They were happy together. Sure, only ten years had passed since Lovino, Antonio, and Gilbert had been turned into vampires, and while not much may have changed in ten years, Feliciano knew that one day they would watch them all age and die.
As morbid as that sounded.
Already, the oldest brother looked like the younger, and there would come a day when he looked like Feliciano's son, and then, his grandson. It was a daunting thought- that his lover's brother and his own brother would one day watch them die and continue on without them into eternity was not something that he liked to think about at all, actually, but it hung over him like a cloud sometimes, a cloud hidden behind the smiles and the laughter. So, he pushed it away. Sweeping it under the rug, just as one would dust they wanted to pretend didn't exist. It just so happened that he was pushing these very thoughts away as he made pasta for his lover, his brother, his lover's brother, his brother's lover, a pervert, an American, and the American's rather grumpy lover.
Of course, he was making spaghetti. It was his specialty and delicious and easy to make, so why on earth would he make anything else for their weekly get-togethers?
"Hey, Feliciano," his brother's voice called out to him through the closed door to the kitchen, "you aren't making spaghetti again, are you?"
Heat flared in Feliciano's veins, as his brother's dismayed tone seemed to suggest that there was such a thing as too much spaghetti. "Ah, it's a surprise, Lovi. And it's almost done."
From outside the door, he heard his brother sigh. "It's spaghetti. Of fucking course it is." Instead of replying, Feliciano held his tongue. After all, being a bit… abrasive had always been a part of his brother's personality. If Antonio could put up with it, then so could he. Then again, Antonio had a pretty good incentive for putting up with his brother's less pleasant quirks. Even after ten years of being together, their love and nighttime activities were still going strong, after all.
A loud crack pulled his head out of the delicious smell of pasta and his thoughts. The wooden shutters he'd had Ludwig build around their windows had been slammed against the surrounding wall by the wind, he was certain, and nothing else, but there was a sense of unease that grew when he saw just how far open the window was. Had it always been that wide?
Outside, he could see a storm brewing. Dark clouds swirled and turned in the sky, like dirt kicked up at the bottom of a pond. Something felt wrong.
He called out. "Lovino? Ludwig?" No answer. In fact, all sound outside the kitchen had stopped.
"They can't hear you, you know. No one can." Whirling around, Feliciano caught sight of a young boy crouching on his windowsill. Black hair fell in lazy curls around the crown of his head, his skin was paler than bleached bone, and his clothes, ragged and worn as they were, seemed about a century out of date. It was a blue suit piece. Or rather, it had been blue once. And, if all of that weren't enough to send the hairs on the back of Feliciano's neck heading for the door, than the predatory glint in his dark eyes and the sharp shine of pointed canines under his curled, thin lips would be have done it.
If Feliciano brain hadn't frozen at what all his past vampire hunting training had trained him to recognize as a vampire, then it was likely only due to said training. As the facts stood, only his body was frozen, feet planted to the floor as though they had grown roots, but his thoughts raced.
Partly in a bid to stall for time, and partly due to his own nervousness, he asked questions in quick succession, "Who are you? What are you doing here? What do you want with me? What have you done to my friends?"
The vampire's smile widened as its head tilted. Every motion happened too fast for Feliciano to process, so it appeared as though the creature's head had merely teleported to the right. The fast, jerky movements gave it an almost insect-like quality, which, when mixed with the ink black eyes and predatory posture, merely made his presence all the more threatening.
It spoke. "If you live to see the next sunrise, I may tell you my name, but I see no reason to waste breath on a corpse. As for what I want with you and why your friends aren't recklessly rushing in to save you like the fools they are, well, I believe you'll find that those two answers are related." With what looked like a neckbreakingly fast nod towards its right, it forced Feliciano to see a intricate magic circle, something that looked as though it had been painted on his wall with blood so fresh it was still dripping.
It was a concealment field. No sound could pass outside one. No one could enter one. Even thinking about something or someone inside a concealment field was difficult. No help was coming. Not this time.
Throat dry, Feliciano choked, "I thought vampires couldn't use magic." As the creature's face darkened, he focused on restoring his senses, preferably his ability to move his arms and feet. First, control the fear. Second, avoid the vampire's eyes. Third, dispel any lingering magic from his thoughts. Fourth. Move.
Just as a plan began to form in his mind, the vampire brought a palm sized vial out from his pocket and, in a rare moment of solemnity, said, "You'd be surprised what magic and pain can do to you. It can make you achieve the impossible. It can turn you into a monster." For an instant, Feliciano pitied the creature before him, but then the vampire's feature's sharpened once more, as he held the ruby red vial and purred, the melody of his voice clawing its ways into Feliciano's ears like a thousand needles dipped in ecstasy, "It can make you want to turn others into monsters, too."
Having finally gathered enough strength of will, Feliciano gripped the boiling pot of spaghetti next to him, tossing it at the concealment field's design as one would toss a bucket of water. It left his hands screaming in agony, but not even that pain would have compared to seeing his plan fail. The vampire stopped the sauce from disrupting the field's magic by shielding it with its body.
However, Feliciano didn't see his plan fail. The second the pot left his hands, he'd spun around, hightailing it for the door and what he could only pray was safety. He was pinned to the floor, however, before his fingers could do more than brush the door, scream cut off by the spindly fingers crushing his throat.
