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Chapter 35, Part 1: So Long, and Thanks for all the Cupcakes
Windenburg Woods, Dryad Territory
Caleb
It wasn’t the fact that he punched Vladislaus in the face that scared him; it was the fact that Vladislaus didn’t fight back. He swung again, but William gripped his shoulder.
“Stow your fist, you fool! I’ll not break a fight up again!”
Caleb would not be cowed. “You bastard!” he roared, shaking off William’s hand. “You’re selfish, self-centered. You have no idea the suffering or the sacrifices others make. You do not wish to be King? And everything done in the name of it, you do not wish that either?”
Vlad wiped the plasma from his busted lip, “I have wished for many things, and by Sages’ grace, I did not get them. Change, Caleb, even one such as I am capable.”
Change? Did Vladislaus think he was a fool?
“Now, you say that? To me?” he fought for calm and lost. “You can change? The creature who saw Lilith terrified and begging not to be turned out. The creature who told Bloodvein to lock the doors behind her. The monster who said there could be no weakness in their kingdom.”
“She did not have the constitution for it,” Vlad replied quietly.
“Bullshit!” Caleb yelled, “You’re lucky she survived. You sent her to her death! I would have—”
“You would have killed her!” Vlad shouted suddenly inches away.
“I…” Caleb was stunned. “What are you even saying? I…it didn’t matter how I was, I-I would have never—”
“Of course you would have,” Vlad retorted, “I did, and you’re just like me.”
Caleb opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
“Do not drag up this past, Phobos,” William warned, “Lilith is not Neva. Caleb is not you.”
It was the second time Caleb heard William speak to Vlad as if he and Phobos were one and the same.
But they weren’t. Phobos was a monster trapped inside Vladislaus. This talk of being Fear Itself…it was nonsense. Ridiculous. An excuse.
Vladislaus continued as if William had not spoken, his eyes bright with an emotion Caleb was surprised to categorize as grief. “I made you,” he said with a humorless laugh, “Formed you to be broken and beholden just as my father made me.”
Suddenly, the house was too small, the room suffocating. Caleb raced through the kitchen and out to the yard. Disappointingly, Vladislaus, and William followed.
He turned to face the two creatures he had lived with for centuries, his anger now a freewheeling thing. Of course, William knew this secret. Of course, Vladislaus thought this entire thing was about him. “Beholden? I am here now because the situation dictates it. But rest assured, I have my own life and my own place too. I don’t need to be added to this replacement family you’ve been building!”
“Caleb!” William snapped.
He tried to get some space, but both vampires moved to follow. Caleb didn’t remember pulling out his dagger, wasn’t even sure why he had it for a family dinner, but here he was holding it. Without preamble, he thrust the weapon into Vladislaus’s chest, enjoying the miserable sound it pulled from the former King’s mouth.
“Bloody hell! You daft thing!” William rushed forward to intervene but Vlad waved him off, pulling out the blade.
“You are not like me? You intend to move out?” he croaked, “What of your fury? Your singular drive? Your disdain for other creatures? You are not so singular, Caleb Vatore, you are not so special. In three hundred years you’ve been nowhere, and if I wished it, you’d come crawling back. I am your misery and yet, you would rather endure me than go.”
There was a rushing sound in Caleb’s ears. He felt almost dizzy. It was not supposed to be like this. Vladislaus was supposed to fight him and then in a show of how much he needed Caleb, beg him not to leave.
He was needed.
But here was Vladislaus, calling his bluff.
“Y-you’re mad,” he sputtered.
“Yes,” Vlad said wearily, “That’s rather the problem. I am.”
“I do not wish to be King,” Vlad stated, his voice tired. “I have a life, a hobby. You were right. It’s the 21st century. I have learned to live with it.” Running a hand through his hair, he looked around the yard. “I hang onto this new sense of myself by a thread. If I pull too hard, I will lose it completely. I do not wish to be King, Caleb, I cannot. Do you understand? This power I’ve sought—I cannot have it, not without losing. And I will not give this life up.”
Caleb dropped his head in his hands. Conquer the world. Now leave it alone. Centuries had passed, and he was still at this creature’s whim.
“Come now,” William said softly. “It’s alright. We’ve had a wee bit to drink, and things are dire. Come sit, and we’ll talk this out.”
For a moment, Caleb wanted it so badly, his whole body shook. But he did not know how to become himself in their company. He was too full of hate, too full of sorrow, too tempted to do precisely as Vladislaus said and never go.
A throat cleared. Caleb turned to look.
What was Deacon doing here?
