This is a thank-you gift for Beth Winter on LJ, for polluting my brain with even more vampires than I had before.

Also, sidenote - I'm using Dracula's correct forename; Vlad as opposed to Vladislaus in the film. There is also reference to Dracula's real life biography as well, just because he was a fascinating character.

Oh, and yes, implied slash :P

It seemed like a moment of a nightmare caught and frozen in time.

Neither of them moved, nor looked away from one another for what seemed like an eternity. By and by, Vlad's eyes dropped to the hand pressed to his chest, then returned to the face of a man he had believed his more-than-friend.

His face unreadable, Gabriel's dark eyes were shadowed with some emotion that even Vlad could not read and his hand trembled. It was hardly the most dramatic gesture, but Gabriel - ah, beloved, foolish Gabriel - seldom trembled.

"Why?" His voice was steady he noted, detachedly amused by such trivialities.

"You know why," Gabriel's voice was as steady as his own. Damned man could - at least - have the civility to sound aggrieved. His brow furrowed and he took an expected breath, opening his mouth to speak, "Vlad…"

A bloody laugh trickled between Vlad's lips. "Never say you are sorry, Gabriel," he murmured, fingers wrapping around Gabriel's hand. "You know I despise such triteness."

Somehow, his other hand, achingly heavy, dragged itself up Gabriel's arm, touching the warm, heavy silk of Gabriel's hair. Dark eyes flicked sidelong, as if it were the touch of a serpent.

"Always doing your duty." It was not without irritation that he noticed his voice had chosen this moment to grow fainter. Leaning against Gabriel's hand, he brushed a ruddy smear against his lover's lips. "Hmm?"

"You should sit."

His mouth curved ironically. "Because it will clearly benefit me now," he murmured.

Yet, the ground seemed to rise to greet him. He laughed faintly at the strong breadth of Gabriel's arm around his torso, such a bitter mockery. Beneath him, the leaves didn't seem as cold as he could recall.

"Leave me."

On one knee by his side, so warm, broad and deceptively safe, Gabriel shook his head. In Vlad's grip, his fingers shifted. The instrument of Vlad's death shimmered dull red by the frosty moonlight.

Around them, the wind was picking up, shrill and biting, ripping Gabriel's tawny hair free from its restraints. Dancing flecks of snow caught on his lashes and lips, the stain of Vlad's blood on his lips leaving him stark and feral.

Vlads could not recall him looking more beautiful nor more deadly.

"Go," he whispered, icy fingers clutching Gabriel's wrist. "Let me have my end with a little… dignity."

Some strange expression moved like a shadow across Gabriel's face and again, he shook his head. His wrist was drawn from Vlad's grip, his other palm curling around Vlad's right hand.

Aware of bleak darkness seeping onto the edge of his vision like ink staining water, Vlad's tried to shake off Gabriel's hand. "Leave me!" He choked over bubbling blood. "Damn you, leave me!"

"I have to wait." There was such emptiness in those words that Vlad almost felt sorry for the man who had killed him.

"Ha!" He closed his eyes, recollecting. "Proof." His eyes flicked open, his smile a cold grimace. "Take it."

Gabriel's features tensed. "I…"

"You think I can be saved now?" He laughed, mocking, fading. "Take it."

The hesitation, the bleakness in Gabriel's eyes, was expression enough. He forced himself to watch those familiar features, the moment when that implacable face gave way to grief making him flinch more than the blade.

Dark eyes met his once more. "It's done," Gabriel said quietly, hand gently cradling the one so recently maimed.

Vlad's lips slid into an emotionless smile "I'm not dead yet," he whispered, his voice tight with more than simply physical pain. "I can still feel." He tugged his hand free of Gabriel. "Go."

"You shouldn't be alone," Gabriel looked stricken.

Laying his hand on his chest, he could feel the damp warmth adding to the dull stain already blooming there. "Gabriel, go," he said quietly, simply. He turned his face aside. "I would rather not have to beg."

Yet, when he heard the cat-like tread move away, heard the crack of twigs and branches underfoot, he had to stifle the cry rising in his throat to call his lover back.

It was not meant to end like this, not at all, he knew. So much still remained to be done and he had barely taken back his own lands. They were damaged, in need of his guiding hand, to mend the ills and now…

Now, it would go undone and the Turks would come again.

