--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--
<Lancaster> Sometimes, everything went exactly to plan. Sometimes, however, everything went pear shaped, and nothing went right. Sometimes, there was just a series of unfortunate events that led to an even more unfortunate outcome. Or, maybe a fortunate one, depending on where one was standing. Lancaster often made no secret of what he was. Not that he went shouting from the rooftops that he was one in a league of the undead, but nor did he watch his every action and his every movement to hide the fact that he slept all day, or that he healed in five seconds, or that every now and again, when feeling a little feisty, his canines happened to lengthen to pinpoint sharpness. The past had proven that he wasn’t exactly careful. There had been people who’d come to the bar, completely strangers, looking for him because they knew what he was. It had never led to anything untoward, until now.
If there was one thing that could be said about Lancaster d’Artois, it was that he was far too trusting. Innocent until proven guilty, on most accounts. There was a man who came to the bar ranting about some new bottled blood that was far better than what the city already had to offer; farmed by humans for vampires, willing donors, and all that jazz. It was the last part that appealed to Lancaster. Willing donors? The blood that he stocked at the moment for his vampire clientele was sourced from Arbor Vitae; as much as he liked Ariadne, he also knew that she was a member of the faction that he loathed. How, exactly, did she go about bottling the blood that she sold? Was it moral? Maybe this was an organic solution.
So Lancaster agreed to go and have a look; he wouldn’t be able to taste the blood, but he could at least go and see how it was done. Meet the donors. Or some of them. Except, the address that he was given was hokum; he walked right into an ambush. Hunters, who knew what he was and who wished to see him dead. But they, like everyone else in the city, underestimated the docile bartender. The three of them ended up dead, slaughtered. Though, not before Lancaster had gained a few wounds of his own.
By this time, the sun was close to rising. The tome was in his jacket pocket which had been sliced clean through, a gouge in his gun from one of the hunter’s swords. A wound that would heal in a day or two. There was also a bullet lodged in his skull, so he could barely focus on the blood-soaked tome.
He would fine, of course. The wounds would heal and he’d be back to work in no time. But for that night, he collapsed in a corner of a room that might not have even been sun-safe. In the middle of a warehouse that may or may not have been abandoned. Dead to the world, as soon as the sun came up over the horizon. Immune to pain, or to anything that might alert him to his own personal safety - or lack thereof.
<Othella> The small woman had received four bodies -- some sort of gang fight or another, she did not really care. Her assignment was one thing; finding the actual cause of death. No matter what it looked like at a first glance, it was often something more.
She was working on the last man -- a gunshot to the head, he was quite strange. She had tossed his belongings aside in a bin, just as she had with the first three men, she had yet to look for identification. She would do that later -- Othella was never one to follow set rules.
She dragged her step-ladder around the table, kicking her shoes out of the way. Stupid stiletto heels, damned short-stature. Ugh. She cursed her genetics. She flinched at the large crash of the step ladder slamming into the side of the autopsy table,
Climbing the steps, the short, dark-haired woman leaned to claim a scalpel. Well, might as well start somewhere. She began the autopsy with the large, “Y”-shaped cut that would lead to her going through the man’s internals.
She did not get too far with the incision, before someone entered the morgue to talk with her -- it sounded like one of her assistants. “Do you need the table lower, Ms. Bonnaire?” The male in his bright scrubs was already leaning down to help the woman adjust the table - only to be hit against the top of his head with the scalpel. “No! I do not need help, Gods! I am fine!”
She huffs as she glared at the man, “Get out. Don’t need you tonight.” As the man left, rubbing at the nick the woman had given him with the very sharp little blade, he muttered, “Crazy poser-*****.”, loud enough for her to hear.
The woman simple hummed and turned back to continue with the autopsy -- though her momentary distraction had stopped her from getting too far, she was able to easily continue -- at least for a little ways. This corpse bled -- it bled quite a lot considering she had just started to cut. Most corpses did not bleed this much.
Nonetheless, she continues, taking blood samples to run toxicity labs, sexual health check, and any other type of test that she could think of. She was a procrastinator -- nothing was ever done on time with Othella in charge. As she moved to take a scraping from one of the scratches she had seen… she frowned to herself. Had she been seeing things? She thought she had seen a scratch there. Shaking her head at this thought, dismissing it as sleep deprivation, she moves on.
The examination continues -- each organ is categorized, logged and placed aside only to be put back into their proper places before she stapled the torso closed. The ‘ping’ sound that announced the tests were done sounded and she moved away from the body to read the reports. The man seemed to have been a very healthy fellow; despite anomalies in his blood.
