Everything Stays(But it Still Changes)
chapter 5 (also on ao3!)
we’re wrapping up act 1 with this chapter and the voters said they wanted it extra long so buckle in. it’s also, once again, even more intense than the last one. there’s detailed scenes of violence including torture and mentions of past child abuse. it’s a bit ooc but that’s bc vlad is literally slowly dying of starvation all day and he’s hitting the limits of his sanity plus! a surprise! that would’ve been a cliffhanger but yknow it can still be fun! anyway
⚠️READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED⚠️
Vlad pulled Samira to the side as soon as it was announced the hospital was reopening to the public, all but begging on his knees for whatever blood she could get for him. She might have promised him only one bag but he must have looked as supremely dead as he felt, saying it’s all they could get away with since she was hungry too.
The shame he felt tearing into those bags, gulping down that blood, was unlike anything he had felt in a long time.
He went as far as ripping them open to lick every last drop out of the inside.
He isn’t sure how long he cried on the floor of the accessible bathroom.
“You okay?” Trinity asks him as they walk out towards the exit.
“Great!” Vlad answered with clear sarcasm.
He wasn’t full. Not by any means satisfied, but he was coherent at least. That counted for something.
“You wanna go get something to eat? There’s this Italian place that stays open way late and-“
“I try to avoid Italian.”
Trinity shoots him a confused look.
“Garlic allergy, remember?”
“Oh fuck, right. Sorry. Yeah, that’s a real shame.”
“One of my earlier patients told me about a taco truck not far from here. Best chili in the city, he said.”
“I could fuck up a burrito bowl right about now.”
Vlad laughs softly, “I feel ya. Though, maybe another time? I kinda just wanna sleep today off.”
“Oh! No, yeah, I totally get that. Maybe tomorrow?”
“For sure!”
“It’s not a date, though,” she adds firmly. “I’m a lesbian.”
“I noticed. You also remind me of my sister, so-“
“Right! Good. Well, goodnight Dracula.”
Vlad can’t help a small, fond smile. “Don’t let the bats bite.”
Trinity smiles at the joke and walks down the street. Vlad, however, turns completely around and reenters the waiting room. Heading up the emergency stairs to the eighth floor.
As much as he does want to sleep for a century, his night is far from over.
Within one minute he reaches his room, changes his clothes, and is back on the street outside the hospital.
Dressed in all black with his hood up he looks like a near perfect burglar. Vlad closes his eyes, taking a deep breath through his nose and concentrates.
Car exhaust, weed, the taco truck a few blocks over, blood.
Bingo.
Vlad starts walking whichever direction the scent is coming from. The vampire who bit one of the patients still currently in the north hall of the ED is still wearing her blood.
If Vlad finds them, he can get them to take him to wherever this massacre was coordinated. He doesn’t have the patience to go easy on them. Even if it was a minor offense(which this wasn’t) they aren’t getting off the hook with a mere slap on the hand.
It takes a few minutes but Vlad finds him in an alleyway curled up behind a dumpster. Chin and shirt crusted with old blood.
Theres a woman under him.
Vlad sees red for only a split second but he’s got the vampire pinned to the wall in a blink.
“Go! Get out of here!” Vlad barks at the woman who scrambles off. The vampire was feeding from her shoulder, luckily. No chance of her being turned. “Insatiable, aren’t you?”
The vampire just laughs. “Jealous you missed out on the party?”
“Not quite.” Vlad grabs two fistfuls of the man’s jacket and takes a step back to slam him onto the ground. He hears ribs crack and feels them resetting themselves under his hands. “Y’know it’s illegal to bite these days.”
“Stupid bureaubats… They don’t know shit about how the world works!” The vampire lifts his legs to plant both feet onto Vlad’s abdomen and kicks him off. Standing up and strolls to the end of the alley cackling. “This was fun, copper! Next time bring some backup!”
He speeds off but Vlad catches him quickly. Landing a punch to his gut that sends him flying into a park fence, bending the steel bars before sliding back down to the concrete.
“Killing you would be so easy,” Vlad says while looming over him, “but you have just a little piece of usefulness left in you. Where was this party organized?”
The vampire, winded, wheezes out, “Fuck you…”
Vlad hums. “Wrong answer.”
