A/N: I've been working on this story for a while and after much consideration, I decided this was a good time to start posting.
This needs a little introduction, so bear with me. This is a vampire AU, which, okay... totally weird for me to write. I don't usually go for the literally alternative universe, but as I was reading the ones that are out there (which.. really super amazing, if you like the theme be sure to check out Bite Me by HaughtBreaker, Pure Radiance by mveloc and Anathema by assassinslover - all available in AO3) I noticed that I could give a little twist to the story. Also, this borrows the premise from the latest Underworld movies, but just to the point that humans are aware of the real world that surrounds them and also the aspect of the vampires.
The science in this is, obviously, completely fiction and yes, I made it up to my convenience, but I also tried to be consistent with it.
So far, I have 6 chapters in this story, which would be about a third of it (hopefully) and while I have those I'll be updating it every Monday, because, Mondays suck (ahahha... see what I did there) and I think this might made it a bit better.
Thanks to Cophine for Beta!
She makes her way up the seven steps, to large, glass doors, that open with a quiet swish as she approaches. She walks directly to the front desk where a hulking man with prominent sideburns eyes her with a suspicious glance.
"Yes?" He asks in a rough tone.
"I'm here for my monthly consultation," she answers, echoing his rudeness.
The dour man grumbles something unpleasant under his breath that she ignores, and gets up with a huff, adjusting the belt under his generous gut. The procedure is not new to either of them, in fact, for her, it has become monotonous, having been here every month for the last three years. She approaches the chip reader, pulls up the sleeve of her right arm and slides her arm into the scanner so it can read the chip implanted under her skin, just below the bend of her arm. The reader emits a small sound and the rim around her arm illuminates in a bright green light. As she pushes the sleeve back down her arm, the man returns to his seat and presses few icons on the screen in front of him.
"Very well," he says in a bored voice, "324B21, someone will be with you in a while."
The small woman moves to one of the many chairs against the wall of the large room as a few people watch her with an intense gaze, some staring directly at her while others offer only brief glances. Cosima pays them no mind; it's always like this. At first she thought it would be a good opportunity to meet others like her, but if the short answers she received when she tried to strike up a conversation weren't dissuasive enough, a particular distasteful encounter in the parking lot after she left one day surely did the trick.
When she'd decided to take this path, it never occurred to her it could feel so lonely. She'd believed that at least half of her family would join her, but she found herself alone in her decision. She couldn't blame them really; the head of the family was against it, so it's not exactly surprising that no one followed her.
By government numbers, at least half of their population have joined the program and are presently on the database, but Cosima knows they are way off; no more than twenty percent are registered. It's true that there aren't many of them and their numbers have been thinning in the last two centuries. Turning someone is not an easy undertaking, and requires a great deal of control. Additionally, the elders who possess the knowledge consider it a privilege; not everyone is worthy of the transformation or the gift, as they like to call it. Even so, they are not as few as the civilian institutions were led to believe. Over the centuries, vampires became experts at misinformation. There are plenty of reasons why only two decades ago they were considered things of fairytale, creatures to scare little children and for angst teenage girls to dream about.
The discovery of not one, but two other species had caused generalized hysteria among mankind, and it didn't take long for voices to rise and call for the purge of vampires and lycans alike. The first two years had been chaotic, and those voices would've gained purchase if it weren't for the fact that there were other voices, equally loud, that called for a common ground. The three species have been sharing the world since the beginning of time, there's no need for that to be any different now that their existence was public.
It took time; human minds were filled with stories of monsters, but eventually they started to listen. The evil creatures that inhabited their nightmares couldn't be further from the truth. Once turned, vampires and lycans maintain most of their human characteristics; their personalities not overrun by a demon, as popularized by movies and cautionary tales. As long as they properly feed. If they are evil in this new form, it's because they were evil while living, perhaps just bolder in their cruelty. It wasn't until the mid 1800's that Cosima realized blood was an addiction for her kind, much like opium was to the humans she found in smoky houses in East London. Unfortunately, it was a drug without which she would perish in a slow and agonizing death.
They had called it a virus twenty years ago when they were first discovered. Her body needs a regular dose of blood plasma to keep functioning; and to take it from a living person gives her not only the nourishment she needs but comes laden with all the 'drugs' the human brain produces in a state of fear, or intense arousal, and somehow carries with it a different kind of strength that even today scientists struggle to understand. Cosima herself tried to study her own biology, being very curious by nature and having witnessed the birth of modern science, she became fascinated with it. However, she lacked the knowledge required to comprehend the more evolved aspects of her own biology, so she quit. Her many years taught her that there was no point in continuing the futile endeavor, even if she didn't particularly like it. Besides, there was news of a group of respected scientists who had started to work on a possible cure for the vampirism virus.
