Chapter 119
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 118
Maybe John shouldn’t feel so weird about not even thinking twice about the fact that yeah, Arthur’s going to be fine, Molly ran right after him, he’ll take care of him. That damn guy is just too agreeable.
But never mind, he has more important things to do, and what he definitely thinks twice about is that he must be really through the fucking wringer because he nearly, very nearly, addresses Seward as Papa… The things his girl does to him. In either case, they both are kind of just poking at their food, and that despite Seward even having made something by hand. “Think we both will find our appetite if we go and have breakfast with Darcy?”
It’s really no feat to see how hard the man lights up at that. Yeah, through the wringer, the whole fucking lot of them, and he knows there’s only one balm for that: Darcy. His girl can put a smile on anybody’s face, even though he’s not sure he deserves that. Fuck, who is he kidding, he knows he doesn’t. He saw that in the fucking flowers yesterday, but then, he’s the fucker who couldn’t even bear letting her speak. Still, that’s his girl, and if he’s fully honest, even with the pain, he’d still rather have her in his bed than the bottle of hard liquor he woke up next to… Not that he can remember emptying it, but he must have.
It’s a bit early for her, but he’s sure for her papa she’ll jump out of bed any time of the day. He wishes she was that eager about him, but he’s definitely not going to get jealous of her papa, that would just be fucked up.
So instead he knocks, (because Seward has his hands full with the breakfast tray,) about ready to open the door when he gets surprised by the door actually opening. What the fuck? Gregory’s never there in the morning! Why now?
~~~~
It’s the dreamwalker. It does not like the dreamwalker. He is far too powerful. It has to fool him, like Arthur, before he pulls it back into his dreamworld, before he makes it forget itself again, makes it starve again.
It reaches for the memories. They are not as near as they used to be, but they are still there, to be reflected on its facets. Darcy is still asleep, Gregory’s body says, cracks the door open wide enough to show them the lump of her in the bed. Everything was so hard on her, she needs to rest.
~~~~
John’s this close to just punching Gregory and walking in there anyway, but then, he kept her asleep for days. He can’t just assume that she’d even want him to get into her dreams. He doesn’t have that right. Really, he has no right to her at all, she doesn’t love him.
With slumping shoulders, he sighs. “Yeah. I’ll be in the study so she can rest longer.”
Turning, he sees Seward looking unsure and, fuck, he gets the man, but for right now, all they can do is let her sleep in. He has no idea what that fucking ritual did to her. Hard on her. It was hard on all of them and he wasn’t the one dying.
So he tells him to leave the tray out, the house can keep things warm and get them to Darcy once she’s up. Hey, uh, how about while he’s helping his girl with the barony, Seward sets up for helping his girl with her queendom?
~~~~
He can do that, Jack presumes, Lucy is asleep. He kind of wishes so was he. Not that he really got a wink of sleep last night, even with being tugged in between Art and Lucy, but that only meant they were three upset people together. But yes, some work might help. At least help him distract himself from his mind trying to pull this entire big ball of half-answered questions apart. And he still has to confront… no, not Draculya, apparently Art, and why that seems to make his stomach cramp up harder than if he had to confront the voivode, he really doesn’t know.
~~~~
When Darcy wakes up, she feels trapped in her body, more than she normally does. No, it’s not just that her human form is further away from her drac, no, she feels cold. She hasn’t felt cold since she got her drac and always has its fur to warm herself in.
But no, her fingers and toes are so cold she barely feels them; has to struggle to get to move them. She feels like a squirming beetle on its back, but there’s nobody to help her flip over.
She doesn’t need to open her eyes to know that the only one there is Gregory. The room is full of that smell that isn’t a smell, so powerful that she has trouble smelling anything else, but when he speaks she still forces her eyes open… because when she tries to force her mouth open to scream, it won’t obey.
He tells her that the room is locked; the others don’t trust her outside yet. And really, shouldn’t she maybe go to Faerie, to Llew. He’ll talk to the others for her. She couldn’t speak for herself anyway. This was all so hard on her, she must be so tired. She should sleep for a few days. Like in that story, the one she and Arthur like: the one about King Arthur.