With that, the little woman dipped her pinkie into a vial of blood -- simply to taste. It smelled… strange, not like the usual copper, metallic scent -- and when it hit her tongue, it did not taste metallic either. It tasted better, though, so as she drops into one of her various chairs, and starts separating the blood into doses for different drinks on different days; it was too good to simply give up like that.
<Lancaster> The first thing that Lancaster was aware of was the pain. A headache. His entire torso felt like it had been pulverised, beaten black and blue. And the hard coldness beneath his back, his arms, his legs. There was a draught, too. Sure, he generally ran at a cold temperature, but at least it was slightly warmer than the average vampire. He dressed to keep himself warm, for comfort. But he wasn’t warm at all, here. He was so very cold.
A deep rumbling in his throat resulted in a groan, his fingers twitching before he lifted his hand to rub at his temple. When he blinked open his eyes he hissed. A baritone ‘...****’ could be heard from under his breath as he narrowed his eyes at the ceiling - all bright fluorescents. Where the hell was he? What had happened?
Once his eyes had adjusted, he looked down. His chest was covered in stitches, in straight, precise lines. “Oh… Jesus Christ,” he muttered, doing his best to sit up, fingers trailing along the stitches. The wound underneath were… ******* deep. They ached when he touched them. And itched. They were healing, slowly. It slowly dawned on him that he was in a morgue, somewhere. He was on a cold metal table and some lackey with a scalpel had assumed he was dead. This was like something out of one of his worst nightmares.
He had to get out of here.
He sat up, and swung his legs from the table. Clothes. He needed clothes. He needed his tome. Where the hell were his clothes?!
<Othella> The woman had left the room for an hour or two, taking one of those drinks she had mixed the blood into with her. It was her lunch-hour, and she did not want to eat in the morgue -- that was just creepy as ****.
“Hey! ‘thella! You really got to stop dressin’ like you belong in some kind of cult, girl. ‘pires aren’t real!” The same man that had come into the morgue earlier to ‘help her’ shouted these words as she passed by him in an office, on her way to the morgue. “**** off. It’s a well-known era of goth.”
She had just shoved the morgue door open when she said that, carrying the empty thermos in one hand. She hummed softly as she moved from the door to her desk, never once thinking to glance to the body on the table. “Well, guess it’s time to go through the personal ****.”
She furrowed her brow -- she would do the body on the table first, since his things were in one of the drawers. She froze when she finally turned around, her gaze focused on the… not-so-dead body on her table.
“Uh. Where is my body? The **** kind of pranks do you fuckers pull?” She huffed, crossing her arms. “C’mon, I need that body back. The police are coming by to find out how he died.”
<Lancaster> Personal ****, she said. The pieces were slowly falling into place. There’d be some drawer somewhere, something, where his things would be. Hopefully they hadn’t incinerated them yet. He couldn’t imagine trying to stumble home without any clothes. He’d get arrested for indecent exposure. And end up in a worst situation than the one he was in now. Maybe. Maybe there was no worse that it could be.
The girl - short, he could tell, even from this distance. Short and sharp and with the same attitude as every other human, which was why he didn’t bother to hide what he was, completely. They didn’t believe in what they thought had to be impossible. They’d prefer to think of other explanations. Pranks, for example.
The police, she said. The police were coming by.
“****,” Lancaster muttered. He slipped from the table. He was completely naked but it didn’t seem to phase him. “I can’t be here when the cops get here,” he said. “This isn’t a prank. I need my clothes. Where are they?” he said, broad Australian accent rounding the vowels. When he pushed the hair from his eyes his fingers grazed the bullet wound in his head and he hissed again. He recalled, now, the hunters. Their failed attempt. And his own failure to get home safely. Without waiting for the woman to respond, he began to search, gazing over her shoulder, through the doors. Where the hell would they keep his ****?
<Othella> “You mean you are my body?” She had moved to stare at the man, now, her fingers searching for the keys. She arched a brow as she jingled the keys -- flinging them toward the man. She wanted him distracted -- the hell was this guy? He was dead! She had opened him up.
The woman was sliding her hands against the desk, she had backed herself against it, searching out a scalpel. Hopefully the man had taken those keys and decided to look through the locked drawers -- his things were not in the locked drawers, but it might keep whatever he was busy.
