[AU][Non-BB] Count Herm O. Globin VS the Phlebotomist

[YseultNott]

The man spins his tale, and Brittany, bored, says they are done for the day, and Colin goes home.

The story weighs heavy on his mind, that evening, as he tosses and turns in his bed in search of elusive sleep.

A vampire. A vampire, kidnapping people, drinking from them, feeding on them like cows and lambs. It sounds like a horror story. Like one of those tales Colin would hear between classes in high school, never quite out loud but never gone either. Unease, soothed with smiling masks and colorful costumes, and God, it was easier to be fine with when it wasn't him.

It sounds like a horror story. It sounds like it isn't real. Like it's just a game Brittany made up.

Colin hopes it is.

Colin hopes it isn't real.

 

[YseultNott]

"You didn't show me his place," Colin says the next evening. He's squinting. He squints a lot. "Your friend. We talked to people, but you didn't show me where he lived. Maybe there are clues there."

"I didn't see anything there," Brittany says.

He shrugs.

"I'll go home, then," he says, and there's something on his face, a mix of disdain and relief, and Brittany doesn't like it.

"No, no," she says, and she smiles at him, just so he'll scowl. "Let's do it."

It's still sunny outside, still warm, and Colin grimaces, looking away and down.

"You're not actually going to catch fire, you know," Brittany says, and Colin tells her to fuck off. Rude.

She laughs, as loud as she can.

"It's this way," she says.

Colin follows.

 

[YseultNott]

People, when they die, pale.

Colin doesn't remember where he learned this, an anecdote as an aside in some book or lecture, but the knowledge of it stuck, wedged into a corner of his brain. Blood - and a lot of things sure seem like they come down to blood - blood pooling down with gravity's pull, leaving faces pale and backs dark as bruises.

Unless, of course, they bled out.

Horace Peterson has the pallor of the dead, their silence, their stillness, their empty eyes. Horace Peterson lies on the concrete of the abandoned building. Horace Peterson has a sleeve rolled back, a puncture wound just under the inside of the elbow, and no bruise at his back, no blood showing, dark, through the skin.

Horace Peterson is dead.

Brittany's eyes, on the other side of the body, are wide and blue.

 

[Ziel]

Wait, Horace or Howard? He was Howard in previous chapters.

Unless... the Phlebotomist has stolen his blood AND his name! *gasp*

 

[YseultNott]

Wait, Horace or Howard? He was Howard in previous chapters.

Unless... the Phlebotomist has stolen his blood AND his name! *gasp*

Click to shrink...

Which chapter is he Howard in? I ctrl+f-ed in reader mode but didn't find anything?

Regardless, he's Horace.

EDIT: Found it, in the process of fixing it. Thanks for pointing it out!

 

[YseultNott]

Brittany looks at the corpse at her feet, and there is a part of her that refuses to believe it. That screams it's a joke, a fake, that he's going to sit up suddenly and laugh as she startles. That it can't possibly be real.

Horace is dead.

They come back, most of the time. The missing people, the ones the Phlebotomist takes away. They come back, alive.

Horace is dead.

Brittany didn't think he would die. Brittany didn't think he would die. Brittany thought things would be okay, thought she'd catch the Phlebotomist, or he'd give back Horace after being done, she thought it would be nothing, a good time, something to tell at campfires, just a bit of fame to attach to her name, not…

Horace is dead.

He was her friend, and now he's…

It was supposed to be fun.

 

[YseultNott]

They leave.

Brittany, eyes wide, quiet at last, digs up something from a vent, a plastic bag, and they leave, and when Colin takes the direction of his home, Brittany follows.

There are clothes in the plastic bag. A white dress shirt, some kind of lace tie, a black cape. Colin recognizes that cape, from the news. From an article on a car in a grocery shop.

A spare costume, Brittany said, smiling. Always smiling. Always laughing.

Brittany drops the bag on the floor of Colin's apartment.

"He can't be dead," she says. "He… this isn't what was supposed to happen."

Not what was supposed to happen.

There was a kid in the grocery shop. A kid, with glass in his cheek, just under the eye.

That's not supposed to happen either, now, is it?

Not what was supposed to happen.

It takes Colin a great effort not to hit her.

 

[Ziel]

Big oof. This feels like something you'd see on one of those lists of "stuff in movies that would actually be super fucked up in real life." And Brittany is under the entry for quirky, manic pixie dream girl types who decide to surf a car into a GROCERY STORE.

I know Colin having no patience for these antics is kind of a fandom joke with him and similar character Mouse Protector, so I like seeing it justified here.

 

[YseultNott]

"Fuck you," Colin says.

His voice is flat, low, but there is something underneath, something sharp and halfway to cutting or crumbling. His voice is calm, almost, and his fists are held so tight the skin pulls white, bloodless, over the bones.

"Fuck you!" Colin repeats, and he's on the edge of screaming, this time taking a step toward her. "Fuck you Brittany! Fuck you, Herm! Did you think this was a game? Did you think this was fun?"

He takes another step toward her, and it strikes her, suddenly, that he's taller. Broader. That she doesn't know, exactly, what he can do.