There was an ear shattering roar, a snarl, and then the sound of a stopper being pulled from a vial. Feliciano fought to close his mouth, but his brain was oxygen starved. He was gasping and he couldn't stop because the fingers were only giving him enough air to stay conscious, not nearly enough for clear thought, let alone willful, defiant resistance. The warm, sticky liquid fell from the vial, falling into his mouth until it felt like he was drowning. Feliciano tried to spit it out, but it was cloying. It stuck to his tongue, the roof of his mouth, his throat. And then the boy- the vampire- the creature pressed his body closer, long fingers loosening their chokehold on his throat so he could cover Felciano's mouth with his other hand.
Fireworks exploded behind his eyes. Black spots bloomed and spread like dying flowers, but he refused to swallow. He couldn't.
So, the vampire, with his young, vulpine face, suddenly removed the pressure from his throat, suddenly removed the hand from his mouth, and sealed his lips with his own. Before Feliciano could register anything more than surprise, there was a sharp pain in his mouth, followed by a pleasure so bone deep his body sang with it, melted in it. Iron and copper and syrupy corruption traveled down his throat. His skin absorbed it and his lungs, ignoring everything else, gulped at the air greedily.
A battle had been lost.
In that moment, as he locked eyes with the boyish face above him, a face like that of an angel -or a demon - all Feliciano could think about was how cold he felt. If it were Ludwig with him, and not a demon with a child's face, he wouldn't have felt so cold.
Those were his last thoughts before the convulsions started. After that, everything was colored in words of pain.
"Che, what's taking my foolish fratello so long?" Lovino asked. Being a vampire may have granted him the super model good looks of your average Italian Abercrombie & Fitch poster boy, plus eternal youth, but it really hadn't done a thing for his maturity. At least, that was what he wanted people to think. When he wanted to act his age, he found that he could, but he quickly found that it wasn't much fun. And also that the more he acted like a mature adult, the more he was expected to act one.
Arthur snorted. "Honestly, didn't anyone teach you about manners? It's rude to rush the cook."
Before Lovino could form a properly biting response, Ludwig rose from the table with his dog pacing anxiously by his heels. "Maybe I'll go check on him, make sure he's all right," Ludwig said. Then he trailed off and sat down.
Confused, Gilbert leaned a little towards his brother and asked, his voice low, suspicion growing behind his crimson eyes, "Weren't you going to go check on Feliciano?"
Ludwig blinked. "Why would I do that that? I'm sure he's all right. " The words were dreamy, disjointed. Gilbert, Francis, Antonio, and Lovino all leapt to their feet, the sudden motion startling the humans at the table out of whatever fog was clouding their thoughts. Lovino called his brother's name, made for the door, and found himself walking past it.
"What?!" He tried again. And walked past it. Again.
"It's a concealment field," Antonio said. "If we approach it directly, we'll just end up walking past it."
"How long?" Lovino demanded of the others, and of himself. "How long has my brother been trapped in there while we sat on our asses, not five feet away from him?"
Ignoring him, Alfred cut his arm with a knife, much to Arthur's horror. "Alfred! What on earth are you-"
Alfred cut him off with a look, then drew the symbol for fire on his palm. He tried to raise his palm in the general direction of the door without actually thinking about it, since it was easier to destroy the area beside a concealment field than it was to take on the field directly. "Just a suggestion" he said as magic began to gather in his palm and sweat began to bead on his forehead, "But you might not want to be anywhere near that door right now. Unless being fried to a crisp is a new fetish of yours, Francis."
"Not at the moment, mon ami." Francis moved away coolly, but he did move, and then Alfred unleashed enough fire to burn away the wall surrounding the field and put seriously pressure on the field itself. Focusing on the fire, Alfred imagined the sheer force of it coming up against a sheet of glass. The glass warped and stretched, but it didn't break.
"Arthur," Alfred grunted, his hands growing heavy and tired, "the second I stop the fire, I need you to cool down the field. Fast."
Arthur nodded, green eyes narrowed with resolution. The wind rustled, turned, rolled as if being woken, and then, all at once, it charged the door. It roared and screamed and pushed against as the flames died, and then Gilbert threw a door, shattering the field and cracking the design itself. They rushed into the kitchen, only to find a scene that had the same effect on them that a fall through thin ice on a cold winter's day might have on others.
The window's shutters banged against the wall. There was a symbol on the wall, a symbol with a crack running through it, written in blood. The air was hot, humid. Thick spaghetti sauce coated the walls and the floors and a lone pot rolled on the floor. There was no attacker. Nothing to fight. No one to save. The time for saving had long passed. There was only a man on the floor, convulsing so hard his head struck the tile floor and blood dribbled from his lips. His chest rose, lungs filling with air, so he could stab the air with his screams.
Ludwig rushed to his side, gathered his frail and contorted body in his arms like a fitful child, and ran from the kitchen. Gilbert and Francis rushed outside to see if they could catch the intruder, Lovino sprinted after Ludwig with Antonio on his heels, and Arthur and Alfred made sure their blessed pistols were cocked and loaded with the cross engraved bullets they had recently procured from the academy.
Even as they searched, they knew that whoever had attacked Feliciano would be long gone, and all the while, always present, were his screams.
He screamed until his throat bled and his body broke.
And the smothering silence that followed was deafening.
A/N: Review if you want me to continue. If you're confused, read SalaciousCrumb's "Hetalia School For Vampire Hunters" This is kind of like a pseudo-sequel/drabble for that.
Also, some people might think Italy is out of character, because he's putting up a fight against a vampire, but, in the story, one of his greatest fears is being changed into someone or something who doesn't love Ludwig. He'd rather die than have that happen. So, in my opinion, him not laying down and just letting that vampire attack him is absolutely in character.