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He awoke within his coffin in the dead of night.
A tiresome sort of feeling crawled over his bones, his senses, as his body became a conscious being again.
How long had it been?
Dracula had no idea. In truth, he had not known the year of his last resurrection either. Only that the world seemed to have quadrupled in its obnoxious line of intolerable humans.
He sat up slowly, reluctantly. The dank scent of the cellar invaded his nose, but with it, the distinct scent of another.
A human. Here, within the castle.
He stood up, body hungry and limbs moving of their own hungrier accord, toward the stairway. The scent of human blood was so strong, he could not ignore it. He moved upstairs, into the reception room, the dining room, the study…and everything was as he remembered it. Just touched with a thick layer of dust.
There was only one single thing out of place amongst it all, and even then, it was something Dracula had known before. Many times before.
His mouth quivered in quiet disbelief. He stood still in the doorway for a moment, contemplating. Expecting it might be a hallucination. A strange side effect to his most recent awakening.
And then he walked into the room, and reached the man sleeping on the chair before the fireplace.
"Doctor Van Helsing.”
The other man jerked quickly awake. He couldn’t have been sleeping deeply. His skin was pale, likely almost as pale as Dracula’s own.
But when he looked at Dracula there was much less fear in his even paler eyes.
“...ah,” the doctor said, seeming to settle himself, as if it was normal. “You’re awake.”
Dracula blinked at him.
“As are you.”
“Yes.”
An awkward sort of pause hung between them. Not that it much bothered Dracula.
He stared at the hallucination some more. Scrutinizing it.
“Why are you here?”
“Oh, yes…well,” And then Doctor Van Helsing stood up, dusting his smart suit jacket down. Adjusting his collar, as if priming himself for a meeting Dracula was supposed to know anything about. “Seems as though someone’s gone and brought us back from the dead. Or something like that. I’m not sure.”
Dracula raised a brow.
“Well,” he frowned. “That's rather irritating.”
“Yes, it is, actually,” the doctor adjusted his jacket again.
He looked just as bewildered as Dracula felt. It wasn’t very helpful.
Hallucinations were not supposed to carry such a sensible narrative, were they? Weren't they supposed to be a little more nonsensical?
A little less…real?
And why did the Doctor look so lifelike? So intricate, in front of his eyes? Why could Dracula smell the beat of his blood, almost see it, clear and pulsing through his flesh.
Enough to have Dracula suddenly and easily recalling their last terrible confrontation.
His frown deepened.
"You killed me. With a hawthorn bush. I should kill you for that."
The doctor had the good grace to look sheepish about it, if not apologetic.
“Well. You didn’t give me much choice, did you? What with your…antics," He looked about the room, and then back at Dracula again. “Look, this is all rather confusing, you know. Forgive me for not being so well adjusted to the experience of resurrection. I’m rather new to it, unlike some.”
Dracula offered a thin smile. "You get used to it."
He turned toward the conveniently placed drink cabinet.
"Do you enjoy wine?"
A pause, before the doctor answered;
"I wouldn’t say no to something strong, if you have it."
Dracula poured Something Strong into a glass, and the doctor took it with a cautious hand. He downed the drink in a few short gulps.
Dracula tilted his head at him.
"Interesting. I did not think hallucinations could touch physical objects, never mind use them.”
Helsing gave him a more curious look.
"Count Dracula," he spoke slowly. "What exactly do you perceive me to be?"
Dracula hesitated.
"I perceive you to be…a distraction upon my brain. A nuisance...a memory," his gaze narrowed a bit. "I suppose you are what my waking mind thinks of before I return, no doubt, to sorry consciousness. And whatever tiresome individual decided it was a good idea to bring me back from the dust in the first place."
He turned away, frowning out the window instead, at the midnight-blue sky.
Helsing sighed.
"I suppose that's a fair enough assumption, considering I’m supposed to be dead too.”
Dracula didn’t really understand, so he sat down in an opposite chair.