Contrary to lycans, whose response was to simply stop the metamorphosis into the big, bad wolf with a high concentrated dose of silver nitrate, the vampire presented a much bigger challenge. Vampires have no allergies that they could not supplant, except the deadly sun rays and that's not exactly a cure - at least not in Cosima's view, however some might disagree with her.
After many years of research, even though they were no closer to finding the much desired cure, there had been a breakthrough. A way to mutate, change the genetic coding, was found. The vampire community was skeptic to say the least, but it was a chance nonetheless. A new treatment was discovered and while it proved to be inefficient in removing the virus from the body, it did manage to control it, freeze it within the host. In a nutshell, the cells essential for anti-aging and regeneration became dormant with the treatment, but not effective enough to prevent the self-healing nature of the species. Now, while this might sound like a lousy deal there was a very positive side effect: sunlight. After only three rounds of treatment, the sun no longer represented a threat.
Vampires who received the treatment would become just like any other human on the surface. They'd age, yes, but they were able to walk in daylight and thus could be fully integrated in society. The singular difference lay in their strength, but even that was limited. Unless they feed from human, their strength would diminish greatly, depending on their age. The younger vampires lost their superhuman strength almost completely, having fed for such a short period of time, while the oldest, like Cosima, remain stronger than a regular human. Of course, once one started the treatment it was encouraged to cease the human feedings under the justification that it could be dangerous for the subject and that it could interfere with the effectiveness.
Despite all the downsides, Cosima was among the first to sign up, and as far as she knows, she's also the oldest vampire registered. She figured she had seen enough, and the day she took the first shot marked the beginning of a new life, a real life that had been taken from her centuries ago. The instant she could walk in the sun, she booked herself a full month on the beach, experiencing for the first time, the weird pleasure of baking under the strong summer rays. These days she was proud to sport a naturally tanned complexion; something she'd not concerned herself with in her first, sun-filled life. In that era, people were more concerned with other aspects of their lives; the notion of spending days taking sun baths being ludicrous at best. But the last few decades it was something she had come to envy and for that very reason, it was the first thing she decided to do.
Cosima knows that eventually she has to do something with her life, but for now she is enjoying il dulce far niente. Having collected a small fortune in her long life, money was not an issue. What she really needs is a purpose, not necessarily a salary. She had thought about enrolling in a university and exploring something in the field of biology, but she had a small problem with that plan. Like any other recovering addict, the blood lust still burns. She can survive without it thanks to the injections, but that doesn't mean she no longer craves it. Just the smell of blood is enough for her to feel the beast crawling under her skin, trying to push its way out, and that doesn't make for a very helpful lab partner.
"Cosima," a cheerful voice calls for her and she raises her head, looking at the smiling young woman standing close to her, "we're ready for you."
"Thanks, Krystal." Cosima smiles and gets up, following the perky blonde. "How are things?"
"Oh... you know, same as usual," the other woman responds, guiding her through halls that by now have become familiar, "nothing much changes."
Cosima shakes her head, constantly surprised by how people don't realize that they are living in an era when changes happen at an incredible pace. She makes no comments though, by rule she keeps her thoughts to herself.
"Actually something has changed." Krystal stops suddenly at the door of the office where for the last three years the brunette has had her consultations. "You've been assigned a new doctor."
"Oh...?" Cosima quietly replies.
"Yep, Dr. Santos was..." the blonde hesitates briefly, "relieved from his duties."
Fired, Cosima thinks. "I see..." she says, quickly dismissing it. She doesn't really care, the middle age man she has been seeing never really warmed up to her, so for her it's all the same; as long as she gets her injections it's irrelevant who she has to talk to.
Krystal knocks on the door to announce their arrival and opens it without waiting for any sort of permission, a clear distinction from before. They enter but find the office vacant, confused, Cosima raises a brow at Krystal, who's moving around and immediately started to prepare both shots.
"Dr. Cormier must've gone to the bathroom or something," she says casually, moving with ease around the office when before she wouldn't have dared to enter with the man out, let alone touch his things. "You can sit."
Cosima takes the usual chair in front of the desk and leans back comfortably. "So, this Dr. Cormier must be very different from Santos," she observes with a small smile.
"Oh... well... yes, I suppose she is," Krystal agrees after a small pause.
The injections are ready and the tourniquet is tightly around Cosima's left arm when the door opens and she can hear the sound of high heels hitting the floor before the door is quietly closed.
"I'm sorry Krystal, nature called," a relaxed, clear voice says, the light accent not lost on Cosima, who has become familiar with the francophone language several centuries ago, when she spent a decade or two in Paris during its golden years. She hadn't returned tough; the revolution carried by ambitious men made life for her very difficult. A suspicious climate doesn't help when one needs to conceal an identity, and after all was said and done, she was comfortably established in London.