“So explain to me… how I performed an autopsy, only to have a dead man wake up?” Her fingers slid against the scalpel and she shifted her weight -- what chance did she have against this man? He was huge compared to her. Well, nobody could ever say Othella Bonnaire had a temperament that would suit such a tiny woman.
“Are those others going to wake up too?” She arched a brow as she tapped the scalpel against her lower back, ignoring the small cuts she was giving herself. Perhaps he would give her a good reason as to how he woke up.
“And if they are, are they going to try and kill each other? Or was it you they were after?”
<Lancaster> “Aaaaaagh,” Lancaster caught the keys; the sound of frustration given in response to all the questions. Of course there would be questions. Bright blues landed upon the short woman, assessing her. A medical examiner, who he knew nothing about. He didn’t know what she would be capable of. Whether she would gather an army of… what? She didn’t know who he was or where he lived so what danger could she possibly do, this one person?
“Because I was already dead before,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to the other bodies. He grimaced. Yeah, he’d done that to them. But, they’d started it. Right? It was self defense. Still, he didn’t like to be reminded about the violence he could be capable of.
Lancaster was not like Pi, his other half. In this situation she would tell him to deflect. To… hell, even kill this woman because she had seen too much, or knew too much. Lancaster functioned under his own ruleset. Whatever, right? The truth was far easier than trying to fumble for an excuse.
“They’re not going to wake up. They tried to kill me and I … self defense,” he said. And he did exactly as she expected him to. He went to the drawers. Tried the keys. He needed to find his tome. He needed to get home.
<Othella> “Oh. Already dead. Well, makes me feel better.” She shrugged, there were things the midget would believe, and things she would not. Once he stated that the other men, were indeed, dead, and turned away from her…
Well, the girl moved forward, scalpel pressed against her fingertips -- though she did not make it halfway across the room before the room began to spin. She was such a tiny little human -- she should not have drank the dead man’s blood.
Ugh. Maybe it was poison. She scrunched her nose and shook her head hard, moving to continue across the room -- though she was becoming more and more unsteady. She mumbled under her breath as she moved forward to try and stab the scalpel into the man. Though… she was off by a few good feet, she had not even made it to him when she had tried to stab the man, so she was thrown off of her feet by her own momentum.
She had been counting on the man bracing her well enough to stay on her feet. She has released the knife by the time she realized she was going to hit the floor; arms tossed to shield her face. She groaned against her arms, groping around for the sharp object which had landed just out of her reach, but she did not want to move -- no, if she kept her head buried against her arms, it would all go away, right?
<Lancaster> There was a clatter of metal against tile, and the scuffling of feet behind him. Lancaster had hardly even had the chance to get a single drawer open before he was turning around to see what all the commotion was. The black-clad woman sprawled on the ground, like she had tripped over her own feet. Bright light glinting off the sharp edge of the scalpel nearby. Lancaster’s lips twisted into downturned disapproval, even as he moved forward to try to help her up; to grab her beneath the armpit to try to bring her to her feet.
“I’m not gonna hurt you. Why would you try to stab me?” he mumbled. He even managed a small laugh, wondering what the hell she could have been thinking.
“You cut me open already, for ****’s sake. You think a stab from a scalpel is going to me any harm? What was your goal, there?” he asked. He couldn’t tell that she was sick; he had no idea, yet, that she had drunk his blood. The small stirring of that bond between sire and childe was still too young, too weak for him to recognise. He assumed that she had simply just tripped, slipped. Something, in the heat of the moment. There were plenty of ways a person could handle the rising of the dead. He supposed spontaneously attacking said dead person ranked pretty high.
<Othella> As he lifted her up, she was fine -- though her fingers had curled against his arms to hold herself upright… If he released her altogether, she would indeed lose her balance once again.
She muttered quietly, “Wasn’t trying to kill you earlier, you were already dead. Now you’re a goddamn living dead-man.” She closed her eyes gently for a moment, sighing harshly. “I don’t ******* understand. If you were already dead when you came in, the **** are you? The only thing I know about that do this are…” Her voice waivered and she cleared her throat harshly, before continuing, “...vampires? Even then, everyone says it’s stupid to believe in them.”
She’s tilted her head back to stare upward, her skin would be quite hot to the touch -- she shouldn’t have drank his blood. Ugh. She tried to pull away from the man, though if she succeeded she would indeed lose her footing and simply slump down.