He was hungry. The craving for blood was always there; a dim and throbbing ache that moved within his body.
He wondered what the doctor’s blood would taste like.
He also wondered, to his annoyance, why he would conjure up the doctor at all. Why was he, of all things, the first thing that seemed to come into his disorientated mind? And why would he be so amiable, come to that?
Dracula looked back at the other man.
"...are you suggesting that there is more to this? That I might not be losing my mind?"
The doctor shook his head.
“I didnt think you had much of a mind to lose in the first place, dear Count,” he patted his breast pocket, before looking back at the vampire. “Any tobacco?”
Dracula clenched his jaw. “No.”
“I supposed not,” Helsing looked fleetingly disappointed. He slowly set his wine glass down. "I am Lorrimer Van Helsing," he spoke more softly, for some reason. "How ever this has happened, I will make good on finding out how. And promptly impose upon the one responsible to never do it again.”
Dracula felt his irritation dissipate, just a little.
"Then you had better hurry up about it. I’m getting hungry."
He may as well humour the hallucination. It made a change from mulling over the walls of his castle and contemplating how best to end his own existence. Again.
And he was half tempted to take some wine for himself.
Not a bad idea, actually.
He reached over to the drinks cabinet again, pouring himself a glass.
“Should you be doing that?” the doctor asked. He looked apprehensive for some reason.
Dracula scoffed. “Probably not.”
And then the vampire downed the wine, with spiteful enthusiasm.
“Dracula, I do not think that’s a very good idea-”
Very good or not, Dracula still drank it. And he found himself wondering, for just a moment, why the self-proclaimed 'vampire hunter' was looking at him like that. Not apprehensive anymore.
Concerned?
Fool . Dracula chided himself. The doctor would never...
Not even within a worthless hallucination.
And with that startling thought, Dracula promptly turned away, his stomach twisting painfully, as he retched up the wine. An unsightly red mess that puddled the floor.
"Damn it all..." he muttered, roughly wiping his mouth. He glared at the puddle. "...this…this is not a hallucination, is it?"
“...no,” the doctor’s tone was quiet. "I don't think so."
His elegant hands seemed to reach out to the vampire for a moment, as if he wanted to touch him. Then he seemed to think better of it, and drew his arms back again.
“I am sorry, Dracula,” he said instead.
Dracula didn’t know why.
He looked back at the doctor. Imagining a reflection of himself in the other’s vivid pale blue eyes. Of course there was none. But those eyes were so terribly and annoyingly familiar. And Dracula hated that he took even the slightest comfort in remembering them.
"How I hate you," he said petulantly.
Bizarrely, the doctor smiled at him. “I would be rather worried if you didn’t. Now, do you need anything for that?” he gestured to the puddle of wine. “I'd assume anything that isn’t blood would cause quite the upset to the vampiric digestive system.”
Dracula gave him an affronted look.
It wasn't that he did not like the doctor’s concerned face. As it happened, he liked all of his faces generally. He just wasn't very used to that one.
It would have been amusing, and in another life Dracula would have used it to his advantage.
“Tea?” the doctor said, as if he’d already asked him once or twice before. Perhaps he had. “Do you have any tea round here?”
"Tea?" Dracula repeated, dully.
"Yes, tea. If I'm going to rationalise any of this insanity, it’s probably better to do it with a herbal remedy, rather than the alcoholic sort.”
Dracula nodded.
"I suppose it would be enough to shake anybody’s undead bones up. Luckily for myself I'm rather accustomed to the curse of resurrection, as you might recall.”
He brushed quickly past the other man.
Helsing frowned at his back. “You’re the one vomiting up wine.”
“The kitchen is this way,” Dracula said, through his teeth.
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"Might I ask how many times you've done this?"
“Done what?” Dracula said, as he glided about the kitchen, opening drawers and cupboards in search of the doctor’s damned and precious tea.
It was a bizarre situation, but Dracula supposed that the doctor would eventually come to his senses. Likely stake him, or attempt to. Or perhaps Dracula would feast on him first. He wasn't sure.
