Chapter Text
Death should have been it. The end to his suffering, the final push, the final line to cross. A soft, last embrace, a gentle kiss of coldness, darkness enveloping him. It should have been the merciful end of a short, mostly uneventful life filled with surprisingly much pain and anguish towards the end.
Maybe it had been like that. Jonathan isn’t quite sure anymore. He doesn’t remember how exactly he had been killed. The memories are fragmented, like shattered glass. Each shard holding a different version of the same gruesome, pathetic, miserable, confusing end.
Has he been drained at night, his head lolling around, him gently cradled like a lover, as fangs pierced his skin? Torn to pieces by wolves, fallen down the castle walls as he attempted to scale them, an effort to make his run? A cut of his throat, a snap of his neck? The possibilities swirl around in his fractured mind. A nightmare-kaleidoscope. Violence and horror.
Just a month ago, everything had been alright.
No matter. And it really doesn’t. It is done; he supposes. It is done, and yet there is more.
The first thing he does when he comes to is scream; his voice hoarse and vocal cords strained. The sound echoes in the void, a cry of confusion and agony. The world is swooning around him, turning and blurring along the watery edges of his shaky, unfocused vision. His throat is closing up, dry and bruised, and he is gasping for air, again and again, whipping around as his bare feet stagger to the side.
Jonathan is getting back up. He is falling. He is lying on the ground. He is all of those things, and more, and doesn’t understand one bit of it. His body feels foreign, unresponsive to his frantic attempts to control it. Every movement is an ordeal, every thought a jumbled mess in his newly reanimated mind.
It hurts. His limbs are lanky, uncoordinated, jerking about on their on will and his flesh is so – so – cold. There is a surr-ing under his almost transparent skin, like insects scuttling in his veins, here and there, nearly blue tinted as his teeth clatter and goosebumps prickle his arms and down his spine again, like needles.
And still, he cannot think.
“Breathe.”
Jonathan shakes his head, his unfocused eyes jumping up to meet Dracula’s as he pants cold, uncoordinated breaths. Dark, soft, raven hair and chocolate brown eyes, a hint of red playing in them. Him, he recognizes.
“Breathe, Johnny Boy,” Dracula now insists, leaning down to him as Jonathan is gasping on the floor, snapping for air like a fish out of water, his spine curving up, as he tries to fill his lungs, desperately.
He isn’t on a bed, not even a coffin, or buried in the cold earth. For some reason, he had thought he would be. But Jonathan recognizes the unfocused shape of Dracula’s personal study, the room’s walls raking up high, shadows and firelight flickering and licking along the icy stone and velvet curtains.
For a fleeting moment, he wonders how he ended up here. Had he been carried, like a lifeless puppet, to this unholy sanctuary? Or had he somehow managed to claw his way out of his own grave, stumbling and staggering through the darkness until he found himself in this room, limping and staggering in search of this bastard? Has he died here?
The thought makes Jonathan’s eyes blow wide again with realization, fear, shock; the pupils widening black. He is dead. Dead, dead, dead, he feels it, he can taste it on his tongue, sense it down to his fingertips.
Everything is icy and cold and the first real tear rolls down his face.
“Come on now, enough of the drama. It takes a bit to restart again, but if you just –“
Dracula reaches out, perhaps to calm him, to cup his cheek, and Jonathan does the first thing that comes to mind, jerking his face away before knocking his head forward again, teeth bared to one sharp bite –
He misses, teeth scraping against fabric and tearing at the vampire’s cape, but it is enough to gain momentum and toss himself back around, throwing himself against him. His hands skitter up to push Dracula off again, slamming into his chest, and the other man groans when they both can hear the one black strap of fabric rip. He is screaming the whole time.
With a hiss, the monster tries to pull Jonathan back, to restrain his flailing arms and clawing hands. Jonathan is nearly back on his feet by now, going with the pull. And yet, they slide away from him again – legs weak and unsteady like a fawn, frightened and shaking.