“Hey,” the zombie whispered, managing to do so loudly and without any kind of decorum, “Uh…wanna take a walk? Or like, blow this joint?”
And just like that, a cool air passed over, and Caleb felt calm. Sparing a last glance over his shoulder, he followed Deacon to the gate.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” he grumbled.
“We’re friends,” Deacon shrugged, “It sounded like you needed an out.”
Back to the Castle Caleb goes to therapy Cupcake Week is gonna be lit Deacon has a good diet Miko Time Travels Vlad is better at emotions We don't deserve William
Comments
13 responses to “Chapter 35, Part 1: So Long, and Thanks for all the Cupcakes”
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OH NO, CUPCAKE WEEK IS UPON US
(Speaking of which, are we talking British or American biscuits?)
Ordering this from least to most important. First off, can we just stay in the timeline where Deacon is wearing a sarong? That is the main timeline and no amount of clearly conflicting information will convince me otherwise.
B of all, we finally get to meet the legend herself, Caleb’s therapist. What she had to say about not using Deacon’s name being a form of distancing language… interesting. Veeeeery interesting. (Number 17 if you didn’t notice it already.) And I notice you’re not giving us Neva’s mother’s name either.
And he’s demonstrating why he needed 30 years of therapy here: during his freakout, there was a point where he diverted the conversation back to William rather than talking about his own stuff. Neatly mirroring Dr. Spencer-Kim-Lewis’s claim that he uses other people’s problems as a distraction to avoid facing his own and using the same tactic she did when she pointed that out, abruptly announcing that they’re talking about someone else now, with what I hope is some sense of irony.
“Of course Vlad thought this entire thing was about him!” BOY. Are you teaching kids about meiosis in the mid-90s? Because you’re projecting.
Miko’s captor looks… familiar. I tried going back and seeing what outfit Rory was wearing, but I do guess the outfits change too much for that to be a reliable indicator. They’re wearing similar colors to the person who was onscreen at the time Ben pointed to the TV. I guess it doesn’t make sense for Rory to be the Owl, since Alice already recognized him and Ben would have said something earlier. And there’s nothing guaranteeing that those are the same timeline. Wait. Unless they’re wearing the same thing in every timeline—that would be suspicious. Okay, I have to go back and look at all the colors. ARRRGH I LOVE THIS BREADCRUMB TRAIL OF OUTFITS.
I guess Caleb could also be Agony rather than Anxiety, with William’s role as mediator between them making some sort of statement about the relationship between fear and anxiety. I think of anxiety as masking fear, mimicking it while diminishing its effectiveness, but can see that possibly happening. Gee willikers, there’s probably so much symbolism right under my nose. It’s like every chapter provides context that totally changes the meaning of all the chapters before it. WHICH IS AWESOME. And I’m guessing the symbolism becomes more overt as time goes on, since everyone’s undergoing some amount of hidden character development by being trapped in a time loop.
In summary, hmmm. Hmmmmm.
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::Tries so hard not to point out the exact chapter where Miko’s captor is wearing that outfit already::
Gah it’s killing me!
I’ve waited so long for these outfit choices to begin to pay off (also wtf is wrong with me? The devil plays the long game but damn). You’ll get your answer next chapter and oooohhhh you are close.
You have definitely met The Owl already! But I’ve been sneaky about it (maybe too sneaky?)
Basically, jumping from one character to another has allowed me to be an unreliable narrator because I’m writing from their perspective with the knowledge they have in their brains. We are not in the heads of the creatures likely to know who The Owl is (Ben, Miko, Morgyn, Jimena) long enough or at the right moments to have them think: this is The Owl of Undoing.
…Especially Ben. We already know he lies to Alice and has his own agenda. As far as Alice is concerned, he disappears at a random moment…but is it random? Ben knows who The Owl is and that Miko is playing around with time…
But I digress.
Caleb 100% does not get that he is literally doing EXACTLY WHAT HIS THERAPIST JUST POINTED OUT OMG DUDE, GET A CLUE. I wish there was a way to make a pun about Caleb’s name and projecting because, goddamn.
Yes, distancing language! I don’t know if this was in my head from Mike or not, but my own therapist has definitely called me out on this lol. For Caleb, the distancing language is very much about keeping people away. He so desperately wants the emotional block that Vlad had before the witch cursed him (or before she typed in the cheat code to remove “damped emotions”).
Vlad’s childhood was clearly an abusive nightmare and it says a lot that Josef Straud is named repeatedly but Vlad’s mother is not. This will be illuminated soon…unfortunately.
Anxiety masks fear ::looks directly into the camera, screams at self to stop talking::
GAHHHHHHHHHHHH I should not write stories with secrets because I don’t want to keep them. OBVIOUSLY.
