No Church in the Wild

[Rhys Van Helsing]

Prompt List

• Fire
• Night
• Anger
• Sacrifice
• Wait
• Blood
• Strangers
• Forgive
• Restrain
• Legacy

[Rhys Van Helsing]

F I R E

Rhys snatched a firepoker and stirred at the logs in the large fireplace, trying to give herself something to do to take her mind off of what she'd seen that day. She prodded at the top log, not satisfied with her action until she'd given it a good whack and sent an array of cinder and ash up the flue. It landed just off of the pile with a thud, a small puff of thick debris spilling forward, threatening to exit the mouth of the fireplace.

"Stop," her brother said. "Stop and just talk to me."

Her back to him, Rhys pursed her lips, thankful that he couldn't see the face she made when he spoke. Talk? In all her years, Severin had rarely wanted to go that route; in fact, she was more than a little surprised that he was even still awake, much less downstairs in her personal space. The living room was large, too, it was just that, at the moment, Rhys had a lot of space she considered personal. And it was no wonder; having seen Evan earlier in such a condition had left her feeling raw. If such a strong creature could be taken down, then what hope did the rest of them have?

She put the poker back in the bin that held the rest of the tools for the fireplace; tossed it, really, almost as an afterthought. The noise was so loud that she sucked in a small bite of air. She'd forgotten Nissa was upstairs, and realized just as she'd thrown the item that the noise could offer as an alarm for the girl. Van Helsings were light sleepers for the simple fact that most of what they hunted often came under the cloak of night when most of the world was asleep. It didn't bode well for a hunter who couldn't wake at even the slightest out-of-place event.

"There's nothing to talk about," she said, and though she'd turned to face her brother, her chin was tilted upward. After a few moments where she heard nothing that sounded like footsteps above them, she looked at him more fully. "It's just been a long day, Sev. That's all."

Severin sat forward a little on the couch, and he gave her a knowing look. Wordlessly, he patted the couch next to him. "Come off it," he said, and though she had expected his tone to be antagonistic at the very least, she'd be surprised to know it wasn't. In fact, his voice was completely devoid of its usual derisive nature.

"I'm not on it," she said, her tone betraying her irritation. She went to the couch and sat down next to him anyways, and for a long while, both of them just stared into the fireplace, trapped in the amber of the moment.

"This thing with Irons has you bothered," he said. It wasn't a question, but rather a statement. A testament to the fact that he knew her well. In fact, Severin probably knew her better than anyone, which meant that often he was tasked with the burden of helping her to get her thoughts out when they started to overwhelm her. He didn't feel like they were at that point, yet, but as they'd only just arrived in New York and on the heels of significant events in the supernatural realm, he felt it might be better to try and talk to her about it now rather than later when they were actually overwhelmed.

"Everything dies," she muttered, gazing at the flames a bit longer. Finally, she broke away, and turned her brown eyes towards her brother. "Even you, if memory serves."

"Well, I didn't stay dead," he offered. "In fact, that's how we've gotten ourselves in this little predicament at current, isn't it?" He was, of course, referring to Nissa. In all the time that they'd been carrying on the work of their family, they'd only ever known that two of them would exist at a time. Van Helsing blood meant that you had the fight in you, and the knowledge behind you, but not every Van Helsing was chosen in the way that they were, to live, unaging, and to continue the plight set forth by their lineage. Nissa had been a hiccup to everything they knew, and despite the fact that it had already been several years, not a day went by where Severin did not know that they had shifted the course of nature.

"I fully acknowledge that I had a hand in that," she replied, voice cool. "And perhaps I'm just as disturbed by the end result."

"Well, I didn't see it, but I see you, and I see that obviously this effected you somehow," he pressed. "I need you with a clear mind, Rhys. If this has shown us anything, it's that despite the fall of a major organization, the worst is yet to come."

She snorted. "If the worst thing wasn't seeing a Phoenix fresh out of a new life cycle, when he's still young in his skin and still bleeding magic, then I truly do not want to see what follows," she said. She looked to the fire again, feeling a pit growing in her stomach. "I know you didn't see it, Sev, but I wish you had, so that maybe you could feel even a fraction of what I'm feeling right now."