They ruffle with each other, his balance is off and with another scream he slams hard on top of a mahagony desk, the edge of it ramming hard into his empty stomach, but it forces a rattling gush of air out of him, before Jonathan at last, manages to take a heaving breath. He is lying on top of the table top, face flushed, messy, dirty, thin hair falling into his face, fingers splayed wide for purchase as Dracula, in his back, curses again, readjusting his clothes.
It will only take him another moment to get himself into order and to take two steps towards Jonathan, maybe at last pinning him down to the wood by the nape of his neck, to stop him from kicking, fighting, screaming, but Jonathan doesn’t let it come so far.
Dracula moves forward and Jonathan’s clammy hand glides over the polished tabletop in a frenzy, past the ruffled up pages of paper and documents, until it closes around a glass ink pen. In the next millisecond he whips around with another scream, raising it – finding his target –
Sinking it right into the other man’s eye.
***
With a gruesome squelch, the glass ink pen sinks into Dracula’s eye, eliciting a horrifying howl of pain. Blood mingles with the spilled ink, splattering over the two of them as the vampire stumbles backward, clutching his wounded eye, clawed hand curling against the gaping injury.
His teeth are bared, and even in his feverish state, Jonathan notes just how sharp they are, white shards shining brightly as he lets out another scream, half hunching forward. The other eye focuses on Jonathan, quick and poisonous, and then he lunges forward.
The adrenaline is coursing through Jonathan’s veins, making his whole body shake. The strike doesn’t come, but Dracula grips him by the torn up collar of his stained old shirt, hand fisting in it as he shouts and curses, their faces inches away from each other.
“You –“ he spits, and the hand palm covering the stabbed eye comes away, clasping Jonathan’s throat in a hard grip instead, thumb digging in just under his Adam’s apple. There is blood, on Dracula’s face, on Jonathan’s, a bloody imprint of a hand on his throat and speckles of red all across his skin and words, spat out with venom, pierce the air as Dracula curses Jonathan in his native Romanian tongue, the syllables crashing against Jonathan’s battered senses.
He has trouble keeping himself present, staring back at him with glassy eyes, weakly hanging in his grip. The black, glibbering, red oozing mess that once had been the Count’s left eye socket stares right back at him, dripping and hollow. Jonathan can see the fibres and flesh slowly knit themselves back together, regrowing and healing right before him, but it is ugly, slow, horrifying.
At last, he realizes he has stopped screaming and struggling, just staring back at him in shock.
Dracula’s curse attack seems to calm down again, his chest rising and falling wildly, as a few hair strands have fallen loosely into his face. He is still fuming, still, baring his teeth, but the one good eye seems to refocus, taking in Jonathan’s absolutely shell-shocked, frightened form.
A twinge of something akin to reluctance crosses Dracula’s face, and despite the rage, he forces the words out. “Goddamn, fucking…. breathe, will you? It’s me, alright?”
As if he wouldn’t know that.
Jonathan just stares back, his lips lightly parted, tears streaming down his face.
Dracula shakes him a bit by his shoulders, trying to get him to respond. “There you go. There – Christ, Jonathan.” His voice breaks as Jonathan lets out a sob, shaking his head. He is confused. He is terrified. He just wants to get out of Dracula’s grip and curl up into a pathetic ball, hiding away.
“No, no, don’t –“ he sobs, finally, shaking his head. Don’t what? Don’t hurt him? Don’t kill him? It is already too late. Jonathan cries harder.
Dracula strikes him, then, at last, and somehow all Jonathan feels is endless relief. In the midst of the chaos, Dracula’s slap lands against Jonathan’s face, and to his astonishment, all he feels is an overwhelming sense of thankfulness. The blow, though painful, serves as a stark reminder of his own corporeal existence. He has a body. He is here.
Jonathan is swaying, lip burst and a black eye already forming, but Dracula’s hand is an anchor, holding tight onto his shoulder.
