From the lovely mind of the talented /u/octothorpesexy and my own febrile mutterings comes this rollicking tale of a confrontation in a tucked-away hideout (sort of), a confrontation between monster and mortal (in a way), and a lesson that, no matter how far we fall from the light, there's at least one thing in life (or the alternative) that is completely certain.

For your reading pleasure, our exchange sparked by her prompt is reprinted below in its entirety, with her kind permission:

Guinevere - in the words of Octothorpe

She lived alone because she didn’t breathe in her sleep. When she was awake Guinevere--Vera for short--had breathing down to almost as much of an afterthought as it was for humans. The steady in and out of her chest rising and falling that was only noticeable in its absence. It wasn't that hard, even though she had now spent more time dead than she had living. It was necessary to speak, after all, or to sigh, or yawn. All of which she did as regularly as she could.

Sunlight was, of course, a problem, so she had gotten a night job at a front desk for the apartment building she lived in. It came with a nice apartment, and it wasn't like she had many living expenses outside of electricity and internet, so the minimum wage after the perk of free rent hardly bothered her. Paying for health insurance was a pain because she would never ever need it, but it was just part of the price for remaining integrated with human society.

Doing exactly that was deeply important to the young vampire. Some of her kind liked to run off and live in big mansions, acting like reclusive rich people and only going out to hunt. Her sire had been like that; she found Vera at a speakeasy during Prohibition and had turned her after nearly killing her. Too pretty to die, her sire told her. Well, her sire had been beautiful and she was dead now so beauty clearly wasn’t key to vampiric immortality.

Vera rubbed her face as she sat at the front desk. That had been a long time ago, back when she was only a fledgling. She'd been on her own ever since, hiding among humanity so she wouldn't make the same mistakes as the one who made her. Her sire had been killed by hunters, humans with unique traits that made them excellent and slaying monsters. She knew they went after all sorts, not just her kind; werewolves, zombie outbreaks, the works. Though she'd only ever seen a few, she was very keen on not seeing any more.

Thus the hiding among humans. She had an identity, recently changed out since she only looked to be in her early twenties and never aged. The apartment and job were both less than three months old, which meant she could settle in for a good decade or so before moving on. Already she was making friends with a few of her neighbors and enjoying the perks of a more lush lifestyle. She'd found a place to volunteer at night, and found a bookstore that stayed open late.

She'd found a few clubs with dark corners.

What Vera didn’t know was that at least one hunter had found her.

The Hunter - in the words of Werewizard

Pinching the bridge of my nose and peering in through the warped, grime-stained windows of the coffeeshop, I sigh to myself. This is stupid. There's no way this is more than an error in the books, and yet... And yet. After long enough at the Service, one gets a little jaded at seeing reports that don't amount to much, at wisps of allegation and hints of rumor, of things that seem to not add up and, improbably, just keep multiplying without ever finding their equal sign.

So color me confused, and frustrated, and a little bit, even excited, when I ease open the door and stroll in. It's a nice place, really - not the sort of place I usually find your kind in, although these days, you're as liable to run across someone who dabbles in the things you do in a Starbucks as much as a smoky speakeasy.

We've got a proud history of hunting down those who run afoul of one of the few certain things in life, after all - some more than others. I still remember the day I was sworn in - the stain of yellowed paper to papers on the wall, gold lettering on glass, and coffee on his breath, a scent that I'm brought back to, when the barista flashes a cloying smile.

My order's simple. I don't drink the stuff much, these days, but I'm not here for the bitter black. I'm here for... you. Yeah, that's you all right; a few calls to the tenuous connections I've maintained from when I was working for the regular sorts of enforcement gave your description. I can't help but feel sorry for what I'm about to do to you, but when you depend on the certain, solid things in life to keep the nightmares at bay, someone has to do this. Death and taxes, they say, and when those lucky few manage to dodge the harder one to escape...

"Miss Guinevere?"

There it is. The same fear as in all their eyes, as I lay the simple, cracked and crumbled paper on the table across from you, easing into the leather couch opposite the window outside.

There it is, I can see you thinking, at the four stark symbols atop the page and your name in neat block lettering.

1-0-4-0, reads the paper, and there's not a trace of mercy in my eyes as I tap the fine-printed 1918 beneath.

"I'm from the IRS," I explain, softly. "And you're very late."

Just the words of Octothorpe

oh my god I'm dying