#vamp!bim

(Sort of a sequel to This but I couldn't figure out how to fit Sia and Evan in but shhhhhhhhhh it's another AU we'll jsut say that)

Everyone stands around in a circle, looking at each other.

"... So... how do we go about this?" Bim asks. "Are we going to Boxcar Children up a makeshift shelter? Risk getting a hotel? I think I have about two thousand dollars left."

"I have an apartment."

Everyone looks at Doc.

"It's small, but it's somewhere to start."

"... Don't the people hunting you know about it?"

"Oh. Right. ... Do you think I'll be able to go back to gather some things?"

Dark shrugs, sitting down on a stump. "Depends. Who exactly is hunting you?"

"I don't fully know."

"What do you know?"

"... I was leaving work, a late shift at the hospital. I'm a- ... was a, surgeon. I guess I can't... do that, anymore."

"Oh, dude... that sucks." Bing gives Doc a pat on the shoulder.

"And now so do you," Bim says, snickering a little. Yancy elbows Bim, giving him a sort of... disappointed-big-brother type look. Bim rubs his arm. "Sorry," he huffs.

Doc shrugs. "It's accurate. Anyway, um, I was leaving work, and I was all alone walking to the bus stop. And then I... I don't know. Someone grabbed me and said something about... I think about 'rescuing' me?"

Dark tsks. "Yeah, a lot of other vampires consider turning someone to be saving them."

"... They weren't a vampire. Their hand was warm."

Dark perks up, surprised.

"They hit me over the head, and I woke up somewhere just..." Doc flounders for the words. "... Just horrible. Like a um, like a room in a cheesy movie about satanic cults."

"The candlelight flickered over the walls, somehow seeming to take away light instead of grant it, the shadows deeper than should be possible in the corners of the room."

Doc glances at Host, eyeing him warily. "Yeah. Like that."

"The Host was a horror writer."

"... Oh. So then... you can probably guess what happened next?" Doc desperately hopes he won't have to be the one to describe it.

"The Host doesn't need to guess. He can Know. ... ... ... Doc was pushed into the middle of a circle painted on the floor, the stench of rotting blood making his stomach churn. He looked up as a man approached him and tried to demand to know what was going on, only to realize he was gagged. His mind was still foggy."

Doc shakes a little as Host recounts it. Bing leads him over to another stump to sit down.

"The man knelt down and stroked Doc's hair. 'Here, and now, we have begun The Recompense,' he said in a voice as soft as the candlelight, and just as haunting. He stood, and threw open his arms. 'We at last fulfill our destinies!"

"The man pulled a vial out of his robe, something bubbling and the color of Sickness itself. He pulled Doc's gag out just slightly, and poured it into Doc's mouth. The taste was almost indescribable, thee only word for it being repulsive. The man forcefully closed Doc's mouth, and didn't let go until Doc finally had no choice but to swallow. The man put the gag back in after that."

"He gestured to one of the people hovering in the outskirts of the shadows. A person stepped forward. Doc's heart began racing as he saw their eyes were glowing red."

Bing rubs Doc's back. Doc clamps his hand over his neck, getting paler by the second.

"The leader of this stranger group stepped out of the way, and the vampire knelt down before Doc. They smiles warmly at him, their fangs glinting in the demure candlelight. 'It's my honor to be your Release,' they said, reverence in their words."

"They tilted his head to the side. Doc's breathing became fast, his heartbeat almost painful in the panic. The vampire brushed their fingers along his neck. 'Don't panic. Soon you'll be free from Mortal Fear.'"

"They sank their fangs into Doc's neck. Doc let out a scream, muffled by the gag. He felt thee blood being sucked from his body, his neck getting the staticky feeling of a limb falling asleep, the feeling spreading so very rapidly."

Dark tilts his head. "That's not a usual feeling for someone being turned." He looks around at the others. "Is it?"

There's a murmuring of answers, the consensus being a complete "No."

Doc shudders, and Wilford is suddenly by his side, draping a shock blanket over him. Doc jumps in place, but accepts the comfort.

"When it was over, Doc collapsed into a heap. He shivered and twitched on the middle of the circle, his veins empty yet his brain still functioning, though that term applied very loosely. He wasn't dead, at the very least."

Now, the others look sick. "You shouldn't have been awake by then," Bim croaks.

"You-you should've passed out when-when you lost enough-enough blood," Eric whispers.

"The group around Doc were speaking, but Doc couldn't understand the words. But even if his mind had been functioning well, he wouldn't have had any better idea. The words were ancient, a lost language, made for magic."

