Chapter Text
For as long as there have been vampires, there have been vampire hunters.
It's a simple truth that one can’t really exist without the other; if there were no vampires, there’d be a relatively large number of highly-skilled, specially trained individuals who, instead of protecting the human population from the bloodlust and corruption of those God-awful creatures, would be subject to boring office jobs. Maybe they’d be baristas. That requires some level of precision skills, surely.
More importantly though, in a world where such ‘corruption’ and darkness did exist, if there were no hunters waiting in the shadows, no one watching their every move, how would the vampires have any fun?
As he pushes his way through the bustling Zagreb marketplace crowd, Ivan comes to the conclusion that if it weren’t for the existence of those infuriatingly relentless hunters, vampires as a species probably would have, despite the whole ‘immortal until killed’ thing, died from sheer boredom.
The relationship between hunters and vampires is one of mutuality and reciprocity, and in the modern era, is surely built more on the basis of a craving for entertainment than any real necessity. Sure, there is still a community of vampires across the globe who satiate their blood thirst by killing innocent humans and just generally being nuisances, but most of the population are like Ivan: vampires who are more than happy to play the part of mortals and assimilate with human society, some even preferring it to the alternative, which makes it even more frustrating when there’s people trying to kill him for something he can’t control about himself.
Ivan is used to having a target on his back - being a vampire is one thing, but being a Kovačić? Being the latest in the notoriously long line of ancient, particularly powerful vampires?
Well, that’s a whole other problem.
Theoretically, and in practice, Ivan has three times the strength of every single person he walks past. He could snap their necks and kill any one of them in seconds if he so desired. He could do anything, really, but being who he is makes him easily identifiable to anyone who’s gone through even one session of hunter training. His face may as well be plastered across the textbooks, for Christ’s sake. He may have the advantage in terms of strength and speed, may have heightened senses, but the reality is that especially in somewhere as populated as Zagreb, for every supernatural being wandering the streets, there’s at least three people waiting in either the shadows or in plain sight who have the sole aim of killing them.
In short, Ivan’s daily excursion from his flat to the coffee shop at the end of his road is pretty much a suicide mission.
The bell of the shop door chimes above the buzz of conversation as he wanders inside. There’s a queue, there always is, but the girl at the counter smiles when she sees him. He waits patiently, because although he’s a vampire, he’s not a monster, and plasters on a grin when it's his turn.
“The usual, I assume?” Sonja says, dark hair tied in a ponytail at the back of her head. “Three-fifty whenever you’re ready.”
“Ah, Sonja,” Ivan says with a winning smile that he’s perfected over his almost seven hundred years of living. Or, not-living, depending on how you look at it. “You know me so well.”
He taps his card on the reader as he makes polite conversation with Sonja. He asks about how her biology degree is going, about her plans for after university, and she tells him about a new series that she’s been watching with her girlfriend. “Ema hates it,” she says fondly, “It’s quite gory. She has to hide behind a pillow for most of it, but the characters are good.”
“I’ve never minded a bit of gore,” Ivan laughs as she pushes his cappuccino towards him. Sonja grins at him, he bids her farewell, and he makes his way back out into the cool late-autumn air.
The smart, safe thing to do would be to take the main road back home, the hordes of commuters and tourists unknowingly acting as his shield - as no hunter would be stupid enough to kill him in plain sight, or at least attempt to - but Ivan has never been known for his smart choices. Instead, he turns left, his legs responding to that unmistakable magnetic pull that he feels sometimes, though not as often as he’d like, and carrying him down a back alley between the row of shops and the start of the apartment complexes.
He feels him before he sees him, partially due to his refined sixth sense for the presence of hunters, and partially due to this particular hunter being infuriatingly good at hiding. Ivan doesn’t even get a chance to have a sip of coffee before his back hits the crumbling brick wall and there’s a dagger at his throat.
The takeaway cup falls to the floor and the coffee that Sonja always makes perfectly spills out and seeps into the tarmac.
“Hi, gorgeous,” Ivan grins despite the pressure of the blade. It’s pressed right to his jugular, just a slight movement away from causing the kind of damage that even he’d struggle to recover from. “As lovely as it is to see you, I was really looking forward to that coffee. I slept awfully, you see.”
The man currently pinning him to the wall is wearing a mask that obscures what Ivan knows to be a very beautiful face, and even though Ivan can’t see his eyes, he knows he’s rolling them.
