A/N: Okay, guys, this is the last chapter, I'm sorry to say. Thank you all so much for being good little readers! I'm glad you liked it and it made you laugh, at least a little bit. See you around!

Chapter Twenty-One: A Rather Abrupt Ending to Proceedings

Afterwards, they staggered out into the night, leaning on each other. Carl went and threw up in the street.

"The fronk has a hairball!" shouted Dracula, and laughed uproariously. He'd had a bit too much to drink.

"Fronk!"

"Please don't start that," begged Carl, "I will kill you if you do. Its bad enough that the Writer goes on about muffins in her other fics— you'd think she would just learn to leave well enough alone."

"After all this time?" said Dracula, mildly surprised. "I don't think so. No, no, fronk, it does not look likely to happen."

"Fronk!" hooted Van Helsing. Carl got monumentally peeved and sank a punch into Van Helsing's stomach, hurting his hand rather badly. Van Helsing sank to the ground, not for the first time, still giggling a little but also with tears running down his face.

"That's it!" said Carl loudly, trying not to cry. "I'm sick and tired of this whole thing! The Writer drags us on for twenty chapters and then gets sidetracked by something else entirely! Why doesn't she just have the brides show up already! Then she could leave us alone!"

There was a pause. Carl turned his face up and shouted at the sky.

"That was a HINT BLOODY HINT HINT!"

"Honestly, my dear fronk," said Dracula, seating himself on thin air and materializing a pipe to puff on so he could do his Sherlock Holmes impression, "I don't think she's likely to listen to you. She likes Scotsmen now."

"I thought the Phantom was French!" said Carl.

"Yes, well, when has she let something like that stand in her way?"

Carl lowered his face from the heavens and began to sniff to himself. Dracula observed him, his intoxication slowly disappearing.

"Friar, if there is one thing I absolutely hate— I cannot stand to see a grown man cry."

"(sniff)" said Carl.

"So vould you please kindly go around the corner and take your runny nose vith you?"

"Aaargh!" said Carl, and gave him a headbutt. It caught Dracula completely off guard, and there was a crunch as Carl's forehead came in contact with the vampire's nose.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!"

"That hurt!" shouted Carl at him. "Why does your face have to be so bleeding hard?"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!"

Carl shook his head at him, one hand on his forehead. "All these centuries being dead and you are completely undone by one simple headbutt. That is very sad."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!"

There came a voice from down the street.

"Wait a moment—" it said. "I'd know that scream anywhere!"

"Its Master!"

"It is Master!"

"Run!"

Then there came the sound of high heels clicking along the street at a great pace. Dracula staggered back to his feet and swore.

"Well," said Carl, completely oblivious to the whole conversation that had just passed because he didn't have very good hearing, "you don't need to curse at me."

And then he was confused, because Dracula began to pelt down the street as fast as he could, still staggering slightly from the remains of the beers he'd consumed, but making good time.

He caught up with them, eventually. Nothing can elude a vampire for long, except of course for the correct way to pronounce W's.

He reached out one long arm, caught them, spun them around, and breathed harshly into their faces. They reacted with snarls and moans, but this was more from the beer breath than anything.

"How could you leave me!" he cried to them. "Leave me back in vhatever century it is ve are from, leave me to have to beg for help from Van Helsing, leave me to be head-butted by the monk—"

There was a pause, usually allotted for someone, either Carl or Van Helsing, to correct Carl's religious status. It threw Dracula off when no one said anything, and he blinked at the brides for a moment before finishing, rather lamely, "It vas not fun!"

"Oh, ve're sorry, Master!"

"Very sorry, Master!"

"Is there any vay we can make it up to you?"

Dracula considered this, breathing heavily. "You could, perhaps—"

He leaned forward and whispered into their ears.

"Hey!" screeched Carl from behind him, outraged. "That's my line!"

Things began to be over.

It was a lengthy process which I'm not going to outline for you now because I lack the organizational skills.

Let me just say that, against all expectation, Dracula forgave his brides and consented to let them move back into the castle with him within a month or so.

Van Helsing spent the rest of his life time-traveling, visiting his girlfriends in various centuries, content with the thought that none of them would live long enough to find about the others, and the fact that, as long as he didn't spend too much time with any of them, they wouldn't discern that he was three quarters insane and none too intelligent to boot.

And Carl, our Carl, our dear Carl, lived a long and happy life in endless pursuit of a random squirrel that he saw one sunny afternoon in a park. He said it gave him a sense of purpose.

And really, what more could one hope for?