The Ripper

William Jack Holloway

William was sure that he would have known that face anywhere. He had seen it thousands of times at his side, after all. He could have sketched out the way that that face looked when it laughed, when it slept, when it was trying to be charming. He could remember the way it looked when it was sad, when it was in pain. But perhaps the most prominent thing he could remember about that face was the way it looked when it was dying. They had watched each other die, after all. He had lain on the streets of London watching the vampire girl drain the life out of Sebastian after the blood had ceased to exist within William's own veins. He had lain with Sebastian's head on his chest as they'd both died together, the other man using his last breaths to apologize to William as though the whole night had been his fault. And then, when Will had woken up in the cottage of his Master, he had had no struggle in believing that his companions, his Sebastian, were dead.

He had spent the following years torturing himself that he had survived while his best friend had perished.

But now, it was nearly two hundred years later and he was standing in an alleyway in an American city looking at the face of his best friend. It couldn't be true, of that he was completely sure. This was some trick, some illusion. Some monster of a vampire whose power was to appear as the one person in the world that Will wanted. Because he could feel that he was a vampire. He could feel the lack of real life within him. It was that alone that had him believing there was no way that this could be the man he knew. Sebastian had always been so full of life. So charming, so enticing. It was his natural pull that had the young Duke's son drawn to him in the first place, even if the man was below his station. At fifteen, Will had believed Sebastian to be one of the most charming people he'd ever met - and he met a great deal of people - and it was a fact that had only grown in the following ten years of their friendship. They had been inseparable, once. It seemed only fitting that they had died together.

He was so sure that it wasn't true. He was positive that this wasn't what he thought it was. This creature was merely using Sebastian's face. He should take the silver dagger and run it through his heart. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't kill Sebastian, even if it really wasn't him. The monster was wearing his face, after all. But he was a monster. He had the ability to rip other people's lives in the same way Will's life had been. In the same way that Sebastian's life had been. He should kill him. He had to kill him. And with that, he gripped the knife and prepared to drive it into the vampire. But then the vampire's touch landed on his cheek. William flinched instinctively, closing his eyes as the other man spoke his name. His name, which only Sebastian would have known in this situation. In Sebastian's voice. With Sebastian's face.

He supposed it wasn't entirely impossible, not really. He knew how vampires were created. And he supposed he had been delirious from blood loss. But no... Sebastian was dead... he had to be dead. Will stepped back abruptly, the dagger slipping from his grasp to clatter against the sidewalk as he examined the vampire in front of him. A million thoughts seemed to collide in his mind and he truly could not gather them.

"You're dead," The Hunter said numbly, his gaze set on the concrete. He couldn't look at the vampire. He couldn't look at the face of his best friend. His voice sounded remarkably unlike the Hunter he was now. No, he sounded entirely like the fifteen year old that had first met the charming Baron's son in the royal court. Young. Naive. Looking to Sebastian for guidance. "I watched you die."

But darling -- it's only human nature.