original fiction: The Sunrise (R for Suicide, UST, Dracula/OMC)
This is the Picture which inspired me.
It was made by the very talented odlaws on tumblr, at this post.
The author said: "no im not making a one sided romance with dracula and an early 1960’s surfer kid
no i didnt just draw the kid describing the sunset to him..",
So I made this happen (because I am a rebellious bitch).
Brad is beautiful. Absolutely stunning. Blue-eyed and cheerful, and so impossibly warm. They spend hours and hours speaking to each other, late at night, just talking. Brad is his first (human) friend in a very, very long time. He's sweet, down to the bone, has a habit of tucking one particular errant curl behind his ear, and never, never asks why he can't come out for breakfast, or lunch.
There's a bad stretch, where he has nowhere to go. He was once a Count, with a castle all to himself, but in this modern age, abominations are not allowed to sign title deeds. Brad lets him move his 'trunk' into his already cramped room, in a small bed & breakfast, on the beach. He had never had many belongings to start with. Sure, he had owned the castle, but it had not belonged to him. Not much of the furniture or things inside had meant much to him, either. It was just him, and his trunk, and a few books. A picture of his family, from before.
He'd lived in so many castles he doesn’t even remember, and he’d traveled by ship and by plane and cargo holds were never fun. But there was something special about having a little bit of space to himself, at the foot of Brad's bed. It had taken a little bit of explaining, and a little bit of creative thinking. Brad didn't have space for another bed in his room, and Dracula had gold, but Brad would never accept it. So he'd said that he just needed to keep some stuff in Brad's room, till he found another place to settle, and that he'd find somewhere else to sleep, where it wouldn't bother Brad.
Brad protests, of course. They're bros, and bros don't let each other down when they're in trouble. Bros look out for each other, he says, and Vlad is a good friend. He'd do the same for Brad, wouldn't he? He would, without a question, because he. Because he feels warm, when he can feel Brad's pulse fluttering beneath his soft skin, and because he hasn't felt warm in hundreds of year. Because Brad makes him forget. Forget that he is lonely, and exhausted, and cold, and so tired of being cold. Brad makes him forget that he's been paying for his sins for such a long time.
Brad doesn't owe him anything, though. Not like he owes Brad. He will not impose, if he can help it. Brad doesn't say anything, even though his 'trunk' looks like a coffin. Vlad loves him a little more, for it. So he retreats to the coffin during the daytime, when Brad is out, and when Brad comes home, covered in sand and salt and smelling like freedom and the ocean and the sun, Vlad is waiting for him, outside his room, because he has learned to have boundaries over the course of the past centuries.
Brad had a girlfriend. She ran off to Paris, to be with a French Man. Brad is upset for a few days, and then he is not. He smiles like summer, and sings in the shower, and always, always comes home after the sun sets. Not a minute before. Vlad is glad for it, if it is Brad’s simple intuition. Because if Brad came home before the sun set, Vlad would have to spend the night in the coffin, and listen to Brad pace, and worry, and then finally sleep. It is a luxury he cannot afford, not with all the gold in the world. It has been a long time since he felt the need to touch himself. He is a bloodless creature, and he has not fed in many years. He supposes he is waiting for the end, whenever it may come. But Brad sets him on fire from the inside, and he wants, so badly, what he cannot have. Brad makes him feel what he imagines it must feel to die, for a creature like him. For Brad, he would face any holy flame.
Brad and he still talk. They talk for hours, and Brad tells him about how surfing feels like flying, and how he wishes he could share it with Vlad. He doesn’t ask, and Vlad loves him so much that his immortal heart could burst. If he asked, Vlad would say yes, because he cannot refuse this man, and then he would be revealed. Vlad tells him about Europe, about travelling. About his mother, and the daughter he never had. It is a common story, for this era. Of reckless love, and endless war. Brad worries, and frowns, and then he goes surfing, and when he comes back it’s like the slate has been wiped clean.
