Chapter Text
It isn’t supposed to end like this.
Bernhard’s castle is in ruins, a crumbled foundation that’s quickly turning to dust along with its master...
It isn’t supposed to end at all.
Leon is standing in front of what had been the gate, his back turned but even from here, Mathias knows something’s wrong. His posture’s so rigid, his hands clenched into tight fists, wind blowing through his coattails and hair obscuring his face...
They were supposed to join him in eternity. Through manipulative machinations, yes, but they were both supposed to be alive, or as alive as being vampires would allow.
He finds Sara at the center of the bloody massacre that had been her home. Her dress was stained red with the blood of her friends, her neighbors, her entire village. She's neatly lain on her back, hands folded over her stomach, eyes closed in a peaceful expression. All in spite the bloody tears staining her cheeks and the stake driven into her heart...
He’d been so tired, felt so old. Elisabetha’s death had left a crater in his heart, one he knows would only get bigger and all the more bottomless when death came for his friends as well.
When Leon turns to him, his face is streaked with tears of grief and fury. There’s burning hatred in his eyes that Mathias had never seen before and he knows. He knows without a single word that Leon had found out the truth…
It isn’t supposed to end like this!
Leon’s words are raw and damning. Grief saturates each word along with the regret. Regret of ever trusting him. Regret of having ever known him. Of ever believing that their friendship was true.
Desperation drives his next actions. He doesn’t care if Leon hates him for the rest of eternity, doesn’t care if he never forgives him, he can’t lose Leon too-!
Of course, this would be the time. This would be the first and only time when Leon would come out on top. Each lash of the morning star, Sara’s magnum opus – the true Vampire Killer – is filled with all the hurt and hatred of a man betrayed by someone he had once held so dear. It scorches Mathias to the bone, leaving behind charred flesh that heals too slowly to keep up with the next strike.
He’s like a wild animal at this point, driven not by rational thought but pure desperation and instinct. All he can think is if he can just get to Leon’s neck, if he could just sink his fangs in, the fight would be won.
Leon wouldn’t – couldn’t – leave him then.
It isn’t until he’s on his back, his limbs charred and broken to the point where he can’t even get up, the painful tingles of his barely mending flesh shooting through him, that he realizes he lost before the fight even began.
How horribly fitting.
He never expected to face death this night, but Leon has that hard look in his eye, that look that Mathias has never before seen directed at him. A genuine, true desire to kill. To deal out the ultimate punishment. To end a life. A point which Mathias has only ever seen Leon – kind, loving, forgiving Leon – driven to a handful of times.
Leon doesn’t kill him, however.
He does something worse.
Leon leaves him.
He turns his back on Mathias, tears still streaming down his face as he declares the start of their blood feud. That his children – Mathias’s own godchildren – would haunt his every step from now on, and so too would their children and their children’s children. And never again would they put their faith in another vampire. Never would they trust another of his kind. Never would they allow themselves to be hurt or for humanity to be harmed by their selfish, hedonistic machinations.
And now, now he can see it. Leon’s truest revenge looming over the horizon. The shadow of Death behind Leon – scythe poised for the moment Leon’s broken heart stops beating – and leaves Mathias truly and utterly alone.
“ No...no don’t go-!”
“Leon!”
Dracula wakes with a gasp, jerking up with his hand outstretched as if to stop his friend from walking straight into Death’s waiting arms. He blinks almost owlishly, his mind taking in his surroundings slowly.
The room is large and imposing, like most places in the castle. The decor and furniture held a certain Gothic style that wouldn’t come into fashion for at least several centuries. Everything is dark except for the blood-red finishing of the bedspread and upholstery of the furniture. Large windows are covered by thick curtains that blot out even the smallest ray of sunlight. Instead, the room was illuminated with candles, dozens of them held in candelabras, or other such holders on nightstands and tables. They cast eerie shadows befitting of a vampire’s castle, rather than the bright electric lights meant for actual human sight.
Home.
He’s...home.
It comes back to him in a slow, melancholy stream. It’s been three hundred years since that terrible night. Leon…
Leon is long dead. Dead, and buried in the ground on a small island surrounded by a river. Time and worms have probably stripped the flesh from his bones.