“Vampires don’t need sleep,” the man says. He tilts the knife, just slightly, exactly like Ivan knew he would. So predictable. So familiar. Ivan is sure that if he needed to, he could mirror every one of his shadow’s actions, maybe even beating him to them, not necessarily because Ivan can read his mind if he wants to, but because there was once a time where hanging onto this man’s next move was his preferred way of passing the time.
“Someone’s been doing their homework,” Ivan smirks, wincing as the tip of the metal nicks his skin. It’s doused in holy water, responsible for the sting that he feels every time more of it comes into contact with his flesh. He’s not worried though- he’s survived much worse. The burn is quite refreshing, actually, though that could be more to do with who’s responsible. “Do me a favour, love, and take off the mask? If you’re actually going to kill me this time, I’d like to see your face.”
And I’ve missed you.
“Fuck off.” It's muffled by the face covering, a stupid concoction of fabric and plastic that members of the most prolific hunters’ group are required to wear at all times. It’s supposed to be a means of protecting identity, but Ivan isn’t stupid. He knows exactly who this is.
He knows the shape of the long fingers curled around the blade’s handle, knows the feel of them against his skin. He knows the exact shade of the eyes glaring at him, sees it every time he closes his own. He knows the man’s scent, not the smell of human blood that any vampire can pick up on, but the gentle aroma of musky cologne and cigarette smoke, sometimes of smoke from something stronger and definitely against hunter regulations, and knows how much stronger these notes are when his nose is pressed to the sweat-soaked skin of a neck or collarbone. He knows this man very well.
He also knows how to wind him up.
Sure enough, the man reaches the hand that isn’t threatening to slit Ivan’s neck to the back of his head, unclasping the mask and letting it fall to the ground. It rolls slightly, and sits next to Ivan’s abandoned cappuccino, narrowly missing the puddle of frothed milk that’s slowly dwindling, and Ivan is more than slightly disappointed that it doesn’t leave a mark purely because of how much it would irritate the mask’s owner.
Lovro Dević looks up, blue eyes gleaming, lips contorted into a permanent frown. Well, that’s the impression he wants to give. Ivan has seen him laugh, seen him smile - once, a very long time ago. Granted, it's only been a few years, almost nothing relative to how long Ivan has been around, but it feels like millenia since Lovro looked at him and didn’t want to kill him.
Not that Ivan minds. Again, without hunters like Lovro, how is Ivan expected to have any fun?
“There you are,” Ivan breathes, “Have you dyed your hair? It looks nice.”
“Shut up, Kovačić,” Lovro hisses. Ivan doesn’t miss the way his hand falters and almost reaches up to touch his hair, dyed a mint green that Ivan is sure he wouldn’t be able to get away with as a hunter if he weren’t so good. It’s another means of identification that is usually frowned upon, but it’s usually the last thing that vampires notice if they find themselves at the receiving end of Lovro’s wrath. He’s too quick for anything other than his skill and axis-tilting presence to be the first indicator that he’s around. “This ends now.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure it does.” Ivan doesn’t know why Lovro bothers with the blades and holy water and stakes that he knows are strapped to the inside of Lovro’s jacket. He reckons that if Lovro just looked at him long enough with those beautiful eyes, it’d get the job done far more efficiently. “How about you lift that knife of yours up, just a bit? It’ll do more damage that way.” Ivan reaches up and wraps his hand around Lovro’s, around the knife that Lovro definitely didn’t have last time - he makes a mental note to ask where he got it from, it’s gorgeous - and pushes it further into the muscle of his own neck.
Lovro rolls his eyes again, and this time Ivan gets to see it. “Is this some kind of joke to you?”
“Are you sure it’s not a joke to you? Because you’re been trying to kill me for-” Ivan makes a show of doing the maths, counting the fingers on his free hand and relishing in the way he can feel Lovro tense, “- four years now? Five, maybe? And you’ve still not managed it.”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
“Meaning you’re going to kill me more than once? I admire your ambition.”
“Fuck off.” For someone so disgustingly educated in a number of fields and languages, Lovro really does have a very limited vocabulary when it comes to insults.
Ivan pouts. It’s just too easy. “I mean I would. I do have places to be, but you’re the one pinning me to a wall.”
“You’re the one letting me.”
And oh. There it is.
Because Ivan is stronger, much more so. Lovro is fast, but he’s faster. He could have killed Lovro a hundred different ways by now if he wanted to. Could have cut him to pieces with his own dagger, could have smashed his head against the wall a few times. Could have drained every drop of blood in his body if that was something that appealed to him.