P.S. – Sarong timeline is the same as docs timeline so 100% it is THE ONLY one that matters lololololololol
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CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.
… CHALLENGE FAILED. I can’t find the outfit 🙁 Nooo! My snide remarks wasted!
I did forget about my William=Agony suspicion. Let’s just stick with that for now.
But who else, other than Rory, could have been onscreen in the commercial? The employees? (The person catching Miko isn’t in a UWBS employee uniform, I can tell that much.) Who the f is producing this, even? Their appearance has to be pretty early on, is what I’ve learned. And Dylan, what are you up to WHAT ARE YOU UP TO.
Guess I’ll just have to wait.
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Welcome back! So my first thought at the beginning of the chapter was “when is Miko,” trying to remember if we’ve had cupcake week already or if it’s yet to come. I’m thinking for Christmas this year I may gift myself a reread 😊
Ok, where to start. Caleb’s therapist. That woman’s patience must be made of steel. I wonder if he’s the biggest challenge of her career “If I get this damn vampire to make any meaningful progress, then I’ll finally retire” kind of thing 😀 I’m surprised she’s still trying after 30 years. Then again, I guess clients like Caleb pay the bills – how many people are lucky enough to have a guaranteed steady source of income for 30 years? 😆
Ah, that goodbye dinner, wow, all appearances, “good friends and good wine” or whatever they said, even Alice could see it was all for show. Loved the confrontation between Vlad and Caleb there.
“I am your misery and yet, you would rather endure me than go.” Oof. Chills. Maybe Caleb needed to hear that. I wonder if any of it got through.
Also, William was very classy throughout the whole thing, but I bet deep down he was like “I can’t wait to get the heck out of here.” I’m looking forward to his library expedition with Morgyn, woop doop.
Deacon was precious as ever. Everybody should have a friend like him.
Ok. Miko. Her part makes my head hurt, hah. So… is she destined to fail here, because we are seeing the timeline she describes, where Vlad is in the contest… or is the timeline we’re seeing doomed because she describes it?
Anywho, it was cool to get to experience Phobos being made, or at least one of the versions of it. And I suppose that’s how Vlad’s wife was ended, at least in that timeline…
Ok, I can’t shake this thought though – with all the messing with timelines, has Miko considered that some things may always happen, regardless of how many do-overs she tries? You could call it destiny, but from a pragmatic point of view, if you always have the same variables, you only get a finite number of outcomes, right? She can take away or add variables into the mix, to a degree, but there’s only so much she can tweak.
Also, I doubt if she ever got to a pount where she gets a somewhat acceptable timeline, she might not even notice. She’s so used to giving up on a reality just because of something minor that she may have even missed one with a good outcome because she didn’t want to deal with a hiccup along the way. Because ultimately, there’s always going to be some failings somewhere. (Yes, I realise this train of thought doesn’t really go with the scene in this actual chapter, when arguably things go really tits up for her, that was obviously not a minor fluke, ha. It’s more of an overall realisation about Miko I’ve had so I had to spew it out regardless of it not really being on message with this chapter, ha)
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Oh no!!! WordPress ate my reply. I have to warn you, I am officially white wine drunk and celebrating a Biden/Harris win so I suspect this reply will be…er…coming in hot. I’m just making a list because why not!
1. Christmas re-read? I AM SO FLATTERED. I keep saying I’m going to do a “catch-up/state of things” post, but I never get around to it. The fact that your question was “when” is Miko means I’ve done my job!
2. Whew. Honey, let me tell you. We do not pay Vivian Spencer-Kim-Lewis enough to put up with Caleb. First, I continue my goal of making all premades into insane minor characters in this story. Secondly, while a consistent source of income is good, Caleb has not yet embraced that therapy actually involves doing the work.
Which brings us to:
3. Goodbye dinner! Yes! William probably has more loyalty to Vlad (I think their friendship is very genuine), but um yeah, he totally deserves a vacation from them. I think that confrontation between Vlad and Caleb was building for a long while, especially once Alice entered the mix. I think Caleb is very lucky to have Deacon and maybe a friendship will help him heal.
4. Oh man, you are hitting the nail right on the head with Miko. It’s telling that rather than team up with Vlad/Alice, she spends all her time trying to undo it because it doesn’t fit her definition of how things are supposed to go. I mean, what would it be like if Miko was forced to make the most of a situation and not just loop back whenever things got hard? What author would force her to endure such horror (cue evil laughter)?
Now, not the question of which timeline is doomed, I’d tell you but…well…spoilers.
