in this light and on this evening {Tulio}

[Vlad Dracula]

Time was an arbitrary concept. Dracula knew, from experience, that you could spend a hundred years with the right person, or doing the right things, and it could feel like nothing more than the passing of a moment. And on the other hand, you could spend less than a day without the same person, or reminding yourself what it really was to be completely alone, and that one day could feel longer than any year or decade you had spent when you were really satisfied.

Glinda had gone. There was no mistaking that, she'd taken her things and she'd gone away, and even if she were inclined to come back, Dracula knew that they were both beyond that. He had pretended, feigned normalcy long enough. That charade was ended, that part of his life spent in denial was over. If she came back, he might tolerate her, but if there was a part of his heart she had touched, it was either cold and unfeeling now or it was mixed in with those pieces currently uncomfortably awakened to the feeling of breaking.

There was no way to explain a pain this profound to a mortal, and there was no way any mortal would be able to survive it if they were to feel it. It was as if the only part of him that had ever been worth perpetuating for a thousand years had been lost, and it wasn't just the piece of him that Tulio had been, it was...the sum of them. It was something greater than just...the combination of Dracula and Tulio in the same room, it was something much more than that, and at this point in time, it had ceased to exist.

When he walked, he walked without much purpose, unable to stay in the room that reminded him irritatingly of Glinda, of the things he had done to try and convince himself that he could possibly be satisfied with blonde curls and lipstick, with soft curves and high-pitched laughter, when in his soul he had always known that the only real counterpart to his own existence was everything opposite of those things. He walked the halls of the space station, mostly during the hours they called night in spite of the fact that it was really always night. He considered leaving, considered taking a shuttle of some sort and heading off for some planet, one of the few he hadn't seen.

And Vlad Dracula was a proud man - he didn't often admit his wrongs, and he certainly didn't admit when he needed something he couldn't provide for himself. But the longer he walked, the more he convinced himself that he did need something more, and that something was the dark-haired vampire he himself had created all those years ago. He needed Tulio. He wanted him. Dracula didn't like to be kept from the things he wanted...except this time, it was his own inhibitions separating him from that thing. That and the uncertainty of whether Tulio would even accept an apology should Dracula lower himself to offer one...Apologising he could survive. He could suffer through that if he knew it would work...but the idea of apologising to have it thrown back in his face, that ultimate humiliation and injury he could not excuse as a justifiable risk.

But then there was the thought that...whatever he could possibly lose if Tulio were to walk away from him once again...could it be more than what he was already living without?

It was probably that thought that brought him, subconsciously or not, to Tulio's door, but it was the doubt previously mentioned that kept him there, neither knocking nor walking away, staring down the door that he knew stood between them. A closed door...one that would likely never open again, but somehow...being at the closed door still felt closer to what was on the other side.

[Deleted]

Seconds, minutes, days, years... time passed, time stopped, it really didn’t matter. Tulio could not say how long he lay in his room, and the the only indication that time was still ticking was the gnawing hunger that had started to build in his stomach. He ignored it. He would not give in. He would not give in.

It wasn’t just his hunger he ignored.

He hadn’t fed since before his world had been shattered, his memories defiled; he hadn’t even left his room. He couldn’t bear the thought of running into Glinda again, couldn’t handle another conversation with her without losing it and ripping her throat out. It wouldn’t be much of a loss, certainly not to him, but he couldn’t do it because she was his, and despite how much Vlad had hurt him he did not wish to do the same in return.

Vlad. How could one word taste so sweet and so sour simultaneously? How could it bring such joy yet also such pain? Of course Vlad was the main reason Tulio secluded himself. To face the man again after everything... he wasn’t sure how he would handle it. He was angry, hurt, devastated... yet if his maker were to want him back... he was not certain he could refuse.

Lying upon his bed, eyes closed, hands folded on his chest, his skin paler and more wan than usual, he was the very picture of death, and he could not remember the last time he had felt less alive. Still, he was strong, much stronger than Glinda, and he wouldn’t even entertain the idea of ending it all as she so often did. His very existence was a gift, and he would continue it, broken and alone but...

... not alone...

He could feel him. Through the space and the steel that separated them, Tulio could still feel him. It could have been his mind playing tricks on him, his hunger driving him mad, but he swore he could feel him getting closer.

