Chapter Text
Dr. John Seward’s body ached. He should have anticipated it, during his last conscious moments before he fell asleep at his desk, but the soreness and discomfort upon waking seemed to him a small burden to carry as opposed to the hours of insomniac restlessness he was sure to endure if he shook himself awake enough to retreat to the stiff sofa in his office.
Wearily, John pushed himself into a slouching position, resting heavily on his forearms, and looked around the room with bleary eyes. His back protested against the movement and he winced, moving his upper body a bit to stretch his sore muscles. With a sigh, John removed his spectacles and buried his head in his hands. How could it be that he somehow felt even more tired than he did before falling asleep? It made his rest seem even more absurd than it already felt and the guilt of abandoning his duties while there was still work to be done was even more crushing in the wake of his useless few hours of sleep. John balled his hands into fists, pressing against his forehead to starve off the headache making its way to the forefront of his mind.
He felt wretched. Worn out. Entirely exhausted.
These last few days of caring for Lucy had left a tremendous strain on him and the uncertainty of Lucy hovering between life and death was taking its toll on his already fried nerves. He was not sure how much longer he could endure the always changing pattern of her health, a welcome change for the better proceeded by a horrible change for the worse in a never-ending cycle that somehow felt like a downward spiral. Even the help of Professor Van Helsing was insufficient in fighting whatever was stealing dear Lucy’s life source and John was so burned out by the nights spent watching over her and the days toiling away as Superintendent, that most days it was all he could do not to sink to the ground and sob.
During his many nights spent awake against his will, John had had plenty of time to gaze upon the stuttering flames of the candles lighting his chambers. To his tired eyes, they resembled the elegant dancers he sometimes saw in the ballet, but the longer he looked at the light these past few nights, the more he sympathized with the struggling flame. He, too, felt like a burned-out candle, with its low-burning flame that flickered in the silent night as if it would give out any moment. He could feel himself burning out.
It was painfully obvious in the exhaustion he carried everywhere he went, in the headaches plaguing his every waking moment, in the tears threatening to choke him every time he looked at the Westenra household, in the way he wanted to scream in frustration every time he had to sit at his desk and read through his correspondence as director of the asylum.
He could not do it anymore. The responsibilities he had taken upon himself and shouldered so effortlessly in the past were crushing him now, grinding him into nothing, and he knew he would blow out before long.
It would be unacceptable for a man of his status, of course, and jeopardize all the years he had spent perfecting his image and reputation as a doctor and distinguished gentleman. To abandon his duty was unheard of and, despite his difficulties, he was under no illusion that such a behavior would grant him his own little cell in his asylum.
John sighed again, hanging his head and running his fingers through his dark hair to tidy some wayward strands. Despite his best efforts, he was sure he had to look as unpresentable as he felt. Picking up the spectacles and adjusting them on his face, he turned his head a little to look out of the window towards the rapidly blackening sky. After a moment, John realized that he had slept away the entire afternoon. He squeezed his eyes shut, silently cursing his exhaustion — and himself — for indulging in such a way instead of doing what was expected of him. The days were for his work as Superintendent, the nights were for watching over Lucy. There was no time to indulge.
A loud bang echoed through the silence of the asylum and John jumped, startled, his eyes flying open in confusion and shock. His sleep-deprived brain took a moment too long to connect the figure rapidly approaching him to his patient Renfield. By the time John had understood that Renfield — his patient Renfield, who should be securely in his room — had forcefully thrown open the door to barge into his office and was now approaching him nearly at a sprint with a shining to his eyes, it was already too late. John stood, knocking over the chair in his haste, a hand flying up to his chest to grasp for the whistle to alert the orderlies. His blood ran cold when his hand found nothing.
Renfield was on him in an instant, despite John’s best efforts to keep the table between them. The speed with which his patient moved about outmatched his by far, and when Renfield lunged at him with something, it was after the sharp sting of his flesh being slit open and blood trickling down his wrist that John realized he held a knife in his hand.
John flinched back, lowering his gaze to the wound and clutching the bleeding wrist instinctively. His training as a doctor kicked in immediately and he knew from the glance alone that it was severe, but that he should be fine regardless, if he took care to stanch the bleeding and wrap the cut.
This short moment of distraction was all Renfield needed to paunch on him, throwing him to the ground in one swift movement with his superior strength.
John had the breath knocked out of him by the harsh fall on his back and he coughed, gasping. Renfield was above him, his eyes burning intensely with a passion Seward had never seen before. His free hand gripped John’s throat, squeezing painfully, while he raised the other, still holding the knife, over John’s chest. The doctor was certain that his assailant had enough strength to ram the knife through his ribcage and bury it in the floorboards beneath him if he wished to, pining John to the ground like a butterfly in an exhibition.
Frantically, he gripped Renfield’s raised hand and tried to pry the knife from his grasp. His heart was racing, his heartbeat so loud in his ears that it drowned out everything else. The hand around his throat squeezed harder, bringing tears to John’s eyes. He needed to breathe, his chest was burning from the pain of suffocation and the sheer panic at being attacked and having a knife hover above him like the sword of Damocles. John pushed at it harder, trying to get it away from his body to no avail. Renfield was stronger than him, even on a day when John was not so terribly exhausted and weak as he was now.
