Chapter Text
It started about a month after Jonathan’s rebirth.
Thirty nights. It seemed like the blink of an eye, but Dracula had never felt quite so elated, leastwise not in any time that had not slipped into the distant mists of his past. Dozens of attempts had ended in failure after failure, but in Mr Harker; unremarkable, polite, but with far more steel in his spine than the Count would have guessed, he finally succeeded.
Oh he fought. Every meal was a challenge, a tedious lament on what a monster he’d become, cast from the light of God into the unforgiving night. Every command or advance that Dracula made, he could be certain that Jonathan would fight against with all his will and strength.
It was intoxicating, to have someone … not quite equal, but certainly far more of a challenge than a mortal, defying him so. Jonathan Harker had truly become his finest bride.
It’d been a few days since he’d gone hunting. He couldn’t trust Jonathan to find his own food yet, and he certainly could not permit him beyond the Castle’s grounds, so Dracula was forced to go out and find food for him. Today’s offering was a farmer, sweaty and stinking of soil and the booze that intoxicated him just enough to venture out without any precautions.
It took quite some time for the man to come to his senses enough to realise that Dracula was not a kindly stranger offering him safe passage home, but rather the very thing he’d need safe passage to avoid.
He tried to struggle and throw the Count off as he was dragged into Bran’s gloomy halls.
“Jonathan, my dear, I have brought you your dinner. Do not make me come and find you,” he called out in English. The farmer seemed perturbed by the unfamiliar words and tried to pry his arm from Dracula’s grasp. The Count just tightened his grip and the man began to keen in pain. The high sound and the desperate pleas that followed echoed through the castle’s halls.
After all the effort he’d put in, Dracula did not wish to go and hunt down Jonathan in whatever corner he’d chosen to hide away and sulk in.
His captive suddenly shrieked. The sound grated at Dracula’s ears and he turned, prepared to strike him, when he noticed the man was staring at the ceiling. Dracula looked to follow his gaze and couldn’t help the smile at what he saw there.
Jonathan, still in his nightshirt, dirt clinging to his hair, was hanging from the ceiling, slowly stalking his way towards the pair. He was barefoot, holding tight to the cracks in the stone with fingers and toes.
“I did not expect to see you practicing your climbing. Would your sense of decorum not prevent such things?” Then again, to see Johnny in naught but his nightclothes was just as strange, he always went to such effort in his presentation. He claimed that it made him feel like himself, as if a starched shirt and a waistcoat was all that defined him. But it was another eccentricity that Dracula held a fondness for.
At his call though, Dracula received no response. Jonathan simply crawled closer, until he was directly over the top of the two of them. Dracula’s captive had started to pray feverishly at the sight, and it was only the Count’s iron grip on his arm that prevented him from sinking to his knees.
“Very well, Jonathan, you’ve proved your point, whatever it is. Now come down here and-”
Jonathan leapt. Dracula raised one arm to defend himself, ready to strike his bride from the air. It’d hardly be the first time that Jonathan had made an attempt on his life, but the other vampire wasn’t aiming for him.
Dracula’s captive cried out, but was cut off as his head smacked into the stone ground. Jonathan was on him in the blink of an eye. He bit at the man’s throat messily, sharpened teeth tore his neck open and blood spurted forth. So much fell freely to the ground in a wasted puddle.
“You were more hungry than you let on.” Dracula tried to pull him off the man. He was thirsty himself and was not happy with letting his bride waste so much precious blood. Jonathan swiped at him and hissed, baring his bloody fangs.
Dracula grabbed hold of his chin, holding him steadily in place, even as sharp nails rose to scratch at his arm. What he saw in Jonathan’s eyes terrified him.
He saw nothing. No defiance, no bright spark of hope, no calculating plans or desperate searching for an escape route. He saw naught but animal fury.
“Johnny,” he said softly. There was no response, just more struggling.
“Jonathan, calm yourself.” He squeezed a little tighter, moving his other hand to hover warningly over Jonathan’s heart. Jonathan stilled.
They stood frozen for a time, staring into each other’s eyes as their captive bled out on the floor between them. Then Jonathan took a breath and his eyes moved down to Dracula’s arm, poised and ready to rip out his heart.
“Unhand me, Count,” he said with that brittle bravery of his. So thankful for his Johnny’s return to normalcy, Dracula complied without any complaint. Jonathan stepped back and instinctively smoothed down his front, then his brow furrowed as he took in what he was wearing. “What am I … Where did this blood come from?”
“You were quite messy with your meal just a moment ago,” Dracula said, indicating lazily towards the dead man.
“What? How did … I will not fall for your tricks,” Jonathan resolutely looked back to Dracula, fists clenched at his sides. “I know too well what you can do to a mind. I will not be fooled.”
“Is that blood in your mouth simply another trick then?”
Jonathan licked his teeth, froze, and then fled into the halls. Dracula let him go, hoping that the incident wouldn’t repeat itself.