Vlad stomps on his face. He watches with sick fascination as teeth correct their position in a moment. A couple separated from gum — contrary to what you might think, they will not grow back. Vlad recalls his father defanging a rival clan’s regent and bringing the fangs home to wear on a necklace.
A distant feeling of pride swells in Vlad’s chest and disgust churns his stomach but he doesn’t have time for that right now.
The vampire cries out at the contact and half rolls over on the ground at Vlad’s feet to spit the loose teeth out. Vampire blood drips syrupy onto the pavement. Vlad gets an idea.
He picks up the red stained teeth and grips the man’s hair to force him into looking up. “Tell me where you’re hiding, or these,” he rattles the bones in his palm like marbles, “Will be digging into your stomach lining next.”
The man whimpers but doesn’t speak.
Vlad frowns with false sympathy. “Shame.”
His hand moves from hair to jaw to hold the vampire’s mouth open, about to sprinkle the teeth back in like garnish on a gourmet dish.
“Wait, wait, WAIT!!”
“Oh?” Vlad fully releases him, letting him drop gracelessly into his own puddle.
“The-there’s a camp… By a-a bridge… A condemned bridge! That’s where we are, that’s all I know, man!”
Vlad rolls his eyes. “Which bridge? This is the goddamn City of Bridges!!”
“I don’t know!! I’m not good at geography!”
Vlad sighs dramatically. “Well then take me to your bridge. You can find your way back home, can’t you Hansel? Leave a trail of blood drops along the way?”
“Fuck off man!”
“If only you behaved yourself you wouldn’t be in this mess,” Vlad is starving, exhausted, and really coming to the end of his chain. “Get up and walk.”
He gets up and walks. Smart move.
Vlad is so focused on not letting the vampire out of his sight he’s only vaguely aware of the pack of breathers they’re about to walk past. The vampire, however, makes an admittedly clever play.
He falls to his knees and starts loudly begging and pleading. “He’s gonna kill me! Please! You have to help me!”
The breathers shout various exclamations but Vlad couldn’t care less.
“You’re even more pathetic than I thought. Groveling at the first chance you get,” Vlad grabs him by back of his neck and hauls him back on his feet one handed. The other still clutching four teeth, including one fang. “Keep moving.”
They continue their journey through the city. Vlad maintains a grip on his trail guide’s neck, keeping his leash short.
It takes a while but eventually they arrive at a condemned bridge, just like he said. Beside it is a clearly abandoned building. Covered in graffiti and ivy, windows broken and blacked out from the inside.
Once they enter Vlad lets go and the vampire rushes off.
“Don’t you want your teeth?” Vlad hums when he gets no answer beyond about twenty new vampires appearing before him. “I guess not.”
He pockets the bones, he’ll find some use for them, surely.
“Quite the show you all put on earlier,” Vlad opens as though he’s not livid.
“Jealous?”
Is that the only comeback this clan knows? Vlad scoffs. “No, not at all. Actually I was stuck cleaning up your mess. This was an act of rebellion, right? Sticking it to the man?
“You realize that a protest only does anything if who you’re trying to convince is aware of it? The council hasn’t heard anything about this. You’ve changed zero minds. In fact, all you have done is reinforce ideas already held.”
“If the slayers caught wind of it the council must have too, idiot!” Someone hisses.
“The slayers were there because I called them.”
A chorus of growls and snapping maws sound off.
“If I hadn’t you would have had to face off with the entire Pittsburgh police department, which is made up of hundreds of armed and armored breathers. After the police would come the national guard — even more armed and armored with even higher numbers! With air support! And by the time they all came around more slayers have would surely been through by this point! Are you all honestly delusional enough to think you can completely fight off thousands of trained breathers and return to the shadows safely before daybreak??”
A few vampires look away.
“Completely aside from the fact that what you all did is so illegal it was just plain stupid!”
“And you have a better plan?”
“I could’ve thought up a dozen better plans! But I wouldn’t. Considering, y’know, the ceasefire being my idea to begin with.”
It takes a few moments but eventually realization crosses each of their faces.
Yes, they are dealing with Vladimir Dracula, AKA The Chosen One.
“The blood bars are around for a reason. Sustenance without casualty. Use them.”