When Vlad speaks about his almost-daughter, glossed over and choked out, Brad puts his hand on Vlad’s knee, and it feels like a lightning bolt connection. Time has not healed his wounds, because time is not kind to creatures like him. But for the first time, the heat he feels at Brad’s touch can begin to cauterize his open sores. He is so tired of the pain.
Brad talks about surfing like the Ocean is his lover. Vlad has travelled the world, and has seen more things than can be imagined. Brad would not be the first to take a vow of chastity for the Ocean. But Brad loves surfing differently. Like it is something without which he has no context. He loves it like Vlad loves him.
Vlad can never say that out loud.
He has no one to whom he can say it, anyway.
They usually sit on the rooftop, accessed through a side window. Brad’s body is like a work of art, when he climbs up the roof, muscles stretching and taut, t-shirt riding up to show glimpses of soft, golden skin. Vlad clambers up behind him, with as little grace as possible. If he is to use his full range of skills, well. Humans are always slightly put off by it. So he pretends to struggle, and lets Brad help him up. It feels like lying, or cheating. But what is this one small lie, in the whole scheme of things, anyway?
The cool air clears their minds, and the constant, regular motion of the waves lapping on the beach is hypnotic. They linger. Sometimes Brad dozes. Vlad watches over him, to make sure he keeps breathing. It’s so incredibly important that he keeps breathing. There is no reason to doubt it, but still. Vlad never touches him. That would cross a line. But sometimes, when Brad falls asleep with his head on Vlad’s shoulder, he lets himself touch the younger man’s soft hair, bleached blonde from days in the sun, shimmering like silver in the moonlight.
He memorizes the scent of Brad, and the feel of his trusting pulse.
He has struggled, in the past, with his baser instincts and his unholy urges. He has fought himself, and lost. But the consequences of failure here are too great. Brad smells like nirvana, but Vlad is resigned to eternal damnation, and he will never taste that crimson elixir.
It is enough to be so close to it. It is enough to know that Brad will live a long, and good life, even if it doesn’t include Vlad.
They linger, in more ways than one. They are lazy. They wait till the sun is creeping up, till the waves are more blue than inky black. Vlad waits, and pushes his luck each and every time, grasping onto each extra second with Brad, before he has to return to his dark prison.
He hates his cell. He hates it, and he cannot sleep. So he listens to footsteps, and wonders what it would feel like to have the sunshine touch his skin. Some would say it was the worst idea, for a creature with his affliction to have come to a place where the sun is always present. He thinks it is foreshadowing, and that God, if he exists, is writing his novel with great aplomb. It is foreshadowing, and inevitable, and such a relief.
That one day he opens his eyes to darkness, and decides.
He has two secrets in this existence, and he has one friend. One love. There is an imbalance, and he now has a back-up plan, if things go wrong.
He waits for Brad to return with a new urgency, because for the first time in a very long time, he has less time than Brad does. He has a deadline. A literal dead line.
Brad doesn’t seem to notice anything is different, when they’re on the roof, and Vlad begins.
“I was born in-”
“I know.”
And there it is, the train thrown off its tracks before it could even leave the station. But there is such a peaceful look on Brad’s face, like this is of little consequence, and it’s not anything of any surprise that his companion is a thing from horror stories and fiction. Brad looks like he doesn’t care, that he is an abomination.
“Then you know what I am?” he asks, tentatively, his entire plan derailed. He had planned it so carefully, that now he has no idea what he will do.
Brad nods, and looks at him fondly. “Dude,” he says, warm, and friendly, and familiar, “I’ve known forever. I just figured it was private, and that you didn’t want to talk about it. You’re still just Vlad,” he finishes, simply, like he hasn’t just shaken his world and the stone foundation it stands on.
Vlad hasn’t cried in all his memory. He still doesn’t cry. But he feels like it. It too much. It’s just, too much for him to handle. It’s breathtaking and it feels like his emotions are overflowing and he exhales, like someone is forcing the air from his lungs, even though he technically doesn’t breathe. Old habits have always been hard to break.
“I want to see the sun rise,” he says, he whispers, because he is suddenly scared. He is so terrified he feels like his knees have locked into place, and like he’s hot and cold and shaking all at the same time. He has been alive for so long, he’s not sure he knows how to be dead.