That’s wrong, she knows it’s wrong. Arthur hates that story! No, she can’t leave him alone! Even if he doesn’t trust her! No… he… he came for her in the woods, didn’t he? No, he apologized. He asked if they are still friends. No, no, no, she can’t let Gregory send her away!
It feels like her very skin is cracking open and shattering into fine shards when she forces her body to obey her. When she forces herself up against the sensation of crystal shards cutting into her with every movement. No, she has to stay. She has to do better by everybody. She has to be good!
He teases, of course he teases, because how does she expect to be good for them now? It’s only days until Christmas, she can’t even be good for them on a big family holiday.
What? But it was… how many days has she forgotten? No matter! Christmas! Her first Christmas with a big family! Arthur’s first Christmas! John’s first Christmas! And her first Christmas with Daddy and Lucy here, too! Oh no no no! She has to get out of bed! She has to decorate and make gifts and finish up with what she was planning all along!
Underneath all the cuts that don’t bleed, she… oh, her shredded skin, there’s fur underneath! Her drac fighting to the surface, right there, pushing her up with all its strength, growling and fighting and snapping at the mask. The mask… if her very skin is shattering, then why shouldn’t the blasted mask do that, too?!
Her bark feels wet in her throat again but she thinks that’s more a memory than reality, because yes, there are more crystals cracking on her inside, down every part of her but… but it makes her angry, makes her determined.
No, she was bad! And by just sleeping and by just accepting that there isn’t enough time she can’t become better!
No, Gregory can’t make her! She… Arthur wrote her marriage contract and he took the clause about obedience out! She saw it, she knows she saw it missing, and Gregory might want her to be an obedient wife, and she is, but not like this! No, not at the expense of being good for everybody else!
She barks again, louder now, spitting now, spitting out those crystals she can’t see, only feel, and it hurts, but pain isn’t her enemy. Being bad for her family is and she won’t be!
It takes her forever to crawl out of bed and he’s just looking at her with those blasted eyes, unmoving, just drinking in her misery, but he won’t win, no he won’t! She might have to crawl on all fours to her table, might have to flex her fingers over and over until they don’t feel like they are wrapped in porcelain anymore, but she finally can open her drawer and take out her plans and her pen, and when he tries to look, she growls.
No, he can’t take this from her and it’s writing and he can’t read anyway, so after another few minutes of her sitting there, just writing curled up protectively over her plans, he finally does what he always does, he gets bored and vanishes.
And really, that is what she needed. She needed him gone because there is one person, one person she needs to protect even harder than the others.
She doesn’t know if she really can, but she needs to try. It’s hard, so hard to put the makeup on, and get the hair up, and dress as appropriately as she has to. But she needs to look her very best, her very most respectable for this.
Only to look the very opposite when she creeps out her room, under the door as fog. She knows that her family might be angry with her at not respecting the locked door, but she has no time, she has to do this, and there is no hole in her room. But she knows where there is an entrance to her friends’ tunnels in a nearby salon, and she knows how to follow them to the library and down underneath the door over to the London house.
Oops, there are people here! She nearly gave herself away, but she vanishes into the cracks of Arthur’s walls, runs on tiny paws down and out the front of the building.
Darcy notices the smell right the moment she steps outside of Arthur’s house. It’s not Radu, much as she would wish, but it’s related to him, another vampire? Somebody she smelled when she was in Radu’s place around this city here somewhere? She was so focused on getting there that she never memorised where she actually was and now she regrets that.
But she still makes sure not to look around, just sniff. She knows that she’s not allowed to have anything from Radu. Her family won’t let her, so she can’t give the vampire away. But she can feel a soft touch to her mind, not that it doesn’t feel downright clumsy compared to what Radu did, but yes, she suspects the vampire is trying to read her mind, so all she thinks is: “I won’t give you away. Please tell Radu I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to have him.”
She can still smell the presence during the coach ride and she wonders, her task is nearly hopeless, not that that would stop her, but maybe… She thinks carefully, not sure how exactly this works, but she asks for help, please.
And she’s not entirely sure, but there might have been the tiniest bit of movement in the shadow under the seat across from her, so she just smiles down.