“Renfield,” John wheezed, choking. He could not take it anymore, one of his hands flying to the one around his throat while the other still pushed away the knife. Renfield’s grip was unrelenting, and with a stifled sob John realized that he would keep being strangled until the black dots dancing before his eyes would encompass his whole vision and he blacked out, never to awake again. John writhed beneath Renfield, and, with burning desperation, managed to gasp out a strangled and pathetic, “Please!” as he felt his grip on Renfield’s wrists slacking, his strength bleeding out of him and his vision fading.
Distantly, he felt Renfield stiffen and a mere beat passed before the knife clattered to the floor and he wrenched his hands away — releasing John — before throwing himself off of him and backing away.
John rolled onto his side, sputtering and coughing. He was breathing heavily, quickly. Too quickly, he knew, as a doctor, but that felt irrelevant in the face of finally being able to draw in a breath of precious oxygen.
With shaking arms, he pushed himself upwards, scrambling backward until his back hit the sofa and he heaved another few breaths. His throat felt sore and he yearned for a glass of water or calming tea with honey to soothe the aching. With shaking fingers he reached for his throat, loosening the cravat still tied around his neck. John coughed again, absentmindedly wiping the tears from his face to restore some of his presentability.
On instinct, one of his trembling hands reached into the pocket of his jacket to retrieve the whistle, while the other remained by his throat, tracing along the abused flesh. When he grasped the whistle, he brought it to his lips and blew, before Renfield could topple him again and stop him from alerting the orderlies.
When John’s gaze found Renfield, however, the man was still crouching where he had seen him last, making no effort to move toward him again. Renfield was paralyzed, locked in place by some unknown force as he stared at John with wide eyes. He looked horrified. As he noticed John’s stare reciprocating his own, he swallowed, professing in a voice so shaken and earnest that John had difficulty doubting him, “I’m so sorry, Doctor Seward.”
The spell was broken a moment later when the orderlies came rushing in. Renfield threw himself on the blood he had spilled on the carpet, licking at it in a wild frenzy. As if the action reminded him of his gaping wound, John winced at the sting of pain from his wrist.
As the orderlies hauled Renfield into a standing position, starting to drag him away towards his room, his eyes bore into John’s again, the passion returned to them. “The blood is the life,” he said, with such conviction that he seemed to have found the sole truth to explain the entirety of existence. “The blood is the life, ” Renfield repeated, breaking into a blinding grin. “Be so kind as to give the dear madam Westenra my best, Doctor,” he said, before breaking out in a fit of giggles.
A chill of dread and horror made its way down John’s spine and he shuddered. Perhaps it was foolish that he had hoped a patient as attentive as Renfield would not notice his lengthy and unprecedented absence from his work and draw an accurate conclusion from there. It still made an uneasy feeling churn within him and he wondered just how much Renfield knew and how .
Suddenly hands were on John’s arms and he jumped, jerking away from the unexpected touch. “Doctor?” a voice asked, and John turned his head to find Simons kneeling next to him, his face contorted in deep worry, “Are you alright?”
John cleared his throat, gasping out huskily, “fine.” His voice was rough, sounding like gravel and he winced, wondering if his legs would carry his weight long enough to make it to the desk and pour himself a glass of water from the pitcher.
Simons was ahead of him, rushing to cross the room in a few quick strides and pour a glass of water, which he handed back to John carefully. With shaking hands, John took the glass from him and drank slowly. Simons placed his hand on John’s to steady his shaking. “Doctor,” he said with a frown, looking into Seward’s eyes with palpable concern, “you’re vibrating against me.” Then, feeling wetness on his fingers he looked closely at Seward’s hand, seeing the wine-red staining the dark green of his sleeves. His eyes went wide and, taking the glass from John’s grasp, he turned his hand to examine Jon’s bleeding wrist.
“It’s the shock,” John rushed out huskily, his trembling increasing as reality finally caught up to him. He was pathetically undone in front of Simons, his weakness on full display as he shook apart in his company. The embarrassment of letting his feelings — the feeling of panic, of suffocation, hands on his neck and squeezing — get the better of him was nearly enough to tear his arm out of Simons’ gentle grasp and make him stand out of sheer force of will. This determination washed over him like a wave, however, and, like a wave, it ebbed away again, leaving only bone-deep exhaustion in its wake. “I was not— I was not expecting such a thing. I am fine,” John stumbled over his words in the rush to assure Simons, “I am fine. ”
Simons looked unconvinced, glancing at him out of the corner of his eyes as he retrieved the medical supplies to dress John’s wound. In lieu of arguing, he handed John the gauze to clean his wound, and John was horrified to find his hands shaking too badly to be of any help in dressing the wound. He ducked his hand when Simons, in his infinite patience, took the gauze from his hand and did it himself. “Have you eaten?” he asked John kindly after his wrist was taken care of and he had taken another few sips of his water.
“I am alright,” John insisted, but it was clear to them both regardless that Simons would send up dinner for him to eat and John had better eat it if the stern look from Simons was anything to go by.
After dinner, as blessedly no telegram from Van Helsing had reached him, John dragged his tired body to bed. There would be dark bruises on his throat come morning, and he had already thought of how to tie his cravat to hide the worst of it.
There was nothing else for John to do but rest, yet still he felt restless as he lay in bed. He stared at the ceiling as he was wont to do when his insomnia kept him from sleep but he was otherwise too exhausted to get up again and busy himself so his racing thoughts would quiet down.
That night, John felt himself simply too tired to sleep, which meant his gaze remained fixed on the ceiling above him until he inadvertently dozed off after a few hours.