Chapter Text
It's supposed to be one of those stupid things kids dare each other to do at slumber parties, you know, like the whole Bloody Mary thing or Ouija boards or ringing the doorbell on the local "haunted" house. It was never supposed to actually work.
"So," Dan says, brushing dry leaves off his hoodie, "you're like Dracula or something?"
The shape in the tree huffs and folds his arms across his chest (is it a he? Dan can't tell).
"Dracula was a mad man who killed people, not a vampire, alright? And my name's not Dracula, it's Phil."
They jump down from the tree and into the pale light of the dark cemetery and land right in front of Dan, who can now clearly see their face under their hood. Besides the fact that they're perched in a creepy tree in a fucking cemetery, they look like any other normal (if incredibly pale) person. No sparkly skin, no protruding fangs, no Victorian clothes or cloak or anything. Just some skinny guy in a hoodie and beat up sneakers in desperate need of a haircut.
"Besides, that's not even the most important thing," the vampire, Phil, continues, "Where'd you get a spell that powerful anyways? One minute I was minding my own business, about to eat breakfast, when I get yanked over here by something and meet you. My cereal'll be all mushy by the time I get back, thanks a lot."
"It's not my fault!" Dan eventually interrupts, "How was I supposed to know it was a real spell?"
"Oh, so you just go out to abandoned cemeteries in the middle of the night and recite ancient spells for fun then?" Phil counters, "What kind of lunatic does that?"
A light flicks on in one of the houses nearby and a loud shush echos across the road. Dan realizes how loud they've been shouting and he grabs his new supernatural friend's arm to drag them into the grove of trees, only stopping when the glow of the windows isn't visible anymore.
"Well then why haven't you left already?" Dan whispers fervently as he makes sure they're definitely hidden, "Why haven't you just turned back into a bat and flown home to your precious cereal or whatever?"
The vampire (Phil, his name is Phil, Dan, keep up) pulls their arm back and rolls their eyes.
"First off, we can't just turn into bats, alright? We can teleport and move really fast, but the bat thing is complete crap. Second, if I could've, don't you think I'd already be gone?"
At Dan's confused look, they holds their hand out. "Give me the spell you read."
Dan pulls out the piece of paper he'd been reading off of out of his pocket, a page torn from a library book he'd found a few weeks ago.
Upon seeing the ripped half page, Phil raises an eyebrow but doesn't say anything, accepting it and scanning the page as they say, "I tried earlier, before you noticed I was there, but whenever I tried to apparate away, there was this tugging feeling in my chest and I couldn't leave."
"Apparate?" Dan says incredulously as Phil continues to look for whatever they think is in the spell.
"Vampires can be Harry Potter fans too," they say offhandedly before making a soft noise of triumph and pointing at a particularly illegible line. "Found it!" they say, "Here, look."
It's only a bunch of Latin gibberish to Dan, stuff he could pronounce but didn't actually know what it meant.
"It's a binding spell," Phil continues, holding the paper closer to their face, "It makes it so whoever you summon can't leave until... I dunno what that's supposed to say." Their Latin's a bit rusty, if Phil's being completely honest, and the fact that half of the page is gone doesn't help.
It takes a couple seconds for it to process, but when the wheels in Dan's head finish turning, he says, "Wait, so you're stuck here? Like, you can't do your magic teleporting thing in general, or you're stuck with me specifically?"
Phil shrugs, still pouring over the little bit of information they have. "I'm not sure," they say, turning the paper over and over in their hands, "You don't have the whole spell here, it's not finished. That's bad enough as is, but until I can see the rest of the incantation I can't tell."
They start moving back towards the entrance of the cemetery, headed who knows where, before Dan stops them and pulls them back into the shelter of the trees.
"What are you doing?" he hisses, "You can't just go out there like that."
Phil looks at him weirdly before Dan explains, "You're a vampire? People might see you? Any of this ringing a bell?"
Shaking Dan's hand off their shoulder, Phil just gives him a look that borders on pitying as they say, "Dan. Do I look like a vampire stereotype to you?"
Of course, now that he thinks about it, there isn't any really outside signifiers to the fact Phil is anything other than human. He considers this for a moment before countering, "Well then how do I even know you are one? How do I know this hasn't been just a prank the whole time?"
Phil takes a deep breath in and out in an effort to not get too exasperated because really, at this point, all they want to do is find the rest of the spell so they can deal with it and go home. They wrack their brain to come up with a way to quickly prove it so they can all just move on, but at this point most of their "powers" so to speak are limited by the fragment of a spell.
"Look," they say, "how about this..." They open their mouth as wide as possible, and there's a split second where Dan is afraid he's about to be eaten before he realizes Phil's not moving towards him.
"What am I supposed to...?" Dan trails off as he actually looks at his mouth and sees the abnormally sharp canines there. "Alright," he conceded leaning closer to inspect what he assumes are supposed to be Phil's fangs, "But how do I know you're not just some weirdo with really pointy teeth?"