Prince James’ place is still as much of a gilded and glorified cage as it was last time. She hates it. She liked it better when she ran as a rat through his gardens, but no, now she’s standing as a proper supplicant in his hall and she feels not only out of place but, for a moment, her resolve wants to crumble with a slight tingle on her mask.
She’s so tempted to chip at the marble that makes her fingers feel stiff. But then she catches movement in a shadow again, nearly like a wink, and even though it isn’t Radu himself, the thought that she has one of his men with her and his support shoves the feeling out of her heart again as her drac howls and the hole in her chest feels like it closes a tiny bit.
It must be Radu’s man; there is no other way to explain how helpful Prince James is with her. He not only actually agrees to meet with her, no, he listens to her request and even jokes that he is a cosmopolitan man. Some crimes are not worth the resources wasted on them. Yes, he’ll write her the requested document, but then they’re even from her little helpful hint at the party.
Now, has she considered maybe getting more involved with the Order of Galahad?
For a moment, she flinches. The Order is only for aberrations; does he think she’s one? But then she manages to chuckle politely and deflect that she’s a mere woman, she wouldn’t be of much good for him in any, um, secretarial role he could possibly think of.
There’s far too much of a smirk on his face for her taste when he looks at her for a long moment, but then he just tells her to keep it in mind if she ever finds that maybe she wants to be rid of all those nasty rumours he’s heard even at his own ball about her. It’s regrettable when a young lady has to deal with these things on her own, she should learn how to move in her own society.
Luckily, the rest of their conversation is just terrible small talk. She hates it, but she can do it, to her own surprise. And then he hands her the piece of paper, signed, sealed, and everything, and she has to restrain herself from clutching it to her chest and fleeing out the door before he can say another word. Instead, she does her very best curtsy and leaves properly.
But on the way back into the cab she stumbles, on purpose, so that she can put a hand on the closest shadow and sigh a long ‘thank you’ at it.
She’s maybe alone in herself again, but her villain is still out there, still has an eye on her, and she’s not entirely sure if that hope hurts or helps more with knowing she can never have him.
~~~~
Ugh, okay, fuck this, that’s enough paperwork. John pushes his chair back from where Darcy should be sitting, and that thought makes him all but wince. It’s afternoon, Darcy has to be up by now, right? Maybe it’s an excuse but there’s that package from her other uncle. That one’s over on the continent, but apparently that didn’t stop the man from sending something for her.
It’s about him giving her the gift, not about him just having to see his girl. It’s seeing his girl or starting way too early in the day to drink himself into a stupor so, no, he grabs the package and walks the few doors down to her room. He’s standing there for a few moments, trying to get his courage up to knock again, then instead calls out for her.
There’s paper rustling, but after a few moments he can hear her walk up to the door, his sweet trampley girl, he’d know those steps any day. But why is she answering him through the door? “I… there’s a package from your Uncle Frankenstein, can I please hand it to you?”
~~~~
Darcy blinks in confusion, then tilts her head and tries the door… It’s not locked? Did Gregory forget to lock it again after he left? But he didn’t leave through the door. How does this make any sense? But if her family locked her in here then why would John ask?
“I thought the door was locked.” Her words die on her lips as she opens the door and gets a good sniff of John. He smells miserable! Oh no! Ripping the door open completely, she is about to throw herself at him, to love it better, when she realises maybe he’s miserable because of her, so she aborts the movement halfway in and instead looks down.
~~~~
What the fuck? Why would she think…? Then John can all but feel his anger roll over him like a storm front: fucking Gregory. Of course, fucking Gregory. He let that fucking cat ruin his relationship with Darcy once before, never fucking again!
And that means that he can’t be sure the fucker isn’t lurking somewhere invisible. Prison warden. That kind of husband.
No, it’s not safe to talk to Darcy freely out here, but it breaks his heart to see her like this. She’s ducking down from him. All demure, and he fucking hates it! She’s his wolf-girl! His drac! Not some docile little girl!
Putting the package down on her side of the door, he decides to do what she normally prefers over words. John pulls her tight into his arms and kisses her. Kisses her hard and finds his arms trembling around her because, no, she’s not pushing him away, she’s clinging to him, clinging so hard that he feels her claws rip his clothes and it feels so fucking good.
His girl isn’t rejecting him for what he did.