He tried to lay still, tried to ignore it, but could his heart beat it would have been pounding in his ears, could his lungs fill he would have held his breath. It was him.. He was here.

Rising from the bed, Tulio moved silently across his room. He walked slowly to the entry way, though why the hesitation he couldn’t pinpoint. Was it fear of facing Vlad again and having to relive the memory of their last meeting? Fear of further rejection? Or perhaps fear that it was all in his mind and that there was no one outside.

Reaching the door, the blue-eyed vampire stopped, but he did not open it. Raising one hand, he pressed it flat against the door and closed his eyes. The feeling had only intensified with proximity. It was true, it was real.

He was here.

[Vlad Dracula]

When you didn't need to breathe, the breaths you did take were that much more precious, and for a vampire, much more informative. He could breathe Tulio, fainter than if the door were not between them, trying to seal away the air they shared, but he was there nonetheless. It was a scent so familiar that it would have taken ten doors like this one to keep him from the knowledge that Tulio was there.

He let one cold hand rest on the equally cold metal, no warmth exchanged between the surface of his skin and the surface of the door, and, taking another deep breath of air, his senses sorting out the molecules of Tulio's presence from the useless molecules of air that were irrelevant.

Open the door he thought, he prayed, he...hoped, with everything he had, because he was proud, yes, he was belligerent and cruel and he was a whole plethora of things that no one in their right mind would ever describe as positive traits, but he was also in pain. He could not pretend that he was the same man he had been before Tulio. It was impossible, it wasn't realistic, and he could spend his whole existence trying to regain that independence and indifference to anyone else in the universe without succeeding. He could be bloodthirsty and unfeeling in every aspect except when it came to the man on the other side of that door, and that was where his indifference ended. He could spend the rest of eternity running, running from the memories that would never fade into time, from the feelings he knew he would never escape, from his undeniable need to have Tulio beside him.

He could. He was proud enough. He was good enough at surviving. It could be done.

But he didn't want to.

He pressed his fingertips against the door until dents appeared in the surface beneath them, little puckers in the metal that were the only evidence of the effort his body showed no sign of exerting. He let his head rest against the door beside his hand, as if he could do away with all the distance they had created between them just by being as close as he possibly could.

Open the door.

Have you not missed me? Have you not spent every moment of every year that has passed wishing that you were beside me? Has a single second honestly gone by when you were glad for the distance?

Open the door, Tulio...

[Deleted]

His cold hand upon the door transfered no heat to the metal beneath, but Tulio swore he could feel it. Closing his eyes he leaned his forehead against the door and breathed deeply. One could argue that he did not need breath to live, but at this moment he might have claimed this false. He needed to breathe, to fill himself with that scent that remained so distinct and familiar, no matter how much time passed. Still as intoxicating as ever. Slowly sliding his hand down the door, his fingernails raking into the metal, with his other hand he reached for the handle...

... and stopped. With everything that was him, the smell that was so distinctly Vlad, there was still the tiniest hint of her, and that was enough to give him pause.

What awaited him on the other side of this door? What fate would he be inviting in if he opened the door? He would like to claim that everything had changed that night when his maker had betrayed one of his most treasured memories, when he had sullied it, tainted it, that he had destroyed everything, but what had really changed? Tulio had been devastated, completely and utterly, but while he felt anger toward Vlad he could not truly hate him. The one thing that hadn’t changed, that never had and never would, was the deep, all consuming love he felt for that man. He could ignore it, he could put hundreds of leagues and years between them, but it would do nothing to change his feelings. They would never fade, they would never cool. When all else was gone, they would remain.

So where did that leave him? He was sure of his heart, but so much other uncertainty remained. If he opened this door he could be inviting heartbreak in once more.

His hand stilled on he door handle, his eyes remained closed and he stayed leaning against the door, completely unmoving, no longer breathing, just listening. A silent war raged within him but he could see no victor.

Why are you here...

[Vlad Dracula]

There was an echo of a feeling, a faint reminiscence of the things he had felt when he had been human. He remembered the feeling of breathlessness, of needing to inhale and being unable to catch quite enough breath to satisfy his needy lungs. And somehow...in spite of the fact that he would never need air again, that was what he felt in this moment. Breathless. Because the way human beings needed air, the way they began to gasp and panic without it, the way they did desperate, even violent things to get it when they didn't have it...that was the only way Dracula could describe the way he needed Tulio.