<Lancaster> It took mere seconds for Lancaster to realise that the girl hadn’t just tripped and fallen. As soon as he touched her skin he could feel that there was something wrong. Call it a sixth sense, but it was as if she were all of a sudden taken ill with some kind of poison. It still didn’t click. The musician hadn’t bitten the girl, and he doubted that she could have accidentally ingested any of his blood. It didn’t cross his mind at all that she could be turning. Not yet.
“Zombies, maybe. Aren’t they the most common culprit of waking up from the dead?” he said. “But no. As far as I know, zombies don’t heal from their wounds and you would soon see that I do,” he said, all the while managing to keep hold of the girl who was trying to lurch away from him. Instead of letting her slump to the floor, he all but manhandled her into a nearby chair. From the back of which he plucked a spare white robe. It was too short for him, of course, but at least he hid his nakedness when he pulled it on.
“Now what’s the matter with you? Are you sick? Is it… I know you’re probably in shock. I apologise for that. Maybe I should have timed it…” he shook his head. “Is there a fridge? Can I get you some water?”
<Othella> Small hands pressed against the arms of the chair, tilting her head back to stare up at the man as she was spoken too. She shifted to point with trembling fingers toward a small, industrial silver fridge. It contained his blood samples; the drinks she had mixed with his blood; and many more samples of things.
“Your… uh, clothes are…” She frowned. Where had she put this particular man’s clothing? The midget pulled her legs to her chest as she stared around the room. After a few minutes of staring around, she twists to point toward the ceiling behind of the chair -- obviously the man’s clothes are not there, but she cannot think.
She stares blearily up at the strange, living-dead man. She frowned quietly as she hid her face in her hands, “‘m not really… shocked, I guess. Just didn’t expect… real vampire under my knife.” She reached out to press a small hand firmly to a place on his arm, “You had scratches here.” She murmured, rubbing her face roughly.
“Thought I was goin’ crazy… So you really did heal those?”
<Lancaster> The way she pointed at the fridge had Lancaster assuming that was where the water was; he considered it an affirmative answer to his question. Even if she said nothing about water, but instead about his clothes. He highly doubted that they would keep his clothes in the fridge. But she wasn’t really helpful on that front. He would search the place before he left. He needed the tome, more than he needed the clothes.
“I did heal,” he said, staying still for a moment to look down at the girl, confused and a little concerned. “Not on purpose. It happens automatically,” he said, talking about his body as if it were a well-oiled machine. The cuts in his torso, deep and invasive, would take longer to heal. Even now it felt strange walking around, feeling as if his insides were all wrong, as if all his dead organs were shifting around like rocks in a hessian sack. He didn’t really want to know what she had done to him. That was not something that he would ask.
Moving away, he went to the fridge to get the water that he assumed she wanted. When he opened it, however, he had to blink. It looks like someone had mixed up a bunch of Bloody Marys, or something similar. He couldn’t see any water. But then, he might not have looked too hard. His focus kept going back to the… they did look like drinks, didn’t they?
“... what are these?” he asked, choosing to give the examiner the benefit of the doubt. For the moment, choosing to believe that she wouldn’t have been so stupid as to try to ingest some of his blood.
<Othella> “Oh, those? Those are experiments. Like Frankenstein, an’ Mr. Hyde.” She was not thinking straight -- and she has indeed realized this. “N- No, those are blood samples -- Ophelia had the idea a few months ago.”
She waved her hands, giggling upwards, “Ophelia believed she would find the right person’s blood one day, and become a ‘pire.” Her face falls as she stares up at the man, “But Ophelia disappeared a while ‘go. All we found was a room of blood.”
She is soon rocking back and forth, frowning, “Ophelia knew ‘lots. Said she found someone to turn ‘er, said she ******* hit the lottery. Her dreams --” She’s lifted her hands to make a *poofing* motion the best she could.
“But I thought I’d do it since she wasn’ here. Remind myself of how she lived, really lived.” She’s staring at her hands, picking at her nails quite roughly. “******* lottery. ‘I met a guy,’ she said. ‘He knows how to make it happen,’ she said. Didn’t believe her. She was always the nutter of the two of us.”
<Lancaster> At first, Lancaster was relieved. Experiments. And they didn’t even belong to this woman - they belonged to someone else. Until she continued, and if Lancaster had any blood in his face it would have drained, leaving him looking paler than usual. Not that he walked around looking like a corpse - unlike other vampires, he got away with looking more human than usual. No one could ever pick him out for what he was by the way he looked. Now, though, he may have looked a little pasty - anyone would, after being cut open and losing god knows how much blood in the process.