But it doesn’t. He doesn’t want that. (Well, he certainly wouldn’t be opposed to getting another taste of Lovro’s blood after all this time, but he’d definitely be keeping him alive afterwards.)
“Maybe I’m just going easy on you.”
Lovro leans closer. Ivan's stomach flips when he notices a small silver ring through his bottom lip. That’s new. “We both know that’s not the case.”
“Glad we’re in agreement,” Ivan smiles, all teeth, before ripping the knife away from his neck and bringing his knee up to hit Lovro square in the stomach. Before Lovro can retrieve another weapon or straighten up, Ivan has him against the same wall, their positions reversed, his forearm at his throat. Lovro coughs, mouth parted as he tries to take in any air he can, but he brings his eyes up to meet Ivan’s and doesn’t look away. At this angle, Ivan takes the opportunity to look over Lovro’s face, cataloging every freckle, every blemish, every faded scar that wasn’t there last time they saw each other, and the constellation of moles on his cheek that have stayed the same even when Lovro has changed everything else about himself.
That’s when he sees it.
Visible only because of how pale the skin of Lovro’s neck is, two tiny indents, still healing. They’re almost unnoticeable, and Ivan only sees the scars because he knows what to look for. Instinctively, he runs his tongue over the fangs that protrude from his own gums.
“Who was this?” Ivan says quietly. His thumb traces the mark. Lovro's eyes widen slightly.
“No one.”
Ivan feels his mouth twist into a cruel imitation of a smile. “Don’t lie to me.”
Ivan doesn’t go around biting humans. Especially not hunters. It’s a personal choice of his, preferring to turn to animals and blood banks when he especially needs to feed, and he definitely wouldn’t bite anyone to turn them. Not anymore. Not after last time.
And he certainly hasn’t bitten Lovro recently, and likely never will again, but that doesn’t mean someone else can.
He lessens the pressure on Lovro’ throat so that he can speak.
“Why?” Lovro chokes out. A small smile pulls at his lips. “Jealous?”
“No,” Ivan spits out. He reaches into Lovro’ jacket and pulls out another dagger. It's the one Lovro used last time - a black handle studded with green gems, because he’s always liked appearances just as much as practicality. It left Ivan with a scar on his abdomen for weeks. “I thought hunters weren’t allowed to spend time with vampires when you're not trying to kill them.”
“How do you know I wasn’t trying to kill him?” Lovro’s eyes darken as Ivan gently drags the blade along his jawline, stopping at his chin and using it to lift his face towards his own.
“Because I know you,” Ivan whispers. Lovro’s breath hitches. He’s always had an endearingly physical reaction to the truth, especially when it’s Ivan telling it. “I’ve seen you kill. You’re good. Really good. No one could get close enough to do this unless you wanted them to.”
Lovro grins, slow and calculated, looking too much like someone Ivan used to know, and leans forward so that his lips graze Ivan’s ear. “Bingo,” he whispers, breath hot against Ivan's skin, “I wanted it.”
Ivan bites down so hard on his bottom lip that if he had any blood of his own, he’d be sure to draw it. “But you hate vampires,” he breathes, accusatory. Pathetic. His head pounds. Lovro makes a point not to associate with vampires, it’s the principle that got them into this mess to start with, and so even the mere suggestion that Lovro would look for any kind of intimacy with one has Ivan more confused than he thinks he’s ever been. For the first time in a long time, he understands why vampires kill other vampires, because all he can think about is how desperately he wants to track down whatever abominable creature dared to touch Lovro and leave this kind of mark on him.
“Maybe I just hate you,” Lovro retorts, a blatant lie. Ivan watches the steady rise and fall of Lovro’s chest and internally laments about how Lovro can somehow remain so calm even when a centuries-old supernatural being is pinning him to the wall. It’s not like it’s the first time it’s happened, but this time Lovro is actually aware of it.
Ivan grins, dragging the blade across Lovro’s cheekbone, across his moles and down to his lips, pressing the tip flat against the plush bottom one and coaxing them to part. “So I’m special?”
Something flashes in the intoxicating black of Lovro’s pupils, brief but sharp and devastatingly familiar. Against the metal of his own knife that is one movement short of being in his mouth, Lovro frowns, but it flickers into a smirk before Ivan has time to dwell on it. Lovro tilts his head, almost sweet. “Not anymore.”