"As the chanting droned on and on, however, Doc grew more and more... alert. But not aware. Not awake. Simply alert. And hungry."

"I attacked someone," Doc croaks out, shaking. "I don't know what happened, I just- all of a sudden I was pinning someone to a wall and-and drinking blood and they were screaming around me-"

"But not because of fear. Not because of grief over their lost friend. Doc had become Feral faster than they expected. They were screaming because of their plans being ruined."

Doc puts a hand too his mouth, stifling a sob.

"When Doc came back to his right mind, he only had seconds to process before realizing he had to run. And even as he ran he could feel himself changing, feel the cold setting in-"

"Please skip this part," Doc whimpers.

"... Until at last, Doc slammed into Eric."

There's silence. A long, long silence, the only sounds being Doc's muffled sobs and the crinkling of the shock blanket as Bing rubbed his back.

"... I woke up, too." Mark breaks the silence. "... I was trying to take a hike. Job sucked, life sucked, I figured it would help. But I got jumped, and woke up while they were carrying me somewhere. I ran away, and it... it was so..."

Mark struggles to find the words.

"Yeah," Doc says, knowing what Mark meant still. "Just... yeah."

...

...

...

...

...

Bim stands up. "So. When do we go back to raid your apartment?"

"But I thought-"

Hmm...

I think he could have one similar to Dark’s, some sort of Charm aura.

He also could potentially get one that attracts more attention to him, good or bad.

Ooooh, that’s a tough question.

Dark has banned Bim from making his show before, as punishment, but usually only for a week or two. Bim accepts that, mostly out of shame for being caught at whatever made Dark mad at him.

But if Dark were to try to take the show away permanently?

Ooooh... I’ve never thought about it before.

... I think it depends.

Bim loves his show because it gets him attention. Basically in this AU he was a rich kid who’s parents ignored him a lot, so now he’s got issues with craving attention and approval (his murderous habits, however, are just because he’s an asshole).

So, if Bim had an alternate way to get the attention he craves, he might be upset but able to deal with it. Perhaps if Dark took the show away to try and train Bim to be more like him (something he promised Bim but never followed through on), Bim would be able to accept it.

But. If Dark took away the show and continued to pay the same amount of attention to Bim? An amount that Bim considers inadequate, and thus used his show to supplement? Bim might try to break away from Dark. 

Like, turn Bim against Dark?

... Maybe.

I think if Dark got The DA back, Bim’s jealousy might get extremely dangerous. He’s already tried to kill Doc out of jealousy a few times, and Dark would pay way more attention to The DA than he does to Doc.

I think if Dark got The DA back, and Bim realized it’s impossible that he’ll ever be Dark’s favorite, he might be so overwhelmed with disbelief and like, grief over that fact, that he might turn against Dark. Accuse him of making false promises, probably project some issues he had regarding his real parents onto Dark...

What kind of things would you like to see some one-shots for?

Like... anything. Anything you want to see a character do, or like... a situation, or...

Like, do you wanna see a-day-in-the-life stuff with any of them? More important things? Creepy? Fluffy? Angsty? Throw things back to when Dark was still Damien? To before The Party? AUs of the AU? Something else?

Just like- spew your ideas at me. For full one-shots, which with me can range from like... 400 words to apparently 3,000+. 

Mark is provided blood by The Hunters. He’s not allowed to get his own. He is assured by them that it’s all from willing donors who know that he’s getting it.

They are lying. That’s why he never has any feelings of an unfinished feed. They give him all the blood from a person.

He doesn’t know about unfinished feeds and how they work, so he doesn’t realize this.

The DA also gets blood from them.

They, being only half vampire, don’t need as much or need it as often.

The younger vampires in the Iplier household still have some color left in their skin instead of being totally pale.

Dr. Iplier is, however, the palest of all of them.

Since he only feeds when he absolutely needs to, he goes out in the sunlight the least often out of any of them. Practically never, in fact,

Bing is a cyborg, mostly android though, turned after he became a cyborg.

The Googles are androids that Dark found and reprogrammed. They don’t actually need the blood they “drink”, they basically just like... gather it up and bring it home so if one of the other Ipliers needs some urgently they’ve got it on hand.

The Googles’ “hunger” is a program that alerts them when the emergency blood supplies need replenishing or replacing.

They do bite people for it. There’s not a like, practical reason or anything, Dark just... wanted them to be “proper” vampires.