"It's okay, doctor," Krystal answers while brushing a ball of cotton along the vampire's arm. "We started without you, if that's alright," she announces, not really worried about being scorned for it.
"Yes, you did well," the other woman praises, before she sits down. "Very well, Ms... hmm... Niehaus..." she starts.
Cosima's attention moves from the needle approaching her arm and meets the new arrival. It's the long, pale neck that first catches her attention, beautifully displayed due to a band that tied the blonde, curly hair. The thumping of the heartbeat slightly faster than one would expect, but hardly enough to be mistaken for jittery nerves. The pounding is steady though, and strong; almost too loud for Cosima's ears, the movement of the skin covering the tempting artery far too noticeable for her to be able to ignore it. Dr. Cormier was ill-advised to not hide this particular aspect of her anatomy, especially considering the nature of the patients she'll be seeing in the future. Clenching her jaw, Cosima forces her eyes to move away from her neck and decides to focus on the lips instead, which unfortunately doesn't ease the growling rising in her chest. Lightly pink and lasciviously shaped, the doctor's lips seem to be calling her name, even with no movement, the beautiful, little freckle just under the bottom lip makes the creature swallow the snarl trapped her throat.
But it's not until she meets the bright, golden eyes, with just a hint of green that her entire body tenses, her right hand clasping the arm of the chair in order to ground herself and prevent her from leaping over the desk that separates them. Despite being able to remain steady, Cosima knows that the beast inside her is surfacing, and her deep brown eyes are most likely taking on a weird shade of blue, which will become as cold as a glacier if she doesn't contain herself. However, unlike previous contacts with those who have involuntarily put themselves in the position the doctor is now, the blonde doesn't seem to be at all intimidated by the subtle shift, and returns the stare; not with the same intensity, but with a strange expression, which for lack of a better word, Cosima chooses to describe as curiosity, even though she knows that's not quite right.
The doctor is not blind to the change of energy in the small office. The easy smile she had starts to fade slowly, her stare disengages from her patient's, sensing the tension growing inside the creature. When she'd read the file for 324B21, she was pleased to see this was one of the first vampires to receive the treatment and that no incident had been registered since treatment had started. In fact, the file they had on Cosima Niehaus shows that she has never been prone to violent behavior, nor an instigator; only a few attacks can be linked to her with certainty. Contrary to most of her patients, Cosima doesn't have a trail of dead bodies behind her, the few of Cosima's victims who were interviewed had affirmed they were willing participants in the feeding process. By all intents, 324B21 is the perfect subject for the treatment.
Dr. Cormier's own assistant, Krystal had assured her that Cosima was the most passive patient they had, despite - or perhaps, because of - being the eldest. Krystal had mentioned how she liked, and even eagerly awaited the creature's monthly visit. The vampire always engages in light conversation, unlike some of her peers, she demonstrates all the social human traits and it's her assistant's belief that this one will have no problem, whatsoever, in getting integrated. The doctor suspects Krystal is a bit infatuated by the subject and took all her words with generous pinch of salt, but that doesn't mean she disregarded entirely the perky blonde's statements.
In an attempt to lighten the tense atmosphere, Delphine shifts her gaze to the touchscreen in front of her and pulls Cosima's file - not that she really needs it; she's intimately familiar with it.
"According to your file, you've recently started to wear glasses," the doctor says in a calm voice, but keeping her eyes on the screen. "We're concerned that might be a side-effect of the treatment, since you're not the first patient who's had to procure them."
The small brunette allows herself to chuckle, without the doctor's inspective stare, Cosima is able to control some of her natural impulses. "I wouldn't worry about it," she says. "Before my transformation I was blind as a bat. We just didn't have so many optometrists at our disposal back in the day."
Despite her reasoning that, for the moment, it was better to avoid direct eye contact, Delphine can't keep her curious gaze away and briefly looks back at her patient. "That's very interesting," she comments in a tone that suggests she's thinking out loud. "So you think that it was your... transformation that gave you perfect 20/20 vision?"
Raising her brow, Cosima struggles to maintain the eye contact innocent. She had sensed the immediate change in the doctor moments before and even if the blonde was able to endure the avid stare longer than most, eventually nature won over. Not that Cosima could blame her, the biological relationship between the two species is well established: prey and predator. Dr. Cormier's reaction is the natural response of the survival instinct telling her to run like hell.
"I'll say," Cosima nods, "in fact, our sight is far better than yours... or would be, if it wasn't for the treatment."
"Can you elaborate?" The doctor's interest spikes at that.