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Yay drunk comments 😆 Definitely something worth celebrating! I’m so happy for you guys in the US, and personally, as someone who libes in the world, relieved, lol.
Vivian as a therapist makes sense to me. I always wondered how the Spencer-Kim-Lewis family affords that mansion. Now we know, Caleb has funded it with his years of therapy 😆
Yeah the blowout definitely looked like it was long time in the making. Now let’s see if Caleb can actually use it as a stepping stone.
Hah, I bet Miko still has plenty in store for her…
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HAHAHAHHAHA! It is now canon that the Spencer-Kim-Lewis family is solely funded by Caleb’s therapy bills. Dang, I wish I wrote that joke hahaha
Also, yes!!! WE ARE SO RELIEVED! I’ve sobered up and stopped intermittently crying. Now, I’m just full of joy and fluff lol.
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For being one of the Fates, Miko has a very odd understanding of Fate. 😅 I wonder what she thinks about the concept of some things just being written in stone. Destiny, fate, whatever you call it – the kind of big, pivotal moment that always stays the same no matter how many times you switch paths. The same end no matter the journey.
I wonder what end she is even looking for here. For all her efforts, it’s almost as if she has an idea of how the world should be in her head, and everything that isn’t exactly as she envisions is it wrong – even if the timeline is actually going well.
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Well, Miko is technically a thread of Fate, so she’s more like a junior fate. Still, its sort of alarming that after all these centuries she is still so clueless.
I’m stalling for time because your eagle eye has picked up something really major and I don’t know how to talk without giving away spoilers.
“It’s almost as if she has an idea of how the world should be in her head, and everything that isn’t exactly as she envisions it is wrong” DING DING DING DING DING. Miko is really going to struggle with this, she pretends like she is doing this for everyone else, to “get it right,” and maybe she even believes it. But the truth is, she’s pretty self-absorbed. These timelines are about her, not saving Alice or The Owl.
“I wonder what she thinks about the concept of some things just being written in stone.”
::looks directly into the camera:: GET OUT OF MY HEAD hahahahahha dang you are spot on and its makes me so happy!
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Haha, oops, sorry about that 😂I get told that a lot. I’m not an alien using mind rays on your brain, promise! But yay, my ramblings are not complete gibberish! I’m almost caught up, now. Maybe somewhere next week. 😄
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Seems like something an alien using mind rays would day but okay… 😂😂😂
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*shrug* I don’t get it. William and Vlad and the rest of the Scoobies are treating William running a mission with Morgyn as if William’s not coming back from this alive, when in fact this is just really an extended date where Morgyn shows off and introduces William to their group of friends. I mean, it’s totes no big deal, William. Sure, your heart might be in danger… of FALLING IN LOVE. Oky, yes they don’t know that William has a crush on Morgyn and that Morgyn has loved William through countless timelines and worlds, but still.
Hahaha oh god. Miko lands at The Von Haunt estate on her knees. Yo, Miko, that’s how Bernie likes his supernatural women. On your feet, woman before you’re sucking ecto from tap.
I need to know more about Caleb and his therapist. Is she supernatural? Because he has been going to her for 30 years, and he has.not.aged. Does she think he speaks in riddles or does she actually think he’s a vampire and all that? Because… he.hasn’t.aged. Like, at the least, has she not been curious about his skincare routine??? Like I would cross a boundary to find that out. I mean, Pink crosses boundaries regardless so that’s not a surprise.
Gawd, Caleb has shit timing to finally apply his therapy to life. Here they are, drinking down spiked nectar made by the god of nectar herself, and THAT is when he decides to bring shit up? Goodness, he really REALLY needed that siren booty call. Honestly, he prob wouldn’t have been able to orgasm without phoning Vlad and telling him what he learned at therapy.
Miko should have just stayed at the cabin with Akira. She’s an uptight workaholic that needs to get fairy fucked.
The interaction with Vlad/Alice/Wine glass was cute. Shmoopy cutes.
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I think they are just responding to the fact that Morgyn is an all powerful being and a magic user who was going to betray them. And yeah, you’re totally, right, they don’t know that William is crushing on them and Morgyn is in LURVVVEEEE with William.
Caleb’s therapist is not supernatural, which is in part why she is like: you gotta wrap this up and make some progress before I die. LOL. She knows he is a vampire (though, I mean, who knows if she’s ever test-driven Caleb hehe)
Caleb needs to get laid. It’s a theme in all my stories apparently LOL.
Calling Miko a workaholic is more accurate than you know. I need to shut up before I end up revealing another major plot point.
Damn you’re good.
(I love the wine glass scene too! SOB)
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