Sev shifted his weight on the couch, turning so he faced her more. "Well, then, tell me," he suggested. He chose to ignore the fact that Rhys had no idea what he felt on the matter, mostly because he didn't outwardly show that he felt any way about it at all. Sev kept his emotions very, very close to the chest, mostly because he felt that they would end up getting him killed during some irrational hope spot that was all for naught.

"I just feel a despair inside of me," she said honestly. "I feel like nothing we ever do will matter. We will never win. We will keep fighting in this cycle, you and I, and Nissa now, and whoever comes after us, day after day, but we will never win."

He hadn't been prepared for quite that depth of expression from her, but he was no stranger to the argument that everything is bad forever, and so in spite of his shock at her revelation, he was able to speak. "I think every Van Helsing experiences what you're feeling right now," he said honestly. "But it isn't on us to question the why, is it? We just execute."

She smiled, but it was a wry smile, and it didn't meet her eyes when she looked at him. "Ever the pragmatist," she mused.

"Yes, Rhys. Yes, I am pragmatic, because that's what we need to be." He sighed, realizing that this was not a battle he was going to win, because it wasn't a battle at all, at least not where he was concerned. "Having to come to terms with a harsh reality doesn't mean you can't want something better," he reminded her. She rolled her eyes at him, but he continued. "If you get caught up in this net of 'why', trying to determine your place, or our places, in the meta of all of this, you will drive yourself mad," he said firmly.

"Yes, of course," she said. "I do agree, and I do know that you're right, but on some level, I just feel as though I should dedicate more than a cursory thought to seeing an old friend recycled due to a seemingly mundane course of events that culminated when he was hit by a car," she spat.

"Wait, he was hit by a car?" Sev asked, jerking back in shock. "How did I kick him off of a roof, but he gets done in by a car?"

"Well, an SUV."

"It doesn't matter!" he said, shaking his head. "That was a long fall to the ground, I don't care what kind of vehicle ran him over. Why do I feel like we're missing parts of this story?"

"Probably because we are," she reminded him. "Evan held a lot back, and Katrina didn't tell me anything."

"Of course she didn't," he mumbled. "No surprise there."

"So I guess, on one level I'm bothered because of the depression bit I'm feeling, but on the other level, how do we compete against our bigger enemy in all this? How do we win a battle against chance?"

Severin had no answer for her, there. Mostly because he'd always found that regardless of how many times he successfully beat the odds, it only ever took one time for them to beat him back, and boy what a beating it was. Wordlessly, he held his arm out, and his sister leaned into him. He tried not to think about all of the things they were talking about, but he'd be a liar if he didn't acknowledge that on some level the feat that Rhys was expressing didn't mirror his own.

They stayed that way for a long time, quietly leaning against one another, watching the fire as it burned lower and lower. There was a certain irony to it, Rhys thought. "I wonder what else saw his light and came," she said softly.

"I don't know," admitted Sev. "But whatever did, we'll be ready for it. I'm not keen on dying twice."

[Rhys Van Helsing]

S T R A N G E R S

Virgil sat at the kitchen table, food spread out before him. He couldn't understand what anyone in the house ate, because he never saw them do it. He firmly believed they were vampires in hiding at times, or something else. He'd asked Nissa if it was part of their magical pact with the devil that made them never hungry, and she reminded him that the first time they'd met, he'd watched her eat Burger King so fast he thought she was going to throw it up. That was fair, but he still thought it, and they, were weird. Still, it meant more food for him, and in a fridge bigger than anything he'd ever seen outside of a movie, and a person chef (!!) onsite, he was taking advantage before this fever dream came to a violent end.

His face was half-stuffed when he heard yelling from outside, and he glanced over through the floor-to-ceiling window that gave a view of the garden outside. He saw Juneau on the phone, though he couldn't understand a single thing she was yelling. When she realized he was in the kitchen, he didn't miss her smoldering glare as she hurried away, voice dropping to whomever she was no doubt berating on the phone.

"So pleasant," he muttered to himself.

"She actually is quite lovely, when you get to know her," a voice from behind him said. It made Virgil jump and nearly drop the sandwich in his hands, and he turned around, giving Rhys an annoyed look.

"Y'all gotta quit doin' that shit," he huffed. "You're gonna make me choke on my food, and then what? You'll get another dog, and this will get even more clustered up." He shook his head and went back to his food, but paused for a second. "And I don't doubt she's lovely. She just ain't lovely to anyone who ain't you or your brother," he added.

