#and the party are a secret supernatural support group that get together for drinks gossip and babysitting Bonnie when Nille stuck in work

[faislittlewhiteraven]

Had another ISaT AU dream

This one was much less atmospheric and cool than my Tower of Dormont AU one but for anyone out there looking for fic ideas: Modern day 'urban fantasy AU' with the classic 'all the magic types are hidden' masquerade shenanigans going on but well the setup is: Isabeau, neighbourhood friendly vampire, trying to be as ethical as he can with his blood consumption, wanders areas like the outside of night clubs and the park late at night totally just 'out for a late night jog' with emergency fruit snacks and juice boxes on hand-

meets Siffrin, an exhausted, lonely, 'working far too many hours to barely break even on their rent' human on the way back from their 6 to 3am shift attempting to stargaze in the middle of the park, and the two get SO into talking Isa kinda forgets to even bite the little fella (oops!) before offering them a juice box. Cue Sif and Isa both deciding for '100% totally logical reasons' to keep frequenting the park, Isa having his first real 'help Mira, Ma'dam I'm biting someone I know on the regular, and I'm not sure if I LIKE-like them or if this just, idk, stupid vampire instincts going on' crisis combined with some secondary 'also I'm really worried about their living situation and maybe I could invite them to stay with me, introduce you all to them cuz they don't really seem to have any friends, etc' stuff, Sif slowly getting to meet everyone in 'the supernatural support group/family' (aka Mira, Odile, Bonnie and Nille), Isa and Sif's relationship progressing firmly into romantic territory with Isa stressing about how to explain the whole 'vampire' thing and how to apologise about all the hypnotising and get across that the only thing he's ever used it for was Sif's blood only (which btw is very tasty and sweet and also lets him daywalk sometimes which usually only happens when it's freely given, so Sif should probably not let any other vamp know about that) and- And-!

Annnnd it turns out that actually, Siffrin has known Isa was a vampire this entire time and that Isa's hypnosis never worked on them: Sif just accepted that getting bitten by the wonderful funny buff Isa-vamp was a small price to pay for free meals and good conversation on the regular, Isa's occasion 'red eye' thing was just attractive a tell for when he was getting hungry and as a 'Null'(1) -aka one of the Universe's designated monster killers who's constantly having to butcher and then hide the bodies of all the monsters that keep trying to pull off kills or worse right in front of them (when Sif's not being targeted himself. Late night solo shifts at the 7/11 / gas station are the worst)- this frankly has been the nicest, least stressful string of monster encounters they've had in a long time and they're really enjoying the reprieve.

TLDR: Isabeau is a vampire in the modern day who's hyper freaked out about confessing his (and his friends') monster status to his totally normal overworked human 'maybe partner' Sif, who actually knew Isa was a vamp the whole time, is actually THE primary monster hunter of the area, and is simply really happy that Isa and the other monsters he keeps introducing them to are actually good company as opposed to usual murderous eldritch horrors they usually run into. (1) My dream gave me a surprising amount of worldbuilding here (thank you dream Odile for trying to sus Sif out) but Nulls are sort of something akin to a Slayer in Buffy - Chosen ones selected by The Universe to slay evil. Nulls specifically 'ping' as 100% normal human to pretty much all supernatural senses (hence why they're called Nulls) but they're just flat out immune to mind manipulation and perception filters, they heal back from horrific levels of injury relatively quickly (though it's not quite at 'abusable in combat' levels), they instinctively know exactly how to hurt and kill any foe they deem in need of killing, and they tend to have major 'kill them all' issues towards most supernatural types since they often become Nulls as a result of their family's getting murdered or nearly being erased from existence by some sort of cosmic horror etc... Resulting in them being officially 'the ones monsters tell horror stories of'. Incidentally, one of the 'tells' of a Null is that they tend to be especially 'alluring' in various ways to most kinds of 'human hunting' monsters: Their blood, flesh, emotions etc all 'smell' and 'taste' especially delicious (and may grant 'special' properties such as giving Vampires sun immunity), they tend to work odd hours or 'do at one's own pace' jobs (aka being murder monster catnip tends to result in a lot of unscheduled and inexplainable emergences), and they tend to be perpetually exhausted (due to having to be near constantly hyper alert in case of Yet Another Monster after them, and all the monster slaying itself).

