ones he's snapped in the last hour).
However, when he began to manoeuvre his hands and chant, the matter had suddenly began to gush out of the glass, escaping up into the air.
"Bloody hell," he hissed. Arthur tried to cast faster, destabilising his control.
The drift had amalgamated into a singular floating orb of mass above the glass. Arthur stared, his lips contorting into something like a thankful smile. Taking a deep breath, he began to restart casting.
Instead of following his movements, the ball of drift continued toward Arthur. Clenching his jaw, Arthur tried to force it away. As soon as the thing charged forth, he felt a jolt— like being dipped in cold water. Glancing down, he realised that the orb was gone— or rather, had gone into him. The blond's heart dropped. Drawing his hand to his chest where the drift had just entered, he clawed at it like he could pull it out.
"What!?" He hissed. He didn't get a chance to even direct the drift, let alone transform it. The blasted thing hadn't followed his motions— it had moved on its own— as if it had its own intentions entirely.
With sweaty hands, he picked up his quill. It shook as he wrote his conclusion: The drift is not able to be manipulated. The anomaly has absorbed into me(?).
He shook his head, trying to concentrate. Either way, this test hadn't proved that it was necessarily what Kiku had described.
"Right, I said I would be careful with it…" Arthur muttered, trying to calm his heart. He just needed to find a way to get it out of him, or at least another sample before Kiku asked for it back.
The fangs showed up the next morning. Arthur squinted his eyes incredulously and leaned closer to his mirror. He blinked a few times. Maybe he wouldn't have necessarily called them 'fangs,' but his canines were definitely sharper and longer. The blond's hands trembled as he fingered the new development. Then prodded it with his index finger.
"Ow."
He dragged his hand down his face, slumping against the bathroom counter. His head reeled, scrambling for an explanation— Vampires were undead, blood-hungry monsters, and werewolves were chaotic, feral, and moon-pulled. He certainly didn't have these the night before.
Then it struck him.
"Absolutely bloody not," he grumbled as he continued to stare into his reflection. "Is this a result of absorbing that blasted Cat Distribution drift?"
To Arthur's knowledge, the drift is supposedly some kind of force that embeds itself into a cat's soul. It then attracts it towards and pairs it to a nearby human— or something along the lines of that. So whatever this is…
The alchemist's heart was on the floor. Shaking his head vigorously, he pulled himself to stand up straight. He rubbed his eyes once more, making sure the things were actually there. They absolutely were.
He tried to wiggle them. Tried to pull them out of his mouth like they were props. The fangs persisted and stared back as if they were mocking him. Closing his mouth, he left the bathroom. He still had a shop to run, despite his nightmare.
Gutted, he got dressed and something in him told that he absolutely needed a dessert. Just something to distract himself. Something sweet, something buttery, something warm.
Heading out from his apartment into his alchemy shop down below, he chose to set up for the day before doing anything else. While sweeping the floor, his hand itched to open his mouth and check again. The wards' energy seemed to be cautious of Arthur, as if he were someone new. The till's earning went uncounted.
Arthur furrowed his brows and palmed his face, setting the broom down against the wall. Maybe, just for day, he could just skip these and do them later.
He huffed, stepping out of the shop. When he glanced up, he caught sight of a wall sign he had never noticed before. A sign for a little bakery just four doors down.
Arthur blinked slowly. He felt pulled toward it. Not allured, but a real tug that bubbled warmly underneath his skin towards it. Before he realised, he was already marching down and opening the door.
"Ah, its you! Bonjour!" The man at the till greeted with a smile. Arthur simply stared at him with a dazed, unfocused look, his jade green eyes blinking back to the other's sky blue.
"Uh, yeah… bone-your."
The baker giggled, waving his hand. "You're the man from the alchemy shop, oui? It's so nice to finally meet you. What would you—?"
"Wanker," Arthur had replied absentmindedly, inching closer to the counter.
"— like… Quoi?" The other said, cocking his head.
"A paine owh chocolate. Please make it snappy."
The Frenchman sighed and bent down into the display case, muttering, "you'd be so much more handsome if not for that attitude…"
Arthur did not process this. What he did process was his location, and that the warm bubbling inside himself had intensified after coming face-to-face with the baker. He coughed and tried to remember his manners.
"Er, sorry, how much do I owe?"
The baker placed the pastry in a small paper bag, smiled, and turned to look at the Englishman. "How about a chat?"
"Pardon— How much do I owe you?" He repeated, crossing his arms.
"A chat, monsieur."
"I don't have time for games, frog. I have a shop to open. How much?"
The other simply tutted and and hunched over the counter. "I do too. But it's nice to talk with neighbours, non? What's your name?"
"Arthur," he spat monotonously.
"Francis," he grinned, sliding the bag across the counter slowly. Arthur's hand immediately dove for it. The baker pulled it back playfully, holding away from him.
The alchemist's face tried to pull it from him again, but the baker shook his head and placed it on the side. Francis's expression changed to something devious, coming up with an idea to wake up the grumpy Englishman in front of him.