If nothing else, this resurrection made a change from insolent youth, befuddled and bored old men, or deranged cultists, for that matter.
He found an old kettle, and then some tea too. He offered it to the doctor with a neutral expression.
"I do not know how to make good tea. I have never had much use for it.”
The doctor’s mouth moved into an amused line. He nodded, and turned to the stove, lighting it.
“Teapot?” He asked. “And I meant; how many times have you been resurrected?”
Dracula moved to the nearest table, picking up a teapot. He turned it in his hands for a moment, before offering it to the other.
“I don't quite recall that anymore. It becomes more…meaningless, the more it happens."
He hesitated, watching the doctor’s back as he busied himself with the stove.
"This time feels different, though."
The back of the doctor’s head moved, into a slight nod.
“Yes, it is a bit, isn’t it? That they would want to summon you, and then myself…” his voice faded out. “Oh…do you mind if I take some more? Tea leaves, I mean? I like it stronger.”
"Do as you wish. I am not going to dictate how a good cup of tea is made. Nor do I really care."
“Well that’s terribly sad,” the doctor said. “A good cup of tea can cure a wide variety of ailments, you know.”
“Vampirism?”
The doctor chuckled, but didn’t say anything else. Dracula wasn’t trying to be amusing, either.
He watched the other at a short distance, staying close to a nearby kitchen unit. He didn't really trust himself to move very close to the human. No matter how hungry he was, he wanted to keep talking to the other for some reason.
And the doctor just stood there. Harmless with his tea. Stirring it as if it was the most important thing in the world. Another streak of his arrogant nature, perhaps.
Or perhaps he really was shaken up.
Dracula cleared his throat.
“I imagine you will be attempting it soon, then?”
The doctor looked up from his tea-stirring. “Sorry, attempting what now?”
“You know. Staking me? Putting a crucifix to my flesh? Dowsing me in holy water, perhaps? Whatever strikes your fancy this time around, I suppose?”
The doctor scoffed.
“Don’t be so crass about it.”
Dracula’s brow furrowed, lip curling a bit.
"You always were the calm and collected sort, weren't you?”
“...was I?” the doctor looked surprised.
“Yes. Entirely unflappable. The only one who ever looked upon me without any fear at all. That, I remember.”
The doctor pursed his lips.
"Perhaps I'm good at hiding it, then," He looked toward the ceiling. "Say...have you ever played chess?"
“What?”
“Chess. You know, the game. Kings and Queens and all that business. I saw it, the pieces, in your study.”
Dracula considered. “I played a little. A long time ago.”
“Let’s play now then.”
Dracula watched, as the other man walked out of the kitchen with his tea and silver spoon. Dracula was bemused by the sight, and a little irritated.
Mostly at himself.
He probably should be biting into that neck of his right now.
Oh well. One stupid game of chess wouldn’t hurt a lifetime of immortality, would it?
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“I wasn’t sure which colour you wanted to be.”
“I do not care,” Dracula didn’t, but he automatically sat on the black side of the table.
The doctor sat opposite him, still stirring his tea a bit.
He eyed his pieces with a knowing smile. “I suspect you think me some ridiculous white knight. On a mission, once again, to rid the world of parasitic vampires.”
Dracula kept his gaze fixed on his own pieces, putting them in careful, almost meticulous position.
“What else would you be here for?” he grumbled.
“I am here because I have been rudely awakened from my death. And I’m quite sure you’re the only one in the entire world who might relate to that. Even just a fraction.”
Dracula turned his black knight over in his fingers, before placing it on the board.
“I’m sure you’ll get used to it. A man of your charm and charisma, should have no trouble adjusting.”
The doctor gave him a withering look.
“We can’t all be blessed with the powers of the supernatural, you know,” he made his first move on the board. “And lucky for you, you have them. I suspect your questionable personality would be a hard sell, otherwise.”
Dracula sneered. "And yet it still seems to keep you rather interested, doesn't it?"