He knew that there were people out there who believed in vampires, and obsessed over them so much that they wanted to become one. Some of them probably knew of their existence, but others probably could be considered a little crazy. Lancaster thought they were all a little crazy - he wouldn’t have picked this. He wouldn’t have wanted it. Ever. But as always, he tried to understand the views and opinions of others.
When the woman continued, Lancaster groaned. His head bowed, and he closed the fridge, slowly. She didn’t need any water. He took a breath that he didn’t need, and turned to face her.
“Is it mine? Did you take samples of my blood to drink?” he asked, biting his tongue to keep from saying anything accusatory, or judgmental.
<Othella> “Uh… that’s… yours and the other three guys.” She threw her head back against the chair he had placed her in, the resulting crack would sound very painful, though she just stared at the ceiling with a groan.
“What does that mean for me?” There were rumors that vampires just had to feed their blood -- though there were so many rumors, even some of a vampire being able to turn another just by biting them, or a vampire being able to turn over several days of visiting the person. Who knew what was true?
“What does that mean?!” She inquired again, her small hands balling into fists as she closed her eyes tightly. It was hard to seem angry when she felt so terrible.
<Lancaster> The groan turned into a sigh, a breath of an uttered **** before he abandoned the idea of finding his clothes, or of finding any water when now he was one-hundred-percent certain that this woman did not need any water. The illness that she was suffering was one that she would have to ride through, and when she was done, she would crave only blood. Not water. At least there was some on hand, right?
The six foot six musician found another office chair and dragged it over, so that he could sit in front of… he didn’t even know her name. He knew absolutely nothing about this woman except that she liked to wear black, and had a fascination with the dead. Or the undead.
“It means that you’ve just done something that can’t be undone,” he said, his baritone voice slightly scolding, even if it probably sounded calm. “It means that you’re undergoing a change. And soon you will no longer be human. You won’t be able to go out into the sun anymore. There’s a high possibility you may not be able to eat human food anymore. In order to survive, you’ll have to keep on drinking blood,” he said. Now that he was focusing on it, he could feel it. That tenuous bond that linked sire to child. it was getting stronger with each passing second.
“I’m Lancaster d’Artois. For all intents and purposes, I’m now your sire,” he said. His voice, at the end, was tense. He’d had a plan. He’d sought out Sia on purpose; she was the kind of person he’d wanted around. Someone with good morals and an optimistic outlook. Someone who had known what they were getting into, and who had decided that was what they wanted. His plan was to continue to find like-minded people. This… was not part of the plan. But it had happened. And there was nothing to be done but to handle it.
<Othella> “Well I fucked up.” She huffed lightly into her hands, listening to the man. She furrowed her brow when he tells her his name -- and she murmurs, “Well ****. Fancy-*** name.” She’s pressed her hands against her face, before focusing on this man - this Lancaster.
“Othella Bonnaire.” She mumbled, gesturing to the once-pristine room they sat in, “Medical Examiner -- just transferred to these parts, specifically.” She’d shrug slightly, huffing quietly. “So… what do I do now? Do I resign from my job?”
She arched a brow. She really enjoyed her job -- it was what she knew how to do.
<Lancaster> Lancaster snorted.
“Othella Bonnaire. And you accuse me of having a fancy *** name? Hypocrite,” he said, watching on with a furrowed brow. It was just like him, to keep his calm; to try to be upbeat about the situation. For her sake, if not for his. He licked his lips, wondering how long it would take before she was okay. But, it was probably best if she took the rest of the night off sick, and came home with him.
“You may have to take a couple of weeks off. And you’ll have to work night times. If they’ll let you do some kind of graveyard shift, I don’t see why you have to resign. You’ll probably have all kinds of new insight into the dead people wheeled in here,” Lancaster said, frown deepening just slightly. She’d have to have seen so many bodies drained of blood. Mauled bodies. So many with sword slashes and bullet holes.
“Where are my clothes, Othella? We should probably get out of here. I can take you somewhere comfortable,” he said. Later, he would question her. Later, he would ask her why the hell she would keep drinking blood, just like her friend used to, if she didn’t think there would be consequences? Said friend, who wanted to become a vampire. Yeah, at least Lancaster didn’t have to feel entirely responsible for this one, if she turned out hating what she was. Oh, he would help her. Of course he would. But at least instead of feeling like the worst monster in existence, he could always tell her she shouldn’t have been drinking the blood of dead people.