Those two words make something in Ivan wake up, something more akin to the monster that he supposedly is, and he snaps. Hand around Lovro’s throat, he shoves the other man harder into the wall. Lovro’s head knocks against the brick with a crack, and for a brief moment, Ivan thinks he’s actually done it. The horror lasts only for a second, until Lovro’s eyes snap open, gleaming, and he throws his head forward to hit Ivan’s nose. It's the shock, not the pain, that makes Ivan loosen his grip allowing Lovro to free himself from his arms and get a clean shot to his stomach. The knife that Lovro has, at some point, taken from Ivan’s hand slices through Ivan’s T-shirt and into his flesh. It only stings, and Lovro looks infuriated at the way Ivan looks down at the blood and makes a show of only shrugging, despite the growing crimson stain across the fabric.
“So close, baby,” Ivan grins, and Lovro lets out what can only be described as a growl before launching himself at Ivan. He’s slightly shorter than Ivan, just enough that Ivan used to be able to rest his chin on Lovro’s head, but he’s been training for this his whole life and is stronger than he looks. Hooking a foot around Ivan's ankle, he slides to the floor, bringing Ivan with him and putting him on his back. He hovers above him, a knee slotted between Ivan thighs and the point of the knife back at Ivan’s neck. In an ideal world, he’d press his weight forward a little, but of course he doesn’t. “Maybe aim for the heart next time.”
“Why are you doing this?” Lovro grits out. There’s blood on his face, Ivan doesn’t know whose, and his lip is split. Ivan resists the urge to run his fingers over it and then, maybe, put them in his mouth.
Ivan plays dumb. “Doing what?”
“Letting me win. Why won’t you fight back?” The blade pushes deeper, but it doesn’t break skin. Lovro knows just the right angles. “You could have killed me by now.”
“I know.”
“Why haven’t you?” Lovro whispers. He almost sounds disappointed, and for a moment, Ivan feels bad. He’s come looking for a fight, and he hasn’t gotten one. Ivan hates denying him any kind of pleasure, and if he’s going to stick to his principles, he would be giving Lovro what he wants. He’s allowed to be the selfish one for a change, though. It’s been a while since he’s let himself do that.
“You know why,” Ivan says softly, giving in and wiping away a speck of blood on Lovro’s face with his thumb. Lovro stills, and from this angle, in the dull lighting of a dreary November morning, he’s never looked more like someone who could actually kill Ivan. “I don’t do that anymore.”
“You’re a fucking coward,” hisses Lovro, voice void of any emotion that might have been there a minute ago. “You’re supposed to be the most dangerous vampire alive.”
“And you’re supposed to be the best hunter,” Ivan points out. Lovro leans closer, his face mere inches from Ivan’s. Notorious, formidable, beautiful Lovro Dević. “I know vampires who shake when they hear your name. They’re scared of you. What do you think they’d say if I told them you’d had me under your knife and that you didn’t even try to do anything with it?”
“I have tried,” Lovro spits, because he’s always liked having the last word. Blood hits Ivan’s face, and he’s unable to stop his tongue from darting out to taste the drop that’s landed on his bottom lip. Lovro’ blood tastes exactly like he remembers - sweet and rich like a well-aged wine that Ivan can’t drink. “You’re just too fucking strong.”
Ivan grins. “I’ve never had complaints before.” You never complained, he almost says, but decides that might be a step too far. It’s one of those things that’s best not to acknowledge past the harmless flirting and non-specific innuendo that already piss Lovro off enough.
“Fuck you.”
“You’re the one who’s got me on my back.” His stomach twists as Lovro flushes. He knows it's from anger, but for a moment, Ivan lets himself believe otherwise. “And like I said, you’re good. I wouldn’t be this close unless you wanted me to be.”
Lovro smiles, then, something gruesomely beautiful. That alone might be the thing that does Ivan in, and if it ends up being the last thing he sees, it’ll be a good way to go. “You’re right,” Lovro says, low and dangerous, “You’re exactly where I want you.”
Ivan doesn’t feel the stake go in until suddenly, the weight of Lovro is gone and is replaced with a sharp, throbbing pain in his side. Lovro stands over him and slides his knife back into his jacket’s inside pocket. Leaning down to pick up his mask, he slips it back over his face, and Ivan wonders when the next time he sees his face will be, already missing it.
There’s always a next time, he knows that.
He doesn’t remove the stake until Lovro is gone, familiar footsteps disappearing around the corner, wincing as he maneuvers the wood, and when he does, he smiles.
The stake hit just to the left of his stomach, instead wedged between his ribs with the kind of precision that can only come from someone who means to do it. It’s not enough to kill him.
It wasn’t meant to be. It’s not the kind of near-miss that comes from a fluke or a coincidence.
There’s always a next time, and it seems like Lovro knows it too.