"Hm, I know you're hiding something."
The alchemist winced. "Come again?"
A sly smirk bestows the baker's face. He points a finger. "Come now, anyone with a head and a sense for energy can tell—your aura was disrupted. You smell like change."
Arthur's mouth opens to say something, closes it, then opens it again.
That's when Francis notices. And he practically perks up.
"You've got fangs!"
Arthur took a step back. "What? I don't have—"
Francis chuckled and leaned forward. "Open your mouth once more?"
Arthur huffed but obliged. He dropped his jaw and opened his mouth.
Francis grinned. "Awe, I would love to touch them, but unfortunately that's unsanitary. Not that I think you're dirty or anything, but—"
"Zip it," Arthur grumbled.
The baker sighed and shook his head. "I can sense something irregular with your aura."
"No bloody shit— What do you want from me?"
The Frenchman hummed, contemplating. "Hmm, nothing, I suppose. I do admire your fangs though, monsieur."
Arthur rolled his eyes. "Can I get my pain-ow-chocolate?"
Francis smiled, sincerely satisfied. "Of course. Let me know if anything else changes."
"Like hell I would," Arthur huffed, swiped the pastry out of Francis's hands, and left.
Francis shook his head, watching as the Englishman walked out his bakery. "Looks like someone's not a morning person."
Arthur returned to his alchemy shop and sat behind the counter, beginning to gnaw on his pastry.
"What was that?" he mumbled to himself.
Those same pulling bubbles from earlier settled underneath his skin as if they were content. Bastard, Arthur thought. Just what— or where— in hell did this thing want from him? His leg began to bounce underneath the counter.
He shook his head and tried to focus on the materials in front of him. Making potions wasn't anything new— in fact, it was what he had studied back in the Academy. But his mind seemed more interested in knocking over the flasks beside him just to watch it shatter on the floor.
Shaking his head once more, he glanced down. And realised that it was not seeds inside his mortar that his recipe called for; In its stead, however, was actually the stems of a foreign plant he needed to steep in water.
"I must be tired," he muttered, internally slapping himself. The alchemist scratched the table in irritation. Getting up from his seat, he took the mashed stems out of the bowl, and dropped them into a pot to simmer.
He went back to absentmindedly crushing the right seeds. How was he going to explain this to Kiku? That he absorbed the rare drift that he was supposed to take care of? And that he had grown fangs overnight?
Whatever he had absorbed began to thrum against his chest again; not like it was trying to escape, but to drag the alchemist away from whatever he was doing. He drew a breath in and gripped his pestle tighter.
If the drift was so desperate to move, then it can move out of him for all Arthur cared.
"Aha." An idea immediately struck the alchemist.
He sprung up and rushed to his backroom to find his spirit notes from school. Spirits were precisely like what Kiku had described the drift as. Metaphyiscal, needy, and directed. Could he extract the drift the same way one could exorcise a spirit?
He scrambled to find his chalk and sat on the floor, wards happily surrounding him. He began to draw a circle and scribe in Latin.
"Never thought I'd get to actually do one of these," he hummed excitedly as he finished. The alchemist was getting ready to exorcise the drift out of him. Drawing a deep breath in, he began to recite. He shut his eyes tight.
He felt a tug on his conscience. Then another. A long pull, then—
He stopped chanting immediately when he lost feeling in his hands and legs.
Arthur's eyes flew open as his heart beat against his chest. He released the single ward in his grasp, his hand shaky and sweaty.
He flexed his fingers, warmth washing over him as his soul was welcomed back to his body.
"Oh."
He felt the drift sing in his chest, almost smugly. The blasted thing was still there after exorcism, meaning it was either not a spirit, or that it was stuck to his soul.
Neither did not sound great.
The alchemist bit his lip— then quickly released it because the fangs pricked him.
Arthur groaned, combing his fingers through his hair. What the hell was this thing? And more importantly, how would he find out? He certainly couldn't ask Kiku. Maybe Heracles, but that lazy wanker wouldn't ever give him a direct answer. There was Lukas, but he wasn't so sure that he was proper in-the-know about the theory like his other friends. Would removing it even get rid of the fangs?
Shaking his head violently as he tried to free his brain of questions, he stood up, albeit a little wobbly after almost dying, and decided he needed to finish the new batch of potions he had started.
Completing the potion was routine. As he shelved them, he felt the warm drift bubbles rise up inside him again. Trying to drag him out the door. Drawing a breath in, he ignored them.
He returned to his counter, perusing his notes from the academy as he waited for a customer. Nothing he had ever written in his academy years was even closely adjacent to this feeling inside him.
"If this were a credible, sensible, observable theory, then we'd probably have a real drift sample," the blond grumbled, toying with the corner of a page. "And not whatever anomaly I just released into my body."
The bell of his shop chimed as someone opened the front door. He glanced up, a grin bestowing his face. It was his regular, Feliks.
"Hey, Arthur!" the Polish hunter sing-songed as he ambled in. "What-cha got, like, cooking there?"