“Vampires are predators! It’s in our nature to hunt!”
“Then hunt a fucking pigeon for all I care!! Just keep humans out of your teeth.”
“How are you gonna stop all of us?” One suddenly chirps.
“Yeah… Breathers always have us outnumbered but you’re one against twenty two,” another adds with a grin.
Vlad rolls his eyes. “Don’t play this game.”
“Why? Scared you’ll fall off your high horse, your eminence?”
“You’ll lose.” A ring of blue fire blooms around the crowd.
One steps forward, “Prove it then.”
With a flick of Vlad’s wrist bolts of electricity shoot from his hand and land directly on target, disintegrating the vampire immediately. Vlad fakes a yawn. “Anyone else?”
A stunned silence falls.
“Killing in the name of peace?” A lispy voice asks, the vampire Vlad had knocked the teeth out of.
“How many did you kill? For eight years there have been no major incidences. For eight years there have been no more kills within or between our society than any other. Eight years of work crumble to dust and I am mad. Why shouldn’t I just dust eight of you? I only have seven left to go! Step on up! Next vampire to say anything gets it!”
For a solid minute there’s a standoff. All eyes on Vlad, Vlad’s eyes on all.
Then they start looking at each other. Silently asking, “Who is next?”
Turns out, no one is.
No one makes a damn sound.
Vlad smiles. The ring of fire dies out. “Thank you for your cooperation. I hope we never have to have one of these talks again.”
As soon has Vlad crosses the threshold back outside a bag is pulled over his head and a second later he falls unconscious.
He has no way of knowing how much time has passed once he wakes back up. His whole body aches.
Opening his eyes the first thing Vlad notices is there’s something on his face. If he had to guess, he’d say it’s a muzzle. Not the kind that his cousin Boris wore after he went feral, no. It is one of those metal, dog muzzles. It hurts. It’s not too tight or anything, there’s something on the straps around his head that burns.
Great.
He’s chained on a chair in the center of the room, caged in by ultraviolet lasers.
All over the walls is typical slayer equipment. UV guns, canisters of garlic gas, rows upon rows of wooden stakes.
The door unlocks and in walks Vlad’s captor, “Ah, there he is.”
Vlad can’t help the way his jaw drops and his eyes bulge out of his face. “Wha…”
Jack Abbot smiles at him, “Honestly thought you’d put up more of a fight after what I saw. Especially after all I’ve heard about you.”
His head is pounding. His eyes are burning. His gums itch. His stomach turns over.
“There’s a huge misunderstanding here. I’m not your enemy,” Vlad tries to plead. His resolve wavering for the umpteenth time today. He really needs to eat someone— something. Shit.
“Oh?” Abbot steps inside the UV cage. “I think you’re the one who isn’t understanding.”
How dare this breather think he can do this to me. “I know you don’t trust me, but trust your own kind. Call the slayers. They’ll tell you I don’t want anyone to get hurt. I don’t know what you think you saw but it wasn’t out of any sort of pleasure. Vampires are ruthless creatures, they need discipline.”
“Cheers to that.” Abbot wanders off to pick up some tool, Vlad can’t see what he’s getting.
“No, no. I’m not like them! I’m different, I’m better. I’m stronger, I’m nicer, I just want peace!”
“Killing in the name of peace?”
If I hear that one more time-
“What? You have your own hypocrisy pointed out, what will you do?” Abbot turns back around. Something hidden in his fist.
“Shit,” Vlad must have said that out loud.
“You say you’re so different, but then you do the same things. You kill without abandon, you use fear and pain for manipulation, you want everything to go your own way because any other way is just plain wrong. You’re just like any other vampire, Vladimir Dracula.”
“It is different! I want to help! I’m a doctor, for fuck’s sake! I called the slayers on the attack, I found the clan to nip any other plans in the bud, I spent just as many hours elbow deep in victims as you! Treating people, saving people!”
Abbot reveals he retrieved a silver coin.
“You’re still a risk.” He holds the coin to the exposed skin under Vlad’s shirt.
Vlad cries out. The coin doesn’t just burn, his entire nervous system lights up in panic. He feels red hot everywhere but like the force of the sun itself is zeroing in on the curve of his neck.