But Brad blinks, and looks confused, and then he looks like he understands, and then he looks devastated. It’s- it’s unbelievable. Because it means that Brad will miss him.
The words don’t even make sense, in that order. Brad, his friend, this man, this wonderful, ordinary, perfect human being, will miss him. Brad doesn’t want him to go. For a minute, it’s enough to make him re-consider. He thinks very hard about whether he wants to leave Brad, or whether it would be better if he just stuck around. He doesn’t really have a deadline, after all. Nothing serious, what would a few more decades be, in the grand scale of things, right?
But he has been feeling the anger, and the desperation clawing inside him, to get free. He has been distracted, and overwhelmed, but the anger is still there. The same anger which made him into this monster, all that time ago. If he doesn’t go now, this morning, his resolve will crumble. He won’t - he doesn’t know what he will be in 50 years time. It’s now, or never.
His metaphorical deadline has become real.
“Will you stay with me?” he asks, involuntarily, because that will make it so much easier. But Brad is his friend, and he should want to spare his friend some pain, but god, he really needs him to be there, when this happens.
Brad makes a little broken noise, and Vlad is so sorry, but he can’t take it back, because Brad is nodding, and reaching out to hold him. It’s like every dream come true, all at once, ever fantasy. Brad is so warm, and the full body contact is so much more than the simple touch of a single hand, or an accidental brush of a shoulder. It’s overwhelming, and this is not something he says lightly, after his long life.
The hours dwindle rapidly, slinking into the shadows as the light approaches. The nights have never flown so fast. Brad does not let him go for one second. They sit there, tangled in each other, and Vlad takes comfort in the steady beating of Brad’s heart, against his own, hollow chest. He still smells like Nirvana, but Vlad will not taste him.
Brad is facing the sun, when it comes up. Vlad can see the tips of his hair going golden. He feels slightly warmer than usual, and for the first time he is unprepared. This is unprecedented. He has done everything, and seen everything, but not this. If there is a god, it will be tidy, and painless. Has he not suffered enough? He does not want Brad to see anything that will haunt him.
Brad is talking into his ear, a non-stop stream of commentary. His wide hands are stroking Vlad’s hair, and his lips are pressed into Vlad’s skin, his breath tickling Vlad’s ear. He steps a little closer to the extraordinary man, presses in a little tighter than is normally acceptable, and lets his words wash over him.
He is describing the sunrise to Vlad, because they were thinking that it would be more painless to not face it. If mortal eyes burn after 12 hours of darkness, Vlad’s eyes will bleed after centuries in the dark. But Brad is describing colours which Vlad hasn’t seen in so long, that his heart is breaking. He wants, and he aches, and when Brad says, “Gosh, I wish you could see it,” he can’t take it anymore.
His daughter had had red hair. He wants to see the red blush over the ocean. He wants to see Brad’s face in the golden sunlight. He doesn’t want to let go of Brad, though, so he manoeuvres them, still holding tight to the other man.
His eyes are burning and it feels like explosions in his mind, and Brad’s voice is dimming slightly, and he’s not sure whether it’s because Vlad can’t hear, or because Brad is actually slowing down. He pulls away, hands still clasped firmly, and feels like he has achieved something.
The sunrise, in all its breathtaking glory, looks the way it feels to hug Brad. It is warm and golden and burning and glorious and it’s as difficult as describing colours to a blind man. Vlad feels like a blind man who has been blessed with vision for the last minutes of his life. It’s sensational, and incredible, and his heart is swelling with joy and with pride, and he can’t help it-
Just as he feels his flesh soften, and burn, he leans in and presses his lips against Brads’, in one, soft, chaste motion. It doesn’t mean anything, not the way Vlad wants it to. But Brad will understand. And then it’s too much for his body to take, the heat, and the feelings, and the burning sunrise.
Brad’s lips were chapped, and torn from where he used to bite them. They taste like sea-salt, and a little like heaven, and blood. Vlad is so glad that they are the last thing he knows.