Dracula was, as we have mentioned, used to getting the things he wanted. And he had never gotten over the sting of Tulio walking away, had never adjusted to that, had never wanted that, no matter how easily he seemed to pretend that he did. It was a lie, the last...decades, he had lived decades in a lie because he could not bring himself to admit that something he had really wanted had gotten away. He had gone for years maintaining the careless façade that well, he had been fine with Tulio leaving, and he had let him because it just didn't matter. He could find someone else.

And that had been a lie. Of all the lies Dracula had ever told, this one was the bitterest, this one was the most grievous, because he had even tried to fool himself with it. Lying to himself had been destructive, it had eaten away at the parts of his heart he tried to pretend he didn't have, it had awakened darker parts of him that he kept locked away, and it had brought him closer to his humanity than he had been since the day he'd been turned.

Because the longer he stood there, the more convinced he became that it didn't matter if Tulio were to take him back, anything was better than keeping himself in this limbo, in this state of dishonesty and pain.

The metal of the door against his forehead was..was it cold? He wondered at the fact that he could even really feel cold anymore. He lifted his other hand, put it against the door on the other side of his face, and he wondered what he could say to make this right. Certainly he could think of a hundred things to say that would start the process, but none of them that his pride would allow him to say. Vlad Dracula did not apologise, especially when he still felt that he had been equally wronged long before the trespass he had committed himself. But he had to ask himself - what was more important? Tulio, or his pride?

He groaned out loud, possibly audible through the door, and he tore himself away from it, started back down the hall towards his own quarters, walked away.

He made it fifteen feet before he stopped dead in his tracks, fists clenched at his sides tight enough to have shattered anything in their grasp, and he stood for a moment, waging war with himself.

Then he turned around, strode back to the door, and slammed one fist into it, hard enough that the metal bent beneath his hand, leaving a vaguely rounded indent in the surface of it. His lips parted, fangs extended, and he growled, deep in his throat before willing himself back into control.

I was wrong. The words were there. They were the right ones...they didn't imply anyone's sole guilt, they didn't apologize. They were a statement of fact. Whether Tulio had been wrong, too, Dracula knew that he had done the younger vampire wrong as well. I was wrong. Wrong to try to hurt you the way I have been wounded. Wrong to try to replace you. Wrong to ever think that I could. Wrong to let you leave me in the first place.

"I was wrong." he murmured. It didn't even sound like his voice, but there it was, there the words were, set loose in the air, into the space between them. And in case it hadn't done the gravity of the situation justice, he raised his voice, a little too loud, laying his hand over the dent he'd made in the door. "I was wrong."

[Deleted]

Tulio couldn’t see Vlad, not with the cold steel that separated them, but he swore he could feel him, so the moment the older vampire moved away, he felt the loss. The door felt colder, and Tulio himself stepped back as well. He could hear the retreated footsteps and for a moment he panicked. Vlad was walking away, he was just leaving, just like that, without a word. Tulio wanted to lunge for the door, pull it open and demand his sire say something, say anything, but he felt rooted to the spot. It was happening again, it was happening all over again, and he was letting it.

He couldn’t do this again. Tulio always claimed to be stronger than Glinda, proclaimed her as weak for even thinking about ending her existence, but the very idea of continuing on now, without the one thing that made it worth it, the one thing that made him look forward to the sunset, his light in the darkness... he just didn’t know if he could do it anymore.

Falling to his knees on the floor, suddenly nothing around him mattered. There was no room, no floor, no endless hallway through the cold steel door. There was no sound, no light, no life. So consumed by his own grief, he didn’t hear the footsteps returning, didn’t feel the presence on the other side of the door, so when it suddenly dented inwards with a loud bang, he practically jumped back to his feet. For a moment there was silence, then those three words met Tulio’s ears, words so deep, so meaningful, so true.

For both of them.

Vlad had wronged him, there was no denying it, both recently and in the past, but Tulio knew he was not blameless. This had all begun with him and it had been so easy to blame his master for not understanding, for walking out, for replacing him with Glinda, but Tulio could have chosen to fight. That first night he had met her, when he had found that Vlad had created her, he had been so hurt, so angry, that he had walked away, but he should have seen it for what it was: a challenge, a statement, a point. He could have ended it then, could have fought to make Vlad understand his change of heart. He was as much to blame for these decades of torture, and it was time to accept that.