He can feel his flesh melting. Giving way under the metal like butter to a hot knife.
Blood boils under his skin, desperate to escape. Tears stream down his face. Throat tight from his screams.
He tries to fight, to thrash and squirm, but he can’t break the chains. The Argentallium weakening him. The coin sucking out all remaining strength in an effort to heal.
By pure, animalistic reflex, Vlad tries to bite.
His fangs drop and he shoves his head towards Abbot but can only press the bars of the muzzle against his arm. He growls, practically roars, making the room rattle.
The coin is removed.
Vlad gags, hunching forward. Dry heaving and panting through sobs.
He recalls when Daddy used to order Renfield to give Vlad the same treatment as punishment for scoring an A on his schoolwork, only it wasn’t held there for so long. There are plenty other perfectly circular, silvery scars on his arms. Nothing too deep, too discolored. Daddy was very smart with his punishments. You could only see the aftermath if you knew to look.
“Now how is what I just did any different from you taking out a fang of your fellow vampire, hm?” Abbot questions him once the wretches quiet.
Vlad doesn’t speak.
Daddy never wanted to hear him say anything, only his screaming.
“Answer me!” Abbot presses the thin edge of the coin briefly to Vlad’s jugular.
Vlad gags loudly again, actually throwing up into his own lap.
“What can I say…” Vlad whispers, voice raw, “You already have your mind made up…”
Abbot stands up straight.
“I don’t know what you want… Whatever it is I’ll get it, I’ll do it… Please…”
Abbot grabs the cage of the muzzle and yanks him to look up. “I want you, and every other biter out there, eliminated.”
“I like the sound of funky music!!!” Vlad’s phone rings.
Shit, he was supposed to call Mina back.
Abbot fishes the phone out of Vlad’s pocket and answers with a deceptively cheery tone, “Hello!”
“Who is this? Where is Vlad?”
“Oh, he’s a little tied up at the moment.”
“What have you done with him?? Who are you?!”
“You first.”
She hesitates but relents. “Let me hear him.”
Abbot sighs like it’s a burden and taps the screen. “Okay, you’re on speaker. Say hi, Vlad.”
“Mina,” Vlad’s voice is thready. “Mina, I’m on your team. I’m a good guy. I called in the slayers, please tell him.”
“If it weren’t for Vlad things would’ve gotten a lot uglier at that festival. I’ve known him since he was a boy. He truly is sweet and kind and well intentioned. Let him go or I’ll send for him to be collected.”
Abbot considers it. Turns it this way and that in his mind. “Who are you.”
“Mina Van Helsing, head of the UK branch of the Slayers Guild. I take it you’re a slayer?”
“Was. For almost thirty years.”
“Well, things have changed. We’re in a new era. No biting, no slaying. There have been no major incidents in the last eight years — until tonight. Let him go. He had nothing to do with this.”
“He’s in med school- are you okay with that?” Abbot asks, clearly grasping at straws for a reason to keep Vlad locked up. “Letting him be near all those sick, injured, vulnerable humans?”
“I trust him with my son,” she answers without missing a beat. “If there’s anyone to keep humans safe from vampires it’s slayers and Vlad.”
Vlad can’t decipher any of the thoughts rushing through Abbot’s head but clearly it’s swarming him.
“I have his phone’s location. Release him now or he will be rescued with force.”
“Shit.” Abbot says eloquently. “Fuck!”
Abbot turns off the UV cage and throws the coin at the wall.
“Okay. Okay, I’m letting him go. But keep your eye on him.”
“Always,” Mina says before she’s hung up on. Abbot drops the phone onto Vlad’s lap.
It takes a couple minutes for him to fully unchain Vlad but only really hesitates to take off the muzzle. The only thing keeping his fangs to himself.
In a single, swift motion he tugs it off roughly and yanks Vlad onto his feet. Pulling him through the halls of his home by the back of his neck and shoving him out the door.
“I’m watching you Dracula. One strike and you’re out.”
“Yessir!” Vlad calls out finally, voice scratchy and weak, before speeding off.
He needs to find a blood bar and fuel the fuck up. He has a shift tomorrow and cannot be this hungry during it.
Vlad checks the time.
4:47am
Christ.