"Dire situations can make many things seem appealing. Your move, Count."
Dracula did, his sneer becoming a little grimmer with it.
“Do you grow so complacent in my company, doctor? Or is this just preferable, compared to whatever lurks in the outside world right now?”
The doctor hesitated, as if the question was rather heavy.
“We do become…not always fond of the familiar, but rather comfortable with it, don’t we?” He took a sip of his tea, and then leaned forwards a bit, eyes locking upon Dracula’s. “In the way a piece of music you don't particularly like might be. You know the melody and how it ends. But you don't particularly enjoy its tune."
He took another sip of his tea.
“That and…not all of us are so good at coming back from the dead, you know.”
Dracula felt his mouth quiver. Not quite a sneer anymore.
"Better the devil you know, then?" he asked.
But some part of him must have desired it too. That familiarity. That same tune, played over and over again between them.
Perhaps he had missed it. Had missed him.
“Yes,” the doctor answered. "Does that please you, Dracula? To be able to say you know a bit more about me than anyone else?"
Dracula stared, as the doctor took one of his black pawns.
"Nothing much pleases me. If you must know."
His fingers almost danced across the board, deliberating and then playing his next move.
“But I know you better than most. I know what you are capable of,” he paused. “I remember your stake through my heart, doctor."
The silence became heavy between them then, stretching out into something that felt unbearable, even to the vampire himself.
He watched, as the doctor finally reached, moving his piece rather gingerly across the board, and then capturing another black pawn.
“I would not have done it, if you did not commit such evil acts, Dracula.”
Dracula felt a pang, between indignation and something else. Far more dangerous.
“Evil, or simply necessary , doctor? You cannot tell me I was not doing this world a kindness, ridding it of the plague which is mankind. You cannot tell me that man himself is not evil.”
“A kindness?” the doctor’s laugh was lined with sarcasm. “Dracula, I suspect you envy mankind, rather than loathe it.”
Dracula snarled, dropping his chess piece.
“How so?” his fingers curled into a fist of tension upon the board.
The doctor looked unruffled. Of course he did.
“Because,” he spoke slowly, gently . “You are a cursed creature. And you are unable to function as anything else but that. You are imprisoned within a body that pretends to be human, and yet I see it for what it truly is, even now, in the way you look upon my skin. The way you move. The way you have to catch yourself. It is all a betrayal, before you succumb to the thing that is always there, at the forefront of your parasitic mind. The desire to feed. The unending and painful addiction which is your bloodlust.”
Dracula stared at him. For a few moments entirely frozen with the words.
They were a strange wound struck upon him, that he didn’t know he was capable of feeling.
“It is not true,” he said at last, in a quiet voice.
“Prove it,” the doctor said. “ Prove that there is but an ounce of humanity within you, Dracula. And we can let it be.”
Dracula’s mouth twitched, and with it he looked upon the other’s entire visage. Gaze settling upon his mouth.
“Prove it?” He repeated the words.
The doctor nodded.
“Yes. If you can.”
His tone was like a challenge, and Dracula did not take it as anything else.
He reached his hand out, leaning forwards and scattering all the chess pieces as he did. Grasping the other man’s wrist tightly.
Wrenching him across the table, to meet his lips with his own.
He closed his eyes.
He had imagined it before, but that was all.
He had also imagined the spread of warmth, reaching through his entire body. As if to set it on fire, but in a way that did not hurt. In a way that had his limbs trembling and moving and feeling so alive , at long long last.
That warmth reached him now, but spreading and blooming in a way that was far better than anything his mind had conjured up. And in those short seconds, he did not have to wonder if this was what it was, to feel truly alive.
In those short and frantic seconds, he was certain he was .
A soft and needy and terribly desperate sound left him. His mouth opening, inviting so much more.
Oh, how he wanted so much more .
“... please …” he moaned, soft and heated, around the kiss.
And then a hand grasping at his collar, and fingers curling and threading through his hair.