Approaching the door again, Tulio placed his own hand over his side of the dent. In a voice barely a whisper, scratchy and low from lack of use, he replied in kind. “So was I...”

Swallowing, the action almost painful, he slowly opened the door, his blue eyes finally meeting those of his maker.

[Vlad Dracula]

Love. The one thing that could tear nations apart, bring them together, ruin lives or make them beautiful, make a person stronger and better for feeling it, or leave him the weakest he'd ever been. It was deceptive. The love he had for Tulio, the love they had shared, had made him feel more invincible than he had felt in the entirety of his immortal existence. When he had Tulio by his side, nothing could touch him, could touch the two of them. They were stronger than the wind, they were faster than time itself, and nothing could stop them.

And the absence of Tulio…it was…It was having everything and being left with nothing. It was knowing the best parts of yourself and being forced to return to the darkest corners of what you had been before you'd discovered them. It was knowing a light sweeter than the sun only to spend indefinite years in a darkness more bitter than any night could possibly be.

The second the door cracked open, the moment Tulio showed the slightest sign of letting him in, a ray of that light threatened to break through the cloying darkness he'd been walking in for the past years. And when Tulio spoke, it was all Dracula could do to keep himself from closing every inch of distance between them, pulling Tulio against him as if he could press his way back into Tulio's heart.

Instead, he stood there, took a moment to try to determine what words to use. That in itself was heartbreaking - there had been a time when he and Tulio hadn't needed words at all, they had known everything there was to know about one another, had been able to say more in one touch than others could in an hour of conversation.

Perhaps…perhaps that was still the case. Dracula knew that there was much that would need to be mended in the way of trust, but they had been apart not even half as long as they had been together to begin with, and…

He lifted a hand, put it to the side of Tulio's face, let his fingertips find the familiar edges of the younger vampire's jaw, up to his ear, his thumb brushing over Tulio's lips, and he never looked away. And after a moment, his other hand came up to mirror it on the other side of Tulio's face, and he held him there, his eyes searching the blue in front of him.

I know you. I know your heart, I know your taste, your smell, I know what it is to hold you close enough that had we souls, they would be one, and I know that I have wronged you. A thousand thoughts could have been exchanged in that gaze, a thousand words in that one touch…but there was only one that made it past his lips.

"Stay."

[Deleted]

The moment he opened the door, the moment their eyes locked, Tulio knew his fate. He could pretend all he wanted that he was not willing to give in, that the hurt he had been caused was too much to forgive, but that is all it would be: pretend. Just being in Vlad’s presence, to look into those eyes, to fill his lungs with that distinct scent... even the idea of resistance was lost.

People often claim that they flounder in life, drowning, until someone is able to save them, to love them, but for Tulio it was the opposite. It was now he was drowning; his lungs, his heart, his mind... everything he was he could feel surrendering to the man before him. To feel that touch, so soft and tender, after so long was enough to banish any words he might have formed, and whether it was a betrayal of his own body or a blessing, he leaned his face into Vlad’s hand. Their gaze was locked in a battle of strength, both of them searching, neither one willing to give in, but when the other man spoke Tulio let his eyes close and lowered his head slightly though never pulling away.

He should be indignant, angry, but he couldn’t muster the fire. He should be sarcastic, mention Glinda, throw her back in his master’s face, but he couldn’t summon the venom. After everything that had happened, now that Vlad was here, saying so little yet so much, the anger and hurt had fled and all that remained was the desire, the love, and the regret of so much time lost.

“I have never left you...” was the whispered reply, and when Tulio opened his eyes again he had found that fire, but it was not from anger. Raising one hand between them, he lay it upon Vlad’s chest where his heart no longer beat. Whether it beat or not, Tulio had always been with him just as he himself had always carried the older vampire in his own heart. Even with time and space separating them, they had never been truly apart.