Delphine has always suspected that there is still a lot about these creatures they don't understand. After all, it's hard to resist the temptation to keep some secrets to themselves and since the science is still so young, they mostly rely on what the subjects decide to share. Vampires set the rules of this agreement, as much as humans hate to admit it.
"Hmm... It's hard to explain..." Cosima chooses to indulge the doctor's obvious curiosity. "Especially since I can't say for sure if the difference is due to my innate bad sight or the... humanity returning," she tries to explain, her free hand starting to wave erratically in front of her. "But I assume I had much better night vision before, not that I could see in complete darkness, but more like a cat, you know... my eyes used to adjust rather quickly to the dark... hmm..." She pauses on her rambling thinking of ways to explain herself better, while at the same time Cosima's keenly aware of the golden eyes trained on her, moving along her features. "I think I could see further as well... like... I could focus my eyes on a distant point and they would like, zoom in, yeah? And pick up details out if it."
A small smile reappears on Delphine's lips, the muscles in her body loosening again hearing the vampire talk in such a... human manner, words running over each other as Cosima tries to make some sense of what she experienced and putting it into words. "That's definitely not a human thing, I can tell you as much."
"Yeah... I didn't think it was," Cosima smiles back, pleased to notice that the doctor is starting to relax. Not only will that make for a better doctor/patient relationship, but also because she doesn't like when people are too aware of what's really going on; it unnerves her when she knows that the person she's talking to is trying to read between the lines. She prefers to deal with people when they have their guard down and so far, Cosima's instincts are telling her that this Dr. Cormier is a lot more than she's letting on.
"You ready?"
At the sound of Krystal's voice she turns her head to the woman. Completely captured by the doctor, Cosima had actually forgotten about the unpleasant task which brought her here. She nods and takes a deep breath, hissing slightly when the needle punctures her skin. The first of the two injections is always the worst; she can feel the liquid entering her bloodstream, gradually freezing her inside and traveling all the way to her heart, only to be pumped by the strong muscle throughout her entire body. She hates it. Even if the effects are much stronger in the first two or three minutes, it takes several hours for her to feel her body return to normal, leaving her too weak for her liking, almost like walking in quicksand.
"Have you been... hmm... feeding?" Delphine's soft voice distracts her from the unpleasant coolness.
"What do you mean?" Cosima asks, aware of the hesitation in the doctor's question. "I get the plasma from these annoying shots, but other than that, I assume my diet doesn't differ much from yours."
Even before she started the treatment, Cosima has always been able to eat what's considered normal food. As with humans, her body is capable to transform what she eats into calories and nutrients that provide her with energy. The blood was necessary for her survival, but that doesn't mean she ever stopped eating like any other person.
"I just wanted to be sure," Delphine says in a pacifying tone, trying to sound as little judgmental as she could. "I can understand if you still take blood from other sources, but it's important for me to know, otherwise..."
"It would skew the results," Cosima finishes for her with a hint of annoyance. "I know that, but I'm telling you the truth!"
"Okay..." The woman nods and checks the box that has 'no' in front of the question she was hesitant to pose, on the touchscreen in front of her. "In the past you have complained about dizziness and headaches for several days after the treatment," she reads loud, "do you still have those symptoms?" Delphine asks with her eyes again steady on the screen.
"Sometimes," the brunette answers after another hiss caused by the second shot. "Not as often, though."
"That's great news," the short blonde next to her says cheerfully, gently passing the cotton ball over the puncture wounds on the crook of her left elbow.
Yeah, it's fucking fantastic! Cosima thinks to herself, but refrains from letting her annoyance be further known. She always gets too grumpy after the meetings, her body seemingly angry at her for the change she's provoking with the treatment, the beast inside gnawing at her in protest and leaving her exhausted. Eager to get home and to the relaxing marijuana waiting for her, Cosima starts to get up and pulls down the shirt's sleeve.
"If that's all," she mumbles, walking to the door, intentionally indicating that she has no tolerance left.
Understanding her cue, Krystal moves quickly to the door as well, opening it swiftly and stepping outside. The vampire looks back once, a small tug in her heart when she notices that the bright hazel eyes are completely concentrated on whatever is on that damn screen, the pink lower lip being nagged by white teeth. But even at a somewhat safe distance, she can see the woman's pulse rapid staccato, a cadence that easily reaches her ears, which are still adjusting to the changes.
"A word of advice, doctor," Cosima stops by the door, but only her head is turned back, "next time... cover that neck of yours. We don't need an accident to happen, do we?"
After that, the creature moves quickly out the door, her quick retreat preventing her from seeing Delphine's hand move instantly to the side of her neck. Her pulse rhythm increases drastically, pounding against the palm of her hand and a sudden tremor shakes her entire body.