He wonders if even now Leon still has the circlet, wrapped tightly around his now skeletal hand like a rosary. The metal’s probably become tarnished, the ruby no longer as beautiful-
“You know,” a soft voice says next to him, jerking him out of his reverie. The bed shifts as Lisa props herself up on one elbow and covers her mouth in a yawn, “Most women would be upset to hear another person's name on their husband's lips as he dreams. But-”
She sits up on her knees, bracing one hand on his shoulder for balance before reaching towards his face, sleeve over her other hand as she dabs at his cheeks. The white clothe comes away stained red.
“Something tells me that wasn’t a pleasant dream.”
“No,” he agrees, wiping away the rest himself. He can feel it starting to dry and flake already. “No, it wasn’t.”
“Care to talk about it?”
“Not particularly,” he shakes his head, but feeling that she deserved at least some kind of explanation. “It's just...I dreamed of an old friend that I parted with on... unfavorable terms.”
“How so?” She asks, tilting her head in a way that he even now can barely resist.
“He...” Dracula hesitates, before venturing out, “you know of the Belmont clan.”
“The ones who were wiped out a month ago,” Lisa nods, “what about them?”
“The reason why they hunted me down,” he says slowly, almost cautiously, “was because of their progenitor, Leon Belmont.”
“Who was your friend,” Lisa surmises, eyebrows shooting up. “Those are quite unfavorable. What--”
“Please,” he cuts her off, placing a hand over hers, “I don’t...I’m not ready to speak of it quite yet.”
“Why not?”
“...My time with Leon was...the memories are among the most precious I have. It was the time when I was truly happiest, excluding my time with you. But they are also among my most painful memories, for they were my first experience with loss. I didn't realize how truly alone I was until everything went to Hell in a handbasket and I was left to deal with the consequences of my actions.” Vlad closes his eyes, feeling the old scars ache like someone is pulling them open. “And complicating matters is a great deal of shame. I’m not proud of who I used to be, or what my behavior ultimately led to.”
“You think what happened was your fault?”
“I know it was,” Vlad says, “what I did was dishonest, self-centered, manipulative --”
With another sigh he gets up from their bed, a large black wood four-poster big enough for five or six people to comfortably share with plenty of room leftover to stretch. He walks straight to the window, drawing open the curtains without the slightest bit of hesitation. The stars and moon are just barely visible, dark clouds swallowing them up as thick raindrops patter against the window.
“I’ve never seen you so hard on yourself,” Lisa follows him to the window, standing beside him with furrowed brows as she looks up at him. “Or openly admit fault so readily to...anything really.”
“I’ve had centuries to come to terms with the consequences of my actions,” he says, staring into his own reflection in the glass. He no longer looks as young as he once had, harsh edges and wrinkles marring what had once been fine features. The eternal youth of a vampire does not wane to time, but to grief as it seems, “but it’s only fairly recently that I’ve truly accepted it as my own doing. The wound is still open...fresh. Poking at it now will just make it worse, especially so soon after the Belmont Clan’s demise.”
“Well, if nothing else it does explain your behavior a month ago when word got to us,” Lisa says, adding thoughtfully, “I found it odd that you were so upset by the news. I might not have thought you’d take pleasure in their demise, but I was shocked to see you so clearly wounded by it.”
“The relationship I had with the Belmonts was...complicated,” Vlad agrees, “I wasn’t attached to any of them as individuals, not since Leon’s children parted from this world. And if any of them were to come here and persist in making a nuisance of themselves I wouldn’t hesitate to see them to the door, dead or alive. But I never wanted to see them wiped out. They were like a living momento Leon, that as long as they survived as a family, so too would some small part of Leon survive in them. And…after the last visitor I…when she left so quietly after seeing Adrien I thought…maybe…”
”You thought you might have had a chance to end the feud peacefully,” Lisa finishes for him, now with an air of devastated understanding, “oh, Vlad…”
Vlad turns his head away with his eyes closed. He thought he’d done a sufficient job of tempering his expectations. Seeing a Belmont leave peacefully under their own power had sparked a glimmer of hope. It wasn’t until he felt that spark snuffed out that he realized just how deeply it had burned in his heart. And with it came a gushing torrent of grief from the old wounds of loss.
Even now, three hundred years later, he still aches for their presence again. It isn’t as bad as it had once been, when it had felt like a gnawing pit in his heart that grew ever more cavernous. However, there are still days where he would give almost anything to see Leon’s smile one last time. To feel Elisabetha’s hand in his own. Even just to have a chance to hold Sara tight and apologize for the pain he'd caused her.