Still holding her tight, he tells her he loves her. He hopes she knows that that means he isn’t angry with her for the flower strand. After all, she told him, she told him over and over. He’s the dolt for feeling hurt now. But they can talk more where it’s safe and where he knows she feels more like herself anyway, so he gives her the perfect excuse, (and himself an excuse without outright asking if he’s still welcome in her dreams:) “Hey, we still have lots to finish up for Arthur’s gift. Want to keep building on that later?”
John can see her eyes grow huge and a smile on her face, a real smile, the demure posture melted away. That’s his girl! She gives him such a happy nod that, for a moment, he wonders if she was as worried about their dreamscape as he was. But no, she’s doing that thing where he knows she’s wagging her tail when her tail isn’t out and it makes him laugh because yes, he has his girl back.
She’s… still in his life, and yes, she doesn’t love him the right way, but that’s not really any different from before, so maybe he’ll just have to deal with that. For right now, he asks if she wants to… well, go out hunting like they have done a few times now, but she tells him that she has a big project she has no time at all to finish and instead… uh, what? Christmas shopping?
He supposes he can try to help? He’s pretty sure she’s completely forgotten that he has no clue about this holiday. He had been sitting in his room debating back and forth if he should ask the house for a menorah, but then decided to leave that part of himself behind with his dead name and the life that no longer is his. He’s John Silver, heir to the Rossmore barony, and that means that he needs to fit in. Even if that means becoming British.
So fine, he supposes he can run and see if he can figure out how to get the things on the list she hands him. And he better come up with some gifts of his own, he supposes, right, fuck, he totally didn’t ever consider that. Uh, okay, sudden urgent task accepted!
~~~~
Arthur is startled out of his and Quincy’s experimenting when the door to the parapets opens and Lucy steps out with a: “There you are!”
He hadn’t even noticed that the sun has sunk beneath the horizon again and it’s getting more difficult to see. Somehow, testing out Quincy’s powers led from measuring his speed by running along corridors and stairs to them ending up on the roof to see if he really couldn’t shapeshift into maybe a bat or something- but no, shapeshifting clearly isn’t Quincy’s thing.
Or running particularly fast, or lifting anything particularly heavy. Arthur had a difficult-enough time to convince him to even try, what with Quincy complaining that he could break a nail, and that all this brute stuff is for guys like John and not at all his style. Clearly, it also isn’t his style in terms of vampire powers.
Instead, he can read thoughts- better when he concentrates and not from too far away, but he can- and even do a bit of mind control. Standing on a roof dramatically reciting words from some play Arthur doesn’t even know is a distinctly weird sensation. It is good to know that he was aware throughout that he himself didn’t choose to do it, and some more experimentation showed that Arthur can break himself out of it with some concentration, and also, his defence bracelet can block Quincy if he directs lots of its power to shield his mind. It’s good to know where he stands in terms of defences, even if the result is “nowhere near any mid- to upper-level power vampire.”
Mrs Harker follows Lucy out onto the roof, and looks satisfied, like she’s the one who figured out where to find them, which makes sense, of course.
Lucy invites Quincy out to go hunting- which also makes sense, much better for them to go together, Arthur thinks. Just because the enthrallment is (hopefully) off, doesn’t mean Radu isn’t still out there. And maybe now pissed off about them breaking his hold on Darcy.
Lucy tows Quincy away on her arm, and Arthur finds himself alone on the roof with Mrs Harker, who asks him when the last time was that he had a meal- which would be his incomplete breakfast, and his stomach promptly growls as he remembers that. He blushes, but Mrs Harker smiles and tells him to come along, there’s tea and sandwiches while the vampirically-inclined are out for breakfast and lunch, respectively.
On their way down to, it turns out, the solarium, Mrs Harker also asks him whether they ever got around to sending in that mail order for the Christmas presents, and Arthur feels his eyes widen, because… because no, he didn’t! He forgot all about it! And now it’s only two days to Christmas, how are they going to…?
Mrs Harker chuckles and tells him to relax- she has a husband for such occasions. Arthur tries and fails to imagine Mr Basarab Christmas shopping. It just seems… incongruous. A vampire, Christmas shopping? A slightly-hysterical giggle escapes him, and Mrs Harker smirks like she also finds the idea amusing.