“...please what?” The doctor whispered, around another kiss.
"...aa-"
And then it was over.
Dracula yanked roughly back, upsetting the chess board and all its pieces onto the floor. Panting and angry and disorientated, he wiped his mouth and glared at the doctor.
The doctor was just watching him. A slight flush to his face, and a beat to his chest that suggested he was breathless too. The slice of flesh, exposed around his collar, was suddenly so much more pronounced now. As was everything else about his being.
And Dracula realised he was starving, and that the doctor was of course right about him.
“I…I have to go.”
“Dracula-”
“ Leave me. ”
The words were a snarled warning, and Dracula started toward the door, before he felt the hand upon his own, pulling him back.
He knew then, as he turned round, that the doctor was not afraid of him. Perhaps he had never been. And perhaps that was the reason Dracula could not kill him, even now.
The doctor didn’t say anything, but his gaze was imploring. Confused, in a way Dracula had never known it before.
He pulled fiercely out of the other’s hold.
"...you would carry on playing this difficult game, I see. I give you until dawn to leave the castle.”
And then he swept out of the room, out of the castle itself.
The midnight air was warm, and the sky was clear. Dracula cared for none of it. He trampled flower beds as he stalked over the garden, and reached the edge of an embankment. There, he sat down. The ebbs of humiliation, confusion, fading just a bit, as he looked ahead.
In the far distance was the line of a waiting horizon.
So he would wait on it. And then perhaps this unfortunate nightmare would be over once again.
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He did not notice the doctor until he was already sitting down next to him.
His senses felt duller, and perhaps that was because his flesh could already feel the sun, trying to cut through and reach into the sky, as it always did. He wasn’t hungry anymore either. Another symptom of the approaching dawn. It was almost comforting.
“It will be a beautiful sunrise, I’m sure,” said the doctor.
Dracula heard the waver in his tone.
“I’m sure it will be,” he kept his gaze ahead, watching the sky’s hue move into something paler.
“I will tell you about it, if you like,” the doctor said.
The words were softer, enough to make Dracula turn his head at last, in wane and morbid sort of curiosity. Perhaps the other had come armed with a stake, ready to do the deed…
But the doctor was just sitting there, his brow slightly furrowed, as if he might be concerned about something. It was perplexing.
“...tell me about it?” Dracula repeated, quietly.
“If you’d like,” the doctor shrugged. “Or I could draw it? As it happens, I’m not too bad with watercolours. And this is…well, it’s quite a view, isn’t it? I can see it now, the sun coming up, rays hitting the back of that distant tree…oh, I’m sure it’d be a vision of a painting.”
Dracula watched the other man’s profile; the way the dying darkness seemed to cast upon his face, in such a way that Dracula would have enjoyed seeing how the sun reached upon it too.
And then the doctor turned and looked at him again. Smile soft. Unassuming.
“Shall I paint it for you?”
Dracula felt his jaw clench, but in confusion.
“...what?” he said.
“Not right now, you understand,” the doctor explained. “After our chess game, of course. I hate to leave things unfinished.”
Dracula blinked at him.
He wanted to ask the obvious question; why did the doctor want him to come back at all?
“...we would have to start again,” he said instead. His voice touched with a vague apology. "The chess game, that is."
The doctor’s mouth curved into a smile as he stood up.
He held his hand out for Dracula to take.
“Well that’s alright. We can always start again, can’t we? We always did.”
Dracula looked at the hand, wariness overtaken by something else. He reached, and let his fingers curl around the other’s.
As he stood, their hands lingered together for a few moments. Dracula returned the doctor’s smile.
“I suppose we did.”
The walk back to the castle was wordless between them, and the sun seared into being as the castle doors closed behind them.
Dracula leaned back to the door for a moment, uncertain if he was relieved or not.
The doctor turned and looked at him.
“Come. You can go first this time.”
Dracula peeled slowly away from the door.
“Very well.”
And he realised that, for once, he was far happier to start again.
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