Lola Perry was a realistic person, to say the least. She was the biggest fan of logic you would ever meet, honestly. She could always see, or make herself see, the scheme behind a strange situation.
So maybe it was the fact that since Christmas she had been chased by a mob, found a group of people lying dead in their own blood, had Latin cut into her stomach while she was sleeping, and been attacked by crows.
Maybe it was the fact that when she tried to do something about all of that, she ended up getting bitten by an angry vampire.
Either way, she refused to acknowledge most of these things.
She remembered seeing LaFontaine's panicked face appear in the doorway before she blacked out. She didn't know what had happened while she was out, except that she woke up with super sensitive ears (being knocked out would cause an effect similar to that of a hangover, right?), a no-longer-delicate grasp and a strange urge to pounce on LaFontaine's jugular.
Just normal reactions to a blacking out. She simply wasn't herself, obviously, but that was only normal after having blacked out.
"Oh God, Perr? Perry, are you okay?" they sounded panicked, their voice several octaves higher than normal, and she almost smiled. That was her role. She was the worrier, the mother hen. She only ever heard LaF sound even remotely similar to herself on the rare occasion that Perry herself got hurt, somehow. Which was endearing, but also scary when it happened, because it wasn't often.
"I'm fine", she told them and started to sit up, her head pounding, but she ignored it. "How long was I out for?"
"Several days, Perr. I – you –" they sounded like they were about to cry, and she couldn't blame them. She would've gone on a nervous rampage if they were gone for several days.
"Really? How – I didn't hit my head that hard…" she didn't even remember hitting her head in particular. She smiled at them reassuringly, and they flinched a little.
"Perry, Belmond bit you…"
She had seen Carmilla die and come back to life. She knew vampires were existing creatures to some degree, but this was still utterly ridiculous. "...oh. I thought if it was going to be anyone, it would be Laura."
"Perr! You sprinkled her with holy water, I'm surprised she didn't kill you!" she could see them regretting their words behind their eyes, but she didn't know why. It wasn't like she was dead.
"Hey, Weirdo, she didn't. Everything's fine."
They sniffled silently. "It isn't, Perry, that's the thing. It really isn't."
"What do you mean?"
"In a sense, she… she did kind of kill you…"
"Really, LaFontaine? You expect me to believe I'm some sort of ghost now? I can touch you just fine." She poked their arm, and she felt a tug in her lower stomach, which she ignored.
"Not a ghost, Perr. You're… you're a vampire."
That made her black out again.
It had been days, but she doubted she would ever quite believe what was happening. It was just the weirdness of Silas, the constant presence of Carmilla and Mattie and JP, perhaps some new chemical released in the air by what was left of the Alchemy club, that was making her feel so strange. She ate all the regular foods she always did, but she was still hungry. She set her alarm clock early, but it never managed to wake her. She kept accidentally breaking things.
And she avoided LaFontaine, because every time she saw them, she could hear the faint beat of their pulse and her eyes would zoom in on their neck and her body would tense up from anticipation just from the sight.
It hadn't been a simple task. They were upset, to say the least. With the library gone they were researching on their computer relentlessly, without much luck, and she didn't even know what for.
Every night when they crawled into bed next to her, she would wait until she was certain they were asleep, and slip out of the bed, the room, the house. She saw much better in the dark now, but she paid no attention to it. She was out there because it was calm, it was the same as it had always been, the dark. At least when she didn't see right through it.
She doubted it would ever really be real to her. It was the weird of Silas that was making her see and hear and feel and sense things she shouldn't. She was certain of it, and she stayed certain of it until the day she heard a roar and a scream, hurried down the stairs and found LaFontaine with a punctured neck, in agitating pain and losing blood quickly on the floor, an ashamed, terrified and struggling-to-control-himself JP standing by them with an empty blood bag in his hands, and Mattie and Carmilla growling over the broken blood bags that spilled all over the floor in JP's attack. Laura and Danny were attempting to keep the three vampires away from their friend while simultaneously calling for help. There was a joint shout of "Perry, no!" as she ripped past them to reach LaFontaine.
The blood would normally had driven her crazy, but LaF was on the floor and had just been bit by a vampire who wasn't her.
So for the second time in only a few weeks, she found herself on her knees in a pool of blood, getting it all over herself, but this time because she was carefully hoisting LaF into her arms, standing up on wobbly legs, and following the scent of her better half back to their secret stash of blood bags.
She did her best to remember everything they'd ever told her about human biology as she attempted to save them. She could stop the bleeding, but she couldn't replace what was lost. That was LaF's forte. That was when they started seizing.
When they woke up, they woke up to their secret spot completely emptied. Their new vision told them that the bags had been ripped from the shelves violently, and their new sense of smell told them that they were still in the room. It also told them that something they couldn't describe, but was the very definition of familiarity and home, was there.
They sat up slowly and turned their head to see Perry curled up in a corner. There were empty blood bags around her, all empty, except one that she was cradling to her chest. There was blood all over her face and covering her lips, glistening, more tempting than ever before.
The realism of what had happened hit Perry as they moved closer to her, and for the first time in a while, she didn't want to fling herself on their neck. She wanted to fling herself into their arms and never let them go.
But first things first. She held out the blood bag towards them.