Rhys opened her mouth to speak, but Virgil suddenly put down his sandwich and turned in his chair to look at her. "And anyways, what the hell language is she speaking out there? Is that Hungarian or something? Because she sounds like a damn terrorist," he said. "Oh, so you do eat."

"I'm sure I don't know why you're surprised that I need to consume food to survive, Virgil," Rhys said, her clipping voice making him smirk at how sensibly she always spoke. "But I assure you, I do. I just don't feel the need to lay every item in the pantry out across the table to do it." She pointed at him with the fingers that held a rather plump strawberry in them as she spoke. "And furthermore - she's definitely not a terrorist. She's speaking Inuktitut." When he held his hands out a little and gave her a look that he had no idea what the fuck she meant, she sighed. "Inuit. Eskimo."

"Oh, yeah we don't say Eskimo anymore," he told her. "But, I'm pickin' up what you're puttin' down. Can I ask who the hell she's yelling at like that? I mean, I've seen her mad, but she's never really yelled."

"Ah, yes," Rhys said, nodding. She sat down in the chair adjacent to Virgil, resting her arms on the table. "Fact-finding, are we? No, it's fine. I don't expect you two to speak amongst yourselves," she said, waving a hand as he opened his mouth to protest. He wanted to point out that Juneau wouldn't even find herself in the same room with him let alone hold a conversation.

"Hey, she's royalty around here. I'm just the huntin' dog," he said, a lopsided grin taking some edge off of the remark, despite the truth in it.

Rhys snorted. "You really know so little about her, it's almost comical. Virgil, she's not royalty. Far from it. She grew up not much differently than you, I'd imagine." She plucked a piece of lint off of her black top casually, and looked back at him, her dark eyes focused. It was the first time she'd ever indicated she knew anything about Virgil, so she wanted to see how he'd react - and to his credit, he really didn't.

"You want me to say I'm surprised? Come on, Rhys. Scruffy old marine suddenly follows your kid sister around like she's hung the moon, of course you two looked me up. Hell, I'd look me up, and honestly, I probably wouldn't let me anywhere near Nissa in a normal world. But this world, it is not normal."

"Quite right, it certainly is not," she agreed.

"Now," he prompted, leaning back in his chair and pointing at her with his fork. "Tell me about Balto out there." He cut into a waffle inelegantly, ignoring as the fork loudly scraped against the plate.

"Well, I'd prefer she tell you herself, but - " she paused as Virgil made a noise - "BUT, I know that isn't the case. And you're more likely to reach out to her than she is to you, so I guess I can offer some insight. Juneau spent much of her time up north, obviously. Her pack ranges between the Northwest Territories and Alaska. Her lineage goes quite in line with ours, which as I'm sure you know at the very least, is atypical."

"Right, yeah, I read somethin' about that. So what makes her pack different?"

"We don't know. Blood magic, probably. Far before either of our times, that's for certain. At any rate, she had a very humble life. She wasn't destitute in the same ways you were, but she was close. This is a prestige position. It is her entire life. It is what she was raised to do, and it is what she will die doing, because to die any other way would be an utter embarrassment to her lineage."

"Jesus," Virgil said. "The fuck kind of family she got?"

"Not a nice one," she said pointedly. "True, her father didn't come home drunk and beat on her mother, - "

"Like mine did," he interjected.

"Like yours did, yes. But she was raised with an expectation. And she must fulfill that expectation. And your existence calls her existence into question. So now, she's on the phone with her parents, who are no doubt telling her that she has single-handedly brought about the apocalypse by allowing this to occur." She sat back, raising her hands in a shrug.

"The fuck?" Virgil said, obviously confused by the notion. His brows narrowed. "She hasn't got any more control over this than I do, or you - or any of us, for that matter. Why the fuck would they think she does? Shit, my daddy was a mean drunk, but he wasn't stupid," he muttered, shaking his head in disbelief.

"So, while you to are very much strangers, I think perhaps you've gotten a little more insight as to why Juneau is - "

"A raging bitch?" he offered helpfully.

"Territorial," she said sharply.