He closed his eyes, almost laughing faintly. After all he had survived at the hands of the Turks and even at the hands of his own kin, to die at the hands of his lover was not something he had ever foreseen.

"Stay a while." The strange voice spoke out of silence.

Able to see little beyond the swathe of black before his eyes, Vlad's heavy lids lifted weakly. A hand swept before his eyes and he could see as clearly as if it were broad daylight. A second gesture soothed the suffocating heaviness in his chest.

A face as strong, noble and striking as Gabriel's, yet utterly unfamiliar was regarding him from less than an arm's length away.

It took a moment for it to become apparent that he was untouched by the mortal things, the screaming wind touching him as little more than a soft breeze, his clothing a loose shirt and breeches. Even his feet were bare on the snow-spattered leaves.

He smiled. "You put too much trust in my brother."

Though the impulse to curse the man and send him hence was strong, a question begged an answer, "Brother?"

"Dear, good-hearted Gabriel," the man murmured, reaching out to drag warm knuckles down Vlad's cheek in mock-tenderness. "Even though you were his lover, he brought you to this end." Pale golden hair swirled around the man's face as he shook his head solemnly. "And with so much yet to be done."

"It was done for a reason," Vlad murmured faintly.

The beautiful man laughed.

"A reason?" A hand scorching as damnation slid beneath his neck, cradling his head as a father would his child. "An unquestioned order from a faceless figure a hundred miles from here. What of the protection and help he claimed to offer?"

Unable to fight, Vlad was drawn into an embrace so gentle and secure he wondered vaguely why he had sent Gabriel from his side when he needed his warmth more than ever.

A second hand was laid over his, pain shooting like lightning through his chilled body, yet he did not cry out.

"This," The silken whisper was in his ear. "Does not seem like protection." His palm depressed and Vlad jerked, gagging. "This does not seem like love, Vlad. Not like that which I would give."

"Leave me," his whisper seemed to lack the conviction he willed it to have, his body fading beyond salvation now.

Those lips - like hellfire - touched his ear. "I heard your every whisper, Dracula," The words poured into his senses like liquid sulphur. "Every desperate longing to preserve your land, when it seemed no other would heed you, not even your beloved Gabriel or his God. Do you deny me now?"

Blue eyes, dull, watched him warily. "Even you cannot give life to the dead," he murmured. "My time is done."

"And the Turks still come," the beautiful creature - no man, he could not possibly be with such promise and damnation in his eyes -was persuasion incarnate, voice silken and beautiful. "Who else could repel them but you, young Dracula?"

Vlad drew a strained breath. "What could I do?" he whispered, the taste of metal filling his senses. It felt like bands were twisting around his chest, every breath a challenge.

Bloodied fingertips traced up his throat, twin tracks of scarlet staining his grey-hued skin. When those fingertips lifted his chin, he could not tear his eyes from the man's, eyes as ageless as Gabriel's.

"Trust me," the beautiful man murmured. "With me by your side, the Turks will never have your lands." The touch of lips to his was brief, perhaps naught more than delirious imagination. "You have little time, Vlad, before you are even beyond my help. Think of your land, of your people, of what will become of them when the Turks break through the paltry defences."

"Yes…" the word slipped passed his lips as quiet as a dying breath.

The flicker of triumph in the man's eyes went unnoticed as lips touched Vlad's in wordless reward, scalding in their heat. "Your are mine, then," he spoke softly, yet his tone made it sound as if it should have been a victory cry, ringing through the forest

Uttering a faint sound in his throat, Vlad's eyes fell unwillingly closed as his mouth was claimed, invaded. His flesh cracked, dry and pained, wept fresh blood, vivid and bright in the hazy grey twilight he seemed bound in.

Warm hands touched him, his heart, his throat, his sides, yet now, it felt like every breath he had left was slowly being ripped from his lips. Convulsions tore him apart and he felt the bitter sting of tears.

Beyond the pain, beyond the blackness suffocating him more and more by the moment, he heard, or perhaps felt the words sink into his consciousness; "Sleep now, my little Dracula. When you wake, I shall await you."

There was something in those simple words that made him recoil even as his senses began to fade. Death had been right. Whatever he had done, whatever he had said…

"God forgive me." the mumble caught in his throat.

As he fell into blackness, he heard the laughter of the Devil.