Wilford does have his reality bending powers in this AU. How? Why? I dunno. He just does.

Dark doesn’t have the shadow aura, or the ringing, or the blue and red. I know! I am sad about it too, but given the lore of this AU it wouldn’t make sense. He does have an invisible aura though, it just makes people around him feel like he’s trustworthy and safe and they like him and all that.

Eric was after the bus accident, literally right afterwards.

Host was turned immediately after losing his eyes and going form Author to Host.

Bim? That boy is a kiss-up to Dark.

Dark likes how obedient Bim is but he would never actually like... put Bim in charge or make him his right-hand guy or anything.

He adjusts based on the person he’s trying to get, but usually he can get where he wants by acting as a confidant, someone who listens to your problems, the secrets you wouldn’t tell anyone else, stuff like that.

So like... Bing. He wasn’t doing great with the whole cyborg thing, and so even though he kept up an image of happy and carefree dude-bro he was actually quite depressed when alone. Dark, of course, knew this from the stalking (god he’s so creepy). He “bumped into” Bing. Struck up a conversation. Kept things light, it was fun, let Bing show off some skateboard tricks and showed a curiosity and interest despite his lack of knowledge on the subject. And it was nice! People usually brushed Bing off or ignored him!

And so they became friends, and Bing would teach Dark all this modern stuff, and Dark would pay attention and make Bing feel validated and valued. Bing was worth his time, and Bing wasn’t usually considered worthy of people’s time.

Thanks to Dark’s aura of trustworthiness and feelings of safety it was easy to get Bing to open up with his hidden feelings. Bing would tell Dark about how he doubts himself, how he feels worthless sometimes, how he tries to be so loud and in-your-face because he often feels invisible and ignored, things like that. And then he opened up about how becoming a cyborg didn’t help, how he couldn’t even remember how it happened, he didn’t even get a choice!

Aaaaand eventually Dark was like “I might be able to help.” 

And he told Bing that he was a vampire, and that if Bing wanted he could join Dark’s family, and he’d never be ignored again, and he would of course be valued.

And he stressed that it was Bing’s choice (a lie), since Bing was so upset that he didn’t get to choose if he wanted to be a cyborg or not.

And at this point Bing totally trusted Dark, and honestly it didn’t seem that bad (Dark made sure to keep the conversation and focus away from the whole “killing people and drinking their blood” part of things), so he agreed.

But with Bim, however, things were very different!

Bim did not need someone to spill his deep feelings to. He needed and wanted a mentor. Someone who could teach him how to be charming, and how to get people to like him quickly.

So that’s what Dark did. Came to Bim, said he was a fan of the show and that he would like to help Bim out with his persona. 

Bim agreed, because at this point the show wasn’t doing too well and he knew that if he could just be an interesting and charismatic enough host it would at least move past possible cancellation.

So they started working together. Dark gave Bim some tips and tricks. 

(Dark mostly learned the tips and advice he gave from his manipulation of people, but some of it was things he remembered from Actor. Actor telling him tips to help with is mayoral campaign, Actor just talking about acting and show business and keeping up a good image, or just from watching Actor. But Dark tried not to think about that. It didn’t matter how he knew these tips or where he learned them from. He was using them to get a new family member, he had to focus on that.)

Bim came to greatly admire Dark, to a point of basically worshiping him. Dark was less a close personal friend and more this... picture of what Bim wanted to be, standing on a pedestal, offering a hand to bring Bim up upon one too. 

So when Dark offered, Bim jumped at the chance. Dark barely had to do any convincing. Bim was immediately like “Yes, please, I want to be just like you!”

For one, the show was a lot smaller when Dark first targeted Bim. Neither of them expected how many fans it would gain.

Plus, sometimes he’ll target someone and then decide not to turn them, and just drain them instead. That’s why he takes longer, to determine if he should or not. He originally just target Bim because Bim was clearly charismatic, looking for some kind of mentor, and was quite lonely. Then Bim also turned out to just... basically worship Dark, and be totally chill with killing people, and like... Dark was getting pretty sick of turning people who would spend years moping and hating him (he knew they had to come around at some point, and he was patient, but gosh damn a little genuine support from more than just Wilford would be nice).

So other than the show, Bim was really just perfect. And that’s part of why Dark didn’t have him leave the show immediately, he figured that it was a sort of reward. He regrets that now, but it does make it so that Bim has easy access to food, and Bim is pretty willing to give Dark addresses of former contestants for the Googles to go after.