“I admit hearing you talk just makes me more and more curious,” Lisa says, hand at his arm. She can’t quite comfortably rest it on his shoulder without stretching. “But if you say you aren’t ready to talk about it, I won’t pry. Just promise me that when you are ready, you’ll tell me.”
“Of course,” Vlad says, smiling at her, leaning down to meet her lips in a kiss, “and thank you.”
“You're very welcome,” Lisa says, smiling into the kiss before starting to pull away. She doesn’t pull her hand out of his, tugging at him as she moves towards the bathroom, “come, the boys will be waking up soon so we should get cleaned up.”
“You go on without me,” Vlad says. He stays in place to let his hand slip from her own as he adds, “I need some time to myself for the moment. I’ll join you in a few minutes.”
“Very well,” Lisa gives an exaggerated sigh of disappointment, waving her hand at him, “brood away.”
He snorts, chuckling deeply along with Lisa's lighter laugh.
“You remind me of him, sometimes,” He says before he can help himself. It feels bittersweet to say but he's still smiling, “Leon used to crack a lot of jokes at my expense too.”
“Oh, really,” Lisa leers up at him with a knowing smirk, folding her arms as she asks, “did he not let you intimidate him into submission either?”
“Yes, he never let me intimidate him into anything if he could help it," Vlad says, and just when Lisa starts looking just a bit too pleased he adds, "he too had no sense of self-preservation whatsoever, just like you.”
His fangs glint in a grin as Lisa's smirk turns into an unamused glower. He tried not to let her forget how unwise her decision to bang on the door of Vlad Dracula Tepes with an army of impaled skeletons on his front lawn would be under normal circumstances. Purely to make sure she didn't go make the same decision with someone far less magnanimous than himself, of course, “you two would have gotten on famously if he were still around.”
“Makes me wish I could have met him,” Lisa says, “you’ll have to tell me all about him once you are ready.”
“I think you’d have been rather fond of his wife as well,” Vlad says, “she was a woman ahead of her time just like you are.”
“Tell me about them both then, when you’re ready,” Lisa says kindly, turning to head towards the bathroom, “and join me in the bath when you’re done.”
Vlad smiles again as she leaves, only dropping it once the bathroom door clicks shut and he turns to the window, staring at his own reflection.
He hadn’t mentioned it but something about the dream is unsettling him. He hasn’t had that nightmare in well over a century. Having it now felt...ominous somehow.
As if just to punctuate his ominous feeling, lightning strikes. In the brief conversation, the storm brewed and is now raging against the window. The wind howls and rain pelts the glass, lightning illuminating the gloomy scene before him every so often.
He even sees a few of his subjects taking shelter from the rain. A succubus flies towards a tower, gargoyles climb in through windows from their usual perches, a couple of wolfmen race towards the courtyard as they howl indignantly at the sudden shift in unpleasant weather.
Any human lord would be terrified of these monsters besieging their castle like this. Not Dracula. These are his subjects, the residents of the castle. Men, women, and those in-between or neither, all people that would give their lives in the defense of their home without question.
No, it isn’t the monsters that concern him.
It is their surprise that does.
It’s highly unusual for any of the monster-folk to be caught off guard by the weather like this.
He can’t help but frown at the storm. That ominous feeling in the back of his head was now crawling down his neck and leaving an unpleasant almost writhing sensation in his chest.
Rationally, he knows it’s nothing to be concerned with. It's merely one last fall storm before the cold winter is to settle in, nothing more. It’s unusual but not unheard of for monster folk to be caught off guard by the rain and sleet. Just because it occurs when he happened to be ruminating on his past follies doesn't make it some portentous sign of ‘something wicked this way comes.'"
That’s what his rational mind says. The scientific part. The part that would only accept empirical data and absolute proof.
The less scientific part, the part that knows magic exists and not all supernatural beliefs are human ignorance, the one that realizes that omens do exist and woe to those who do not heed them...that part would not be put to rest so easily.
“Bath’s ready,” Lisa calls to him, pulling him out of his thoughts.
He turns to glance out the window one final time before turning away. With a single flick of his wrist, the curtains snap shut on their own, closing him off from the stormy night.
A year or two later he’s going to wish he’d listened more to his superstitious side. Perhaps he could have better prepared himself for what is coming.