"So what, now you told me all this you think everything is magically gonna be better between us? Rhys, let me tell you right now, I strike out a lot with women, and I promise you as God is my witness, me approaching her and telling her I know what she's been through is gonna get me punched squarely on my nose, and I don't know if you noticed darlin', but it's already been broke a few times. I'm not lookin' for a world record." Virgil set his fork down. He'd lost his appetite, finally. "You're out of your damn mind, that's what," he continued. "Kitchen bigger'n my whole ass trailer, and you want me to give that psycho an olive branch? Woman, you are somethin' else," he said, shaking his head firmly.

"An olive branch? Don't be a prat," Rhys snorted. "If you want to get her to talk to you, throw a fucking axe. She's from places on this planet most people couldn't survive a few months in. Talking will absolutely get you hit, and as much as I'd like to see her bruise your face, I prefer how it looks without blood all over it."

"Aw, Rhys, you're gonna make me blush," he teased.

She pushed her chair back and stood. "And with that, I leave you to it. Have a good day, Virgil. Do try not to get fat, " she called over her shoulder. "Nissa shouldn't be able to outrun you."

"Lady, you haven't seen fat 'til you come to the bar down where I'm from, I promise you," he shot back as she left, but it wasn't any use. Rhys was good at not being baited. "Throw an axe," he muttered to himself again. "Where would I even get an axe to throw?" He thought about it for a minute, then got up from the table.

"Hey, uh, do you know where a guy can get a throwin' axe around here?" he asked, scratching the back of his head while he spoke to the man who was already cleaning the table. It still weirded him out that they had people to do it, but who was he to judge.

"The weapons room, probably, sir," the man said, and he said it in such a tone that told Virgil he'd asked an obvious question.

"Right. Weapons room. Shoulda known. Because that's a normal room to have," he hissed, walking away from the man before he got the urge to shove him.

[Rhys Van Helsing]

S A C R I F I C E

Ah, the holidays. Mariah Carey and Michael Buble were pumped out of every department store speaker, Christmas decorations had been up since he first of November, and the city was full of that black road slush that one got when it dumped snow into a heavily populated metropolitan area. But, most importantly, it was party season. And this particular party at Bonne Chance came with an open bar, so of course, Virgil was going to attend.

"Can I get a Jack on the rocks?" he asked the bartender, leaning against the brown wood and marveling at how crowded the place was - and how uncrowded the bar was. He supposed that's what you got when half the people here couldn't even find a point to alcohol since they would have to drink their weight in it to feel drunk.

"Jack? God, I knew you were trailer trash," Juneau said, sliding up next to him. "Hey Darren."

"Hey Juneau," Darren said. "The usual?"

"Hey Darren," she replied. "Please."

"Hey - what the fuck? What do you drink since you're so judgey about my choices? Some girly shit? Let me guess, a Cosmo? Or, a Gibson? The fuck do you even want onions in your spirits for?" he demanded.

"Johnnie Walker Blue Label neat for the lady, and here's your Jack," Darren said, his voice flattening out as he spoke to Virgil.

"Well, fuck me," Virgil said. He was surprised, but also a little impressed.

"Sorry, Verge - I don't fuck men who drink gutter whiskey," she said sympathetically, reaching out to squeeze his hand as she did so. "See you around."

After she left, Virgil looked back at Darren, who was utterly stone-faced.

"Well, go on and laugh," Virgil said, gesturing at him with his drink.

"Will you still tip me if I do?" Darren asked.

"Shut up," Virgil snapped. Before he could say anything else, he smelled the scent of Rhys' perfume, and it was confirmed when he glanced up to see her in his periphery.
 
"I just had the most interesting experience," Rhys said, dropping herself into the stool at the bar next to Virgil. She set the ornate clutch down on the bartop and signaled for another of whatever she'd been having, then turned around in her seat to watch the crowd. How was it that these parties got pulled off every time without a massive fight breaking out, she'd never know. She supposed, in the end, they were all industry professionals enough to know when to keep their heads. And the ones that didn't - well, they weren't in the sort of company where they could possibly outmatch them all, so either they didn't attend or they took one night off from being disagreeable.

Virgil looked up from his drink, turning his head to look at Rhys. It was surprising that they were so candid with one another to him, even still. She was naturally diplomatic, which balanced out Severin's quiet rage nicely. "Oh yeah? What's that?" he asked. At a holiday party that was packed full of hunters from all over, he was sure that whatever her experience was, interesting would be a way to describe it.