“Focus!” Dracula bites out, and Jonathan nods, somehow, his own lip bloody as he stares back at him, teary-eyed. Dracula’s eye is still clouded, milky, but it does nothing to diminish the sharp insistence of his expression.
For the first time since everything started, silence falls over the two of them, nothing but their own, ragged breathing echoing between the two men. Here they stand, huffing and puffing, two devils completely out of their depth. Covered in blood, sweat, ink, faces flushed and skin damp.
And he tries. He really does. Jonathan inhales deeply, trying to ground himself. He tries to feel it, down to his fingertips, at the back of his throat, under his skin, concentrating on his own body, his own breathing. There is the warmth of the fire, and his cold sweat and the feeling of the wooden flooring underneath his bare feet. Yet, he doesn’t feel the familiar drumming of his heartbeat, and that realization makes him squirm and snap once more for air.
Dracula senses the new wave of panic and just moves even closer. “Jonathan. Johnny. Just hold on for a moment, alright? You have to calm down.” Dracula says again, before taking another sharp breath, his eyes momentarily closing. “Relax.”
“Let me go,” Jonathan chokes out at last, and even his voice sounds terrifying in his own ears. Raspy. Like a corpse’s, he imagines. Jonathan does not want to listen to him. “This isn’t happening. This isn’t… I cannot…. Why?”
Dracula exhales deeply again, leaning closer. The grip on Jonathan’s shoulder loosens a bit, as Dracula suddenly, somehow, lets out a soft, little laugh. “Well, all I can say is, I never had someone come back quite like you.”
Jonathan just looks back at him. His voice is a mere whisper, lacking any strength. “I am dead.”
Relief seems to flood the other vampire, and he just nods. There is still anger and frustration, but also acceptance on his face. “Yes. You have been, for a few hours now.”
“Dead,” Jonathan repeats. “But – but –“
The absurdity of the situation is too much for him to begin to wrap his head around.
“No.” he tries then, testing the word on his tongue with a hopeful tone, proposing it to him.
But feeble protest is met with a soft chuckle from Dracula, whose eerie sense of humor in this scenario only deepens Jonathan’s growing sense of dread. He feels like he’s teetering on the edge of insanity, caught in a web of terror spun by the very creature that has ended his life.
Dracula’s eye, although still cloudy, is slowly regaining its focus, and his demeanor shifts from aggression to something more casual, as though they were engaged in an ordinary conversation.
Dracula’s gaze drifts to the dropped inkwell, the dark liquid staining the floor like an ominous omen. “Hardly an argument,” he quips, seemingly unfazed by the dire circumstances. “Or a way to say thank you. I could have, after all, saved myself the trouble and not bring you back.”
Jonathan can’t contain his tears any longer, and they stream down his face as he trembles uncontrollably. He’s overwhelmed by a sense of regret, wishing he hadn’t snapped out of whatever fury and panic had claimed him. Wishing he hadn’t woken up after all. Mindless fear had been far more preferable compared to being confronted with the terrible, unbelievable reality.
“Nearly thought you’d come back beastly,” Dracula continues, his tone oddly conversational. His hands are in his pockets. “My boy, you sure gave me a fright.”
Jonathan shakes his head in confusion, unable to grasp the reality of his situation. “I don’t understand. I don’t — your eye.”
Dracula shrugs, a tired sigh escaping him. “It’ll heal. So will you, by the way.”
Heal? The word echoes in Jonathan’s mind, but he can’t fathom how he on earth he is supposed to recover when he no longer feels the reassuring beat of his pulse. Everything around him feels surreal, as though he’s trapped in a never-ending fever dream, a twisted nightmare that refuses to release its grip on him.
“What...” Jonathan begins, his voice a whisper, his thoughts scattered and incoherent. What is happening? What does this all mean?
Dracula, finally revealing a hint of a smile, begins to ease up, his shoulders dropping, so clearly amused. “But first...” he says, his voice laced with anticipation. “Welcome back, Jonathan Harker.
You and I, we two, have a rough month ahead of us.”