The alchemist smiled. "I've just finished up some mana potions. Did you want to see them?"
"Mm, I'm looking for something that Toris could, like, use to get more alert, y'know? We got assigned a new post for a vampire, and he's been like totally out of it lately."
Arthur chuckled, sliding a fizzy mauve potion across the counter. "I've got a batch of focus potions. Would that be alright?"
"Yeah, fer sure! I'm gonna need, like totally so much more of that. It'll be a long and hard post. Could I get like… fifteen?"
Arthur perked up at the request. "Hah, okay. I'll have to see." He laughed and turned to the shelves behind him. "A vampire, you say?"
"That's what we were told— It's like seriously unnerving!" he whined. "Toris hunted his first one last year. Those fangs are, like, totally cool though."
"Mm," Arthur hummed as he pulled flasks off the shelf, "Can I ask you something?"
"Totally."
"Other than uhm, werewolves and vampires, what else causes people to grow fangs?" He questioned, setting down five more potions onto the counter.
"Grow fangs? I can only think of… like, draconic heritage— Ooh, I have a draconic friend with totally gnarly fangs!" Feliks exclaimed. "But why do you ask?"
Arthur cracked a nervous grin as he turned to look at Feliks, "how much do you know about, uh, absorbing anomalies…?"
"What?" the Pole quirked a brow. "Did you grow fangs?"
"Perhaps," Arthur muttered.
"That's like, totally awesome! Can I see?"
Arthur opened his mouth to show the long, sharp canines. "I wouldn't have particularly describe it as awesome, but…"
"Whoa— wait a minute. Are you a vampire?"
"What? No way."
"Hm," Feliks contemplated, "well you don't smell like one, so I guess I, like, have to agree. Where did they come from?"
Arthur finished placing the rest of the potions on the counter. He leaned over. "It's kind of hard to explain to a hunter…"
The Pole groaned, crossing his arms. "Oh, come on, we both basically took the same classes. Like, spill it!"
Arthur pulled his stool. "Well, er, have you ever heard of the Cat Distribution System theory?"
"Totes."
"And er, do you know how it's supposedly spread? Through the drift?"
"Yes, I know how it works. How is it related?"
"Well, allegedly, Heracles found a way to bottle the so-called "drift" and gifted it to one of my friends. It ended up in my hands— and I, err— I spilled it accidentally on me and I think I absorbed it…?"
"You're a cat?"
"What? No."
"Seriously? It sounds like you are. That's, like, how it works, right? The drift finds its way into a cat, then it pulls them towards an owner! You're totally a cat! That's, like, freaking awesome!"
"I'm not a cat!" Arthur insisted.
The vampire hunter laughed and leaned against the counter. "Okay, okay. But you think absorbing this anomaly might've led to you growing fangs?"
"That's what I'm trying to bloody find out!" the alchemist groaned, "I don't think it was "drift," anyways. I think I got some sort of bottled curse."
"Why do you say it's not?"
"Well, according to the theory," Arthur huffed, "it if were, I wouldn't been able to absorb it because I'm a human. Plus, the theory's… just not real."
Feliks hummed in agreement. "I see, I see— so have you been, like, pulled yet?"
Arthur mumbled, "well I'm not a cat… but I think so?"
"Mhm, mhm… Do you know who?"
The alchemist shook his head. "Not quite yet. The thing's been nagging me all day to get out of my shop, though." He chuckled nervously.
"So like, can I get fangs too?" the hunter asked as he glanced at his nails.
Arthur scoffed playfully, "well I mean, you could, but not the same way I did."
"So why do you say it's, like, not a real theory? It sounds like it is. "
Arthur sat up, sighing. "I mean, come on. Why would the universe be so concerned with matching cats to humans?"
"Hmm… Oh, I know! Fate?"
"Cats don't exist to bring joy to people though— they're independent creatures. Anyways, humans outlive cats. The theory's completely bogus."
The Pole hummed thoughtfully, "well, I don't really know either— Oh, speaking of living, we need, like, potions that make us smell… like totally less human to vampires. Do you do something like that?"
Arthur's face lit up. "Certainly." He reached below the counter and pulled out a wooden vial rack, holding slightly luminescent potions. Plucking a ruby red coloured one, he held it up.
"How about this? It's a brew I engineered that masks a human smell. It's just like a very strong colonge, yeah? Smells a tad fruity— mostly suede and-"
"Okay, okay, I'll buy it. How about five?"
Arthur huffed, satisfied. "Course." He pushed forward the fifteen focus potions and the five vials. "Thirty, please."
The hunter snorted, pulling out his purse. "That cheap? Not like I'm complaining." He slid the coins on the counter. Arthur grinned and collected them.
"Yeah, cheap to you…" he joked.
"Well, I like totes gotta go back to Toris. He's probably wondering what's taking me so long," Feliks lilted as he placed the potions in his bag. "See ya!"
"That's quite alright. Have a good one!" Arthur waved as the Pole walked out the door.
He blinked, looking down at his hands. "A cat, huh? Bullshit."