"So the Belmonts are here and they've brought Raj with them. Laz put his foot in his mouth when he asked if Raj and the Rashanas knew eachother."

Virgil snorted. "Of course he did," he said, smirking a little. "Was it bad?"

"Well," she said, pausing to take a sip of the gin and tonic that had been refreshed for her. "As it turns out, they do know eachother. But Laz doesn't know that. I do, Libby does, and now you do, but he's so embarrassed by the social gaffe that he's retreated to the bathroom and won't come back out."

Virgil actually laughed at that. "So who's gonna be the one to tell him? Because if you came over here to send me into the bathroom after him, you're barking up the wrong tree, lady. I am comfortable and the bartender and I have a good thing going," he said. "Don't we, Darren?"

From behind the bar, the cat glanced up. "If I answer that honestly, are you going to stop tipping me?"

"Why is that the only thing you'll say when I ask you a question?" Virgil demanded, sitting back in his seat a little. "Come on, man. Money is the root of all evil, or haven't you heard."

Darren set a fresh drink in front of him, and rolled his eyes. "That's only something people who have money say."

Rhys arched an eyebrow at Virgil. "You of all people?" she challenged.

"What can I say? I guess living in your castle has changed me." He shrugged, trying to dodge her as she slapped his arm. "Hey! Not when I got my drink in my hand, woman. This right here is precious cargo."

They fell into a comfortable silence for a few minutes. Virgil turned in his seat to do the same thing Rhys was doing, and his eyes wandered to where Juneau and Sev stood. They were with a group of people, but he noticed that there were glances to be had between them. "Huh," he said flatly. He thought back to the altercation a few weeks prior where Sev had slapped Nissa across the face. Granted, she had said some pretty awful things, to all of them, though Juneau had taken the brunt of it. He'd almost broken the brother the fuck off, but Sev told Nissa to get the fuck out of the house, and in the interest of not wanting that to be the particular day where they saw who was the strongest fighter, Virgil had gone with her.

That wasn't all that had happened, of course. He'd had some choice words for Nissa, too. It had been a bad time all around, though it seemed like things were mostly back to normal. He supposed that powder keg had been building for a while; probably long before his arrival, if he were a betting man.

"What?" Rhys asked, finally registering he'd said anything at all. She followed his line of sight, and nodded. "Ah, that."

"Yeah, that," he said. "They know that can't happen, right?"

Rhys inhaled, then drank until the ice clicked at her teeth, and set the drink down behind her before turning her body to face Virgil. "It never will happen," she said matter-of-factly. "Because they know the rule, but they also take the why behind it pretty seriously."

"At least now I know why he popped Nissa in the face," he said, emphasizing the word sarcastically.

"I thought you'd known, honestly," she admitted.

"Well, I don't do so good with hints. You need to basically hit me with a blunt object of information and intent, because otherwise, I stay way the fuck over here in my lane," he said, gesturing to himself. "Still though. Must really suck."

"We all make sacrifices for this lifestyle, Virgil," she told him matter-of-factly. "Sev isn't any different. Trust me, I wish I could see them off to some happy ending, but - "

"Shit, you don't gotta remind me, Rhys. In this life, there are no happy endings. The best we can hope for is a swift end. But happy? That's just downright unrealistic." He turned back to the bar, unwilling to process all of the depth and nuances of the discovery at the moment. It would kill his buzz, which was pretty hard to maintain as it was - both because of what he was, and because he'd built a hell of a tolerance.

"At least I don't have to worry about you," she said serenely. "It's quite clear you see Nissa as a sister. Maybe even more of a sister than I do, and I'm actually her sister," she added, a short, harsh laugh following her statement. She stood up, giving him a pat on the shoulder. "It's an ugly, complex family. We're so happy to have you."

"Happy to be here," he replied, nodding as she stepped away from the bar and back into the crowd. He looked down at his empty glass, and then back up at Darren.

"I don't really think money is the root of all evil," he said flatly.

Darren shrugged. "If it is, call me Satan, because my rent doesn't pay itself." He paused, a twinkle in his green eyes. "Another gutter whiskey, sir?"

"Shut up, Darren," he snapped.