As for other stuff:

I vaguely picture Mira and the other Dormont Housemaidens as Angels for the Change God (think like bees to a hive - collecting the 'byproducts' of fresh hope and change in humans to make into food), Odile as some kind of primordial Eldritch Thing who's always lent towards benevolent observation of humanity (also one of the few supernaturals to ever have met more than one Null before and lived to tell about it. Probably the only supernatual being in setting who's likely to treat them as highly dangerous people first, murderous killers second), and Bonnie and Nille as Were Beasts of some kind (plz picture Sif being charmed over by Bonnie in an instant, being enthralled by their big gush/bragging about the 'once a month family camping trips' where they and Nille go to the countryside to hunt wild boar or deer which then Bonnie cooks up real nice for everyone except Za because he's a weenie who can't handle any good seasonings like garlic' and immediately offering to save Frin the best cut next time since it probably wouldn't be safe to bring him on the trip with them).

Also Isa totally works as a 'night only' beat cop or park ranger or something (gets away with just working the later hours since 'sun allergy' is accepted as a reasonably common disability in a human society full of secret monster folks trying to blend in) though he IS currently undertaking an online apprenticeship with a well known fashion designer who's been around forever.

Sif's Null awakening probably involved a 'history eating' eldritch horror (so um. Yep, sorry Sif, you still have memory loss, no ID and probably no education past middle school level) and The King's also a Null but of the 'genuinely murderous and terrible' kind - specifically in my dream, Sif's (2nd?) awakening involved killing The King (and mercy killing a whole bunch of innocent monsters The King was keeping as 'living trophies' or something because Sif had no idea how to free them from their various fate-worse-than-deaths otherwise) but like. I'm not writing this so do as you wish~ I do very much like the visual of Sif's 'Null' instincts including other Null who've 'gone wrong' though and hope that gets included. Makes for a nice 'and then Isa and the other friendly monsters had to process that cute, sweet Siffrin who's so gentle with Bonbon, stepped in to help Mira and Nille with babysitting near instantly, gets teased by Odile and throws everything into making Isa laugh and swoon, is in fact the rumored serial killer of serial killers who once dealt with a guy that had a rep akin to 'He Who Must Not Be Named' among the monster community, when he was around 14 years old and armed with a pencil sharpner.

Oh and before I forget again: Sif has absolutely zero knowledge of supernaturals other than 1) they exist, 2) most other people don't know they exist, and 3) Siffrin is supernatural catnip who's really really good at murdering things before they can murder him or other people. Also they do not get paid enough for this, monsters tend to carry less money on them than one might think, and the police start asking very awkward questions if you become known as 'that one fella who keeps finding and selling stuff suspected to belong to missing persons at the nearby pawn shop'.

Only reason Sif didn't start their 'three warnings before murder' thing with Isa is that they were just that damn tired when they met him that they didn't pick up on his vampy vibes until his teeth were in their neck, they didn't have the energy to 'bother' fighting him off (they were firmly at the 'this might as well happen, why not die at the teeth of someone who was at least nice about it' point) and well. Cue dull, confused happy surprise (much akin to someone just coming off a vamp's hypnosis) when Isa stopped them from tipping over, apologised for 'keeping them out so late they were fainting from low blood sugar' and gave them half a dozen snacks before offering to walk them home.

So yeah. There's another AU out for adoption if anyone wants in (do feel free to ask for help if you want more world building or whatever) and off I go back to typing away at my endless amount of ISaT Selkie AU notes instead~ XD