Closing their mouth, Phil thinks about it for a second, taking inventory of whatever tricks they're left with. No super speed or teleporting, fangs not enough, it's the middle of the night so there's no harsh lights. To be honest, the few times they've ever had to convince someone of what they are, the fangs have been pretty much enough to seal the deal. They've never had to actually prove it to anyone, and, outside of actually draining someone's blood, they're not sure how to do it.
"Hang on," they say, going back through their list of options, "Have you got a pocket knife or something?"
Dan crosses his arms and gives them a look that says "do I look like the kind of person to just carry around a knife?" before saying flatly, "No."
Phil looks around them, but a forest isn't much help when looking for something sharp. They sigh forlornly before rolling up the sleeve of their left arm and running a fingernail along the back of it. A fingernail that is apparently sharp enough to completely cut through their skin until Dan is pretty sure he could see bone.
"Oh my god, what the hell?" he says, quickly covering his eyes and turning away. It's not enough for him to unsee it though.
"No, just look again, okay," Phil says, arm still held out and apparently unphased by the fact that they just sliced their own arm open.
"Are you kidding me?" Dan shrieks, feeling completely justified in his reaction, "No way, you weirdo! I don't wanna see you maim yourself any more, thank you."
Eventually, however, the curiosity become too much and he uncovers his eyes and slowly turns back around. When he does chance lowering his eyesight to the wound on Phil's arm, he's more than a bit confused to see it perfectly fine, except for one edge where it looks like the skin is just... sewing itself back together?
"What on earth..." he takes Phil's arm, inspecting where he was sure there was a gaping wound just a moment before.
He's still looking incredulously at the miraculously unmarred skin when Phil starts talking. "See," they say, somewhat tired sounding, "I told you, vampire."
"Do it again then," Dan demands before realizing what he's said, "Wait, no, I take it back, please don't do that ever again, I believe you, alright?" He shudders, thinking back to the second before he had realized what he was seeing and had turned away. Gross.
"I didn't wanna have to do it," Phil says as they roll their sleeve back down, "But there's not much else I could do if the fangs didn't convince you." Dan nods in agreement until Phil adds, "Unless you wanted to see me suck someone's blood or something."
"Nooo," Dan shakes his head, more vehemently than the first time, "I'm good, thanks."
Phil goes back to peering through the trees, keeping a lookout for anyone who might be wandering stupidly past a graveyard in October in the middle of the night. Apparently the only person dumb enough to do that was the person standing next to them, so once finally establishing that the coast was clear, the pair start tiptoeing out onto the street and around the corner as Dan tugs Phil's arm in the direction he can only assume leads to his house.
"Hold on a second," Phil says. Ever since they actually read the spell, they had been wondering what the limits of the binding were exactly. They wave for Dan to continue on walking without them, who looks confused but does so anyway. The road is fairly straight, and Phil can see Dan get about five blocks away before they get the feeling like their ears are popping and there's the familiar whooshing sound as they appear directly next to Dan.
"Woah," Dan says in an almost deadpan voice, now used to the constant surprises and unable to be shocked at this point, "So that's the teleport-y thing?"
"Yeah," Phil says, shaking their hair away from their face where it'd been blown around by whatever that just was. They start walking back to Dan's house again as Phil continues, "So I guess that's as far apart as we can get. That's pretty close for a medium strength binding spell, usually you can get about a good mile or two away before you get yanked back."
"Is that a good sign or a bad sign?" Dan asks, stuffing his hands in his pockets to try and retain some semblance of body warmth. The night has grown even darker as the clouds blow over to cover the moon and a wind has picked up, blowing the brittle fallen leaves down the abandoned streets and into their faces. Phil is just about to say something when one flies directly into their mouth. Fortunately, it's a massive leaf, so they dodn't end up accidentally eating it, but it's enough for them to start spluttering and spitting the leaf flavor out of their mouth. The glare they shoot Dan when he starts laughing isn't as venomous as it had been earlier, and maybe they should thank the wind for breaking the tension in the overly serious bubble they'd been stuck in. Of course, too busy laughing to see where he's going, Dan then trips over a crack in the pavement and sends Phil into hysterics as well.
Once they've calmed down a bit, Phil realizes they may have come across as a bit of an asshole, so they try to make peace by asking what Dan likes to do when he's not busy summoning supernatural beings.
He laughs at that, leading them around the corner down yet another house lined street. "I dunno," he says, "This is pretty much it. I've not really got a lot of friends, but I can't say this is my normal Sunday night."
"Mine either," Phil says, kicking a rock out into the middle of the empty road, "If the fact that I was home alone eating cereal wasn't enough of a clue for you, I don't have much of a life either. I'm not even gonna go into how this is probably the most human interaction I've had in a long while... I don't mean actual human," they amend, seeing the weird look Dan is giving them, "No, like, just the phrase, not like that."
Dan just hums in response as he points them down the next street, leaves swirling around them in the gutters and the moon finally revealing itself again from behind the dusting of clouds overhead. It's good to know that at least he's stuck with a vampire who's as much of a loser as he is. At least there's that.