"People got hurt!" Colin screams. "You got people hurt! You blackmailed me! You could have killed that kid! You could have killed that kid and now someone is dead and it's your fault!"

He pauses to take a breath, and seems to choke on it instead, voice breaking, leaving him smaller in the room, leaving him lost.

"You're the only one who had fun," Colin says.

 

[YseultNott]

Brittany cries.

There is a part of Colin that looks at her, at her tears, at her hiccups and sobs, and instead of pity, feels his anger swell ever larger, choking him until his voice breaks, and he just wants to cry instead.

Colin doesn't want to cry. Not in front of her.

(There is a part of Colin, quiet in the lack of his mind, that thinks of the pale body on the floor and remembers Brittany lost a friend, but anger is warm, is firm like red iron, anger is better than fear and easier than being sad. There is no shame in anger.)

(Maybe if Colin had taken this more seriously, maybe if he'd invested himself instead of just letting himself be dragged along, maybe if…)

Brittany cries, and Colin is tired. Colin makes himself sit down. Colin makes himself breathe.

Colin makes himself think.

 

[punster lv1]

Using anger as fuel, I see. Fiction tends to regard that as a foolproof tactict.

but anger is warn

Click to shrink...

but anger is warm

 

[YseultNott]

Brittany isn't quite sure how long it takes her to stop crying, but she's sitting on Colin's fold up bed, and outside the sun is going down, the room plunging in the evening's gloom. Colin's window faces east.

Colin who sits at his table, head in his hands, disheveled.

"Are you done?" he asks.

His voice is flat, and some part of Brittany is absurdly glad for it. She doesn't know what she would have done, if he'd been smiling or smug or mocking. She thinks she might have snapped.

He didn't know Horace. He has no reason to care.

"We need to catch the Phlebotomist," Brittany says, and it feels heavier, this time, all the weight of a body, all the fun bled out of it.

"Yes," Colin says. "We do."

 

[YseultNott]

Colin has had some time to think while Brittany was crying.

He's still mad at her. He's not sure he's ever going not to be mad at her. But.

That's the thing, isn't it? But. But, someone is dead.

But, the Phlebotomist might kill again.

But, Colin… Colin didn't stop it..

There have been no human witnesses to the disappearance of Horace Peterson. No human witnesses to his reappearance. This doesn't mean there was no witness at all, and it would be rather ironic, wouldn't it be, for him to forget about machines.

There are no security cameras in the street itself. There is, however, a parking lot not far from it, and with Brittany's help the tapes from it are quick to get, and this might not be proof, this likely won't be, but it might be, at least, a starting point.

Colin sets out to work.

It feels good to do something.

 

[YseultNott]

"Did you find anything?" she asks, and Colin startles. The light of the computer screen washes the color out of his skin, paints him in gray-white, like bones, like corpses.

It's been hours. The sun hasn't quite started to rise yet, but she's managed to catch a few hours of sleep as he worked. She's not sure it helped much. She doesn't think she slept well.

She doesn't remember her dreams.

"I'm not sure," Colin says. "Maybe. I've compared the tapes for the parking lot for when you think he went missing, and for when he was brought back. Looked for cars that were there both times. One of them might be the Phlebotomist's. I… can't actually tell."

There is a feeling in her stomach, like missing a step down a staircase, that split-second of skipped heartbeat, except the drop goes on forever and her feet never find the ground. Falling, downward, from the rollercoaster.

She knows what Colin will say next before the words can come out of his mouth.

She knows they're going to have to go back. To the abandoned building. To the crime scene.

To the room where Horace lies dead.

 

[YseultNott]

If he's honest with himself, Colin isn't quite sure what he's hoping to find in the abandoned building. What a clue would even look like.

It feels pointless. Stupid. Mindless rats in a hamster wheel, spinning on empty, going nowhere. It feels frustrating, grating, the flat of a blade running angled against raw nerves, the edge scraping at the skin. The relief of the night is gone with the sun, gone with the headache, always dancing behind his eyes, just a breath away from agony.

He doesn't have a better idea.

"We should make another round amongst the homeless," Brittany says, and she's not smiling, not anymore, she's not smiling at least, he's so tired of that smile. "Check if anyone saw anything this time. Maybe… It can't have been discreet. Dragging him back in. And Wendy will be there."

"Yeah," Colin says. "Yeah, okay. Good idea."

He swallows. His mouth is dry, suddenly, his stomach churning, inside out, and he can hear his heart in the headache, beating at his skull.

It sounds like a countdown.

"We should check if anyone else went missing," he says.

 

[YseultNott]

When they get to the street in front of the abandoned building, Wendy is there, talking with Kayla.

"Hey," Brittany says, and the cheers she meant to put into the greeting doesn't come, leaving it flat, empty. "Wendy. Do you have a minute to talk?"

"Hello Brittany," Wendy says. "No."

"It's about the Phlebotomist," Brittany says anyway. "He killed Horace. Horace is dead."

"Ah," Wendy says.