[Vlad Dracula]

As it turned out, there were some things more important in the universe than Dracula's need to prove himself right….perhaps only one thing, but that one thing was standing in front of him, and quite suddenly, nothing else was of the slightest importance any longer. What could possibly happen, what wrong could possibly be done, that wouldn't be made better by having Tulio beside him? Admitting that he had been wrong…in retrospect, it seemed such a small price to pay in exchange for what he was gaining, so very small that it was almost already forgotten. And now, what would he not say, what could he not offer, to ensure that he keep what he had just begun to reclaim as his own?

He could argue that yes, Tulio had left him, but he knew what the other vampire meant. He wasn't speaking in a physical sense - the connection Tulio and Dracula shared was physical but there was infinitely more to it than that, something that ran deeper than any touch, stronger than any touch and more intense than any night of abandon.

"Tulio," he said, taking time to savor it because he had gone far too long, spent far too much time in which saying that name aloud had brought him nothing but pain he had tried so desperately to deny, "if there is one thing in this universe that I know to be true, it is that you are the only person who has ever known me. You know that I cannot swear that I will never wrong you, cannot offer you eternal happiness without moments of discomfort, but I will swear this to you…I will try."

It didn't sound like him. They didn't sound like his words, didn't sound like something he could have ever spoken aloud, but it was difficult to put I would do anything for you into words without it sounding laughable and cliched. But it was what he meant.

He laid his own hand over Tulio's on his chest, the other falling to the small of the younger vampire's back, his eyes searching Tulio's as if he could find the right words within them. When he moved, he moved swiftly, faster than sight, twisting, turning them both to press Tulio against the door he had just come through. Lowering his head, he let his lips follow the skin of Tulio's cheek, down to his neck, lips and teeth parting slightly, breathing in the lover he had lost and found again. When he spoke, it was barely a whisper, murmured against Tulio's neck.

"If you would spare innocents, we shall spare innocents, if you ask me to shield them from the realities of life and fate, I will restrain myself. I cannot promise you perfection, but I can promise you that I will take you with me, I will keep you by my side until the end of this world and any other because there is no-one, no-one else I could endure eternity with."

[Deleted]

Hearing his name again from those lips, in that voice, sent an involuntary shiver down Tulio’s spine, and of course the declaration that followed did not disappoint. Vlad had never been one to do anything half way. Whatever his reasoning had been, whether to make Tulio rethink his change of heart, or to push him to fight, Dracula had turned another human being in an attempt to accomplish it. When he had decided to banish Tulio from his heart he had recreated their first meeting only to destroy the memory. Tulio could not claim that didn’t still sting, that their earliest memory would not forever now be tainted, but it was true, he did know Vlad, and if he could look past the pain he could understand the reasoning. And looking into his eyes, he believed the words. Vlad Dracula was a man of action, not of words, and it was this that made them that much more poignant. He was not offering false promises of perfection, he was not claiming that all their problems would disappear: he was simply admitting the truth that whatever they would face in the future, whatever slights they made against each other, it would be worth it just to be together.

For Tulio’s part, he was the yin to Vlad’s yang, and had always been more a man of words than action, so it only seemed fitting that while his master spoke volumes he could only nod in reply, for any words he could offer would pale in comparison. He wanted to make the same declaration, to promise that he would try, but saying “and I as well” was just lacking in heart and depth, no matter how true it was, nor how strongly he felt it, so he tried to say what he could with his eyes. Whether the message was clearly received or not, Vlad’s next move broke the tension and any other reservations that may have been hanging between them. This was the man he remembered, all hands and lips and teeth, and as much as Tulio had loved him, thought he might just love this new one more, the one who spoke with both actions and words, the one who didn’t just want to make him forget, but wanted to fix things as well.

Leaning his head back against the door behind him, Tulio closed his eyes and let out a sound somewhere between a sigh and and a moan. Snaking one arm around his lover’s back, he buried his other hand in Vlad’s hair, clinging desperately, holding him closer, needing to feel him closer yet. Too many years of fleeting glances the few times they met, or the barest touches, and now that the trend was finally broken, now that he could feel the whole breadth of that familiar body against him he wanted more.

And the words... they were the words he had longed for all those decades ago, the words he had needed to hear then and hardly less so now.

“I am not the boy you once loved,” Tulio finally breathed. Leaning his head forward, he brought his lips to his maker’s ear while his long fingers continued to stroke through his hair. “I have changed, but my love for you never has. Without you I have not lived, merely existed, and the very idea of eternity without you now is too torturous to bare.”