She looks the way she always does, pale skin and dark hair, crisp white shirt and neat pleated skirt, black and white like stepped out of an old movie, heart-shaped face and dour as a gravestone.

On any other day, Brittany would tease her about it. Smile and laugh until Wendy smiles back, or entertains her by her frustration. On any other day, this would be fun.

The building looms behind her, tomb, graveyard, mausoleum, and the cheer is nowhere to be found, and Brittany feels wrong without it, small and naked and not herself.

"I'm not sure what you expected," Wendy says.

 

[YseultNott]

"I don't know what you expected," the woman says, and something about her, something about the whole situation puts Colin on edge, like the feeling in his teeth after biting in a lemon.

Wendy, Brittany called her. She didn't say who she is. What she is doing here.

"What do you mean?" Brittany asks.

"Of course the Phlebotomist killed him," Wendy says. "I mean… The Phlebotomist, and those like her… They drink blood. They're monsters. This isn't the Phlebotomist's first victim, and the Phlebotomist isn't the first… vampire to target people in such a way. It's their nature, Brittany. They can't help it. So, yes. What did you expect?"

Colin doesn't think he likes her, any more than he likes Brittany, or anyone standing there in front of that building, except maybe Kayla, who said nothing and did nothing and is just caught in the middle of it.

The thermos, in his back, is hot, heavy, like iron heated for a brand.

"That's not true," Brittany says. "And most don't even need to target people anyway. There's a system for them to get blood from the hospital, and everybody knows there's a blackmarket selling some for those who won't use official channels. And most of the people the Phlebotomist took came back okay."

A weak retort. Colin has heard some horror story, about how blood might come to be on the black market, and he wonders, if Brittany ever asked herself where it could come from. If she realizes "most", in those circumstances is nowhere near enough. Not when they should never have been taken in the first place.

"I don't quite think it matters," Wendy says, "if they're predators or parasites."

Colin is tired.

 

[Hecatonchires]

A week retort.

Click to shrink...

A weak retort.

 

[Kaernetron]

"It's about the Phlebotomist," Brittany says anyway. "He killed Horace. Horace is dead."

Click to shrink...

Hmm...

Wendy says. "I mean… The Phlebotomist, and those like her…"

Click to shrink...

Why are there suddenly alarms going off in the back of my head?

 

[YseultNott]

Spoiler: IMPORTANT AUTHOR NOTE

I forgot a tag at the beginning of the fic, which has now been added to the informational post at the beginning of the story

It doesn't take long afterwards for the conversation with Wendy to end. She's done already anyway, has made her turn of the neighborhood with her bag of canned goods, has shared her food with the homeless, as she does every fourteen days. She's eager to go home and rest.

No, she hasn't seen anything. No, she hasn't heard anything. No, she doesn't know anything. No, she cannot help.

Talking to her is like pulling teeth, like scratching nails on a blackboard, and all of Brittany's smiles feel shaky, brittle, fail to bring the anger that would bring insults to Wendy's tongue, that would make herself laugh at her frustration.

Wendy leaves in her little black car, and Brittany stays there, on the sidewalk, with Colin, and Kayla, and the looming graveyard.

"So," Colin says. "Who was that?"

 

[YseultNott]

Wendy Bryant, according to Brittany, is twenty-three, a student in medicine and, more importantly, someone who likes, every other week, giving food to the local homeless population.

"She's super stuck up," Brittany says. "Neat freak. Always wears black and white, always super clean and perfectly ironed. She hates being dirty, one time, a car sprayed mud on her skirt and she fucking lost it. She's weird."

A volunteer, then. A bleeding heart, or so it seems. A regular, at the very least, and does that make her less or more suspicious, when he's fairly sure he's seen her car on the security footage of the parking lot on the day Horace Peterson went missing, on the day then found his body?

Later. He'll think about it later. When he's done with the body. With the building. With Kayla.

Kayla, who saw nothing, who knows nothing, who sleeps in the street and has no family, no friends, nothing and noone. Kayla, who wouldn't be missed. Kayla, who could be taken, and who would even notice?

"I think," Colin says, "I might have a plan."

 

[Ziel]

I think Brittany might be a bit too close to this one to see the big picture.

The big picture being that Wendy is very clearly... struggling with OCD.

And nothing else...

 

[Kaernetron]

Rumors that Accord is importing blood for his Ambassadors are just that: baseless rumors.

...crap, I can actually see him doing that.

 

[punster lv1]

Rumors that Accord is importing blood for his Ambassadors are just that: baseless rumors.

...crap, I can actually see him doing that.

Click to shrink...

From what I know of (most likely flanderised versions of) his character I doubt he would go for bum blood unless he was desperate. And the Phlebotomist's modus operandi seems too organised to be born of desperation.

 

[Kaernetron]

I think Accord would care more about quality ( "certified" clean) and presentation (fancy wine bottles) than the source of his blood supply. If he then hears of this Phlebotomist, who offers Soylent Green in the container of your choice because they're in need of funds to clean up their city, I can see him ordering one (or more) cases. And having his supplier deal with a form of OCD similar to his own would guarantee deliveries on time without Accord having to make an example of anyone.