(Dracula's viewpoint)

Well, this was...embarrassing. He hadn't been caught so off-guard since, hmm...never? But the human had detected him, hunted him, found him, chased him, and, finally, caught him. Instead of being killed, he'd been drug back to England, asleep in his coffin the entire trip.

An interesting trick, that. Where HAD the human learned it? Probably the same place where the man had learned how to control a vampire! Rudimentary control, something easily broken in a few more days with a bit more time to recover and a meal. What he needed was that recovery time and that meal.

Neither appeared to be forthcoming. He'd woken up, in amazing, breathtaking agony from the removal of the stake that had kept him asleep and inert for weeks. And he'd woken up severely constrained. Almost every single ability, abilities he'd used with thoughtless ease for centuries, was out of reach! Barely out of reach, and he'd set his meager resources to freeing up (successfully!) the most useful of them. And using those resources had set the rest quite firmly out of reach. For now.

And what now? The conversations he could overhear weren't promising. Correction...they were quite promising...promising an extent of discomfort he had absolutely no intention of experiencing. The handful of men spoke freely around him. His entire mind and body had been so still and so damaged that they assumed he was unconcious. Not hardly; simply resting, recuperating, thinking, planning, plotting, and shamelessly eavesdropping. Removing the stake had brought him back to temporary conciousness, lasting only a few agonizing moments before the Sun and damage had pushed him right back to sleep. But he'd only been asleep. And now he was awake, feigning sleep quite successfully, and learning far more than he really wanted to know.

Drat.

No, he was no science experiment for them to practice upon. No, no, not, never. That's what they planned for this vicious monster when it arose, hm? Well, he couldn't fake sleep forever. And he wasn't up to breaking those restrictions, not yet. Give him a nice hot fresh meal and it would end with a ghoul and a completely recovered and free vampire, as long as said vampire had a few hours afterwards to tinker with and test and break all those little piffling spells the humans had wrapped around him.

Humans. If he ever met a decent spellcaster among them, he'd go dance in the sun for a bit. By the time they got the experience and built up a good repetoire of power to actually DO something with magic, they'd gotten too old and senile to accomplish a damn thing. These weren't strong, but there were just so damned many of them! It was like fighting his way from from a coccoon of strings. Easy enough to snap each one, or even several at a time, but there were HUNDREDS of the bedamned things. Every single spell, charm, cantrip, and enchantment that Van Helsing could find had been used if it had the slightest possibility of helping. It wouldn't be too surprising to find one on him that was supposed to cure bad breath or remove warts.

What to do to keep from being poked, prodded, poisoned, and pestered until he'd gotten a decent meal, a rest, and his freedom?

And what to do AFTERWARDS? Getting his freedom and killing the household would give him a nice full belly, plenty of power...and then he'd still be stuck in England (and where the HELL on that damned island was he, anyways?), with a limited supply of soil, a coffin that he had nowhere convenient to hide, no one to protect and guard him during the day, and a small group of people that knew exactly what he was and how to catch him. Figuring out where he was, not too much of an issue. Finding those damned Harkers, Seward, and Lord Godalming would be an absolute pain in the neck. And Godalming had the resources to pour into a vampire hunt, and to make it successful, too.

No, he was not going through this again. Damn, damn, damn. In nearly five centuries, this was a completely novel experience for him. And one he'd rather not repeat.

And he couldn't stay here. It wouldn't take long for even stupid sheep to realize that the entire household had been massacred. If he just ate Van Helsing, then the household would recognize this. Eating the entire country had its attractions, but realistically...not feasible. And if he didn't eat Van Helsing, he'd be stuck with that man hunting him, and risking a repeat of this very embarrassing situation.

But wait. Van Helsing probably had no real idea what the effect of all those spells would do. He hadn't expected them to result in a moderately irritated temporary captive, after all. If he could convince Van Helsing that he was harmless, delay the man's attempts to start investigating his body and abilities...he'd have plenty of time to fully recover, remove those annoying magical bindings, and learn enough about the situation and location to start doing some serious planning and plotting.

Even better, he hadn't played with a human's mind in a very long time. A year ago, he'd have been so rusty at it that he'd have failed miserably. Breaking Renfield's mind, twisting Harker's mind, had taught him much about English and educated mindsets and thinking patterns. He learned from his mistakes, and wouldn't be breaking any more English minds. Influencing Van Helsing to do his wishes would be a challenge but a very achievable one...if he could buy those days to recover and a few healthy meals.

Lying here wasn't accomplishing a damned thing. The lackies Van Helsing had brought in to "assist in his research" were babbling off in a side room, well away from him by the sound of it. They'd been babbling for hours, and that alone made them worth killing. The bastards were nearly as nocturnal as a vampire... the rest of the staff, Van Helsing included, had taken themselves off to bed hours ago.

Time to start playing with Van Helsing's mind and emotions, and to determine how to either get back to Rumania, or resurrect his original plan and set up a secure home here to hunt from. With a soft snort for the utter uselessness of their attempts to hold him, Dracula casually sat up, snapped the manacles from his limbs, and wandered off to find Van Helsing.

x x xx x x

(Van Helsing's viewpoint) This was an unusual dream. Knowing he was dreaming wasn't unusual. Dreaming he was waking up? Not unusual either. Dreaming that there was a large mysterious lump on his bed, huddled by his legs and hidden under the spare blanket? That was a first. Well, in a dream, it wasn't like whatever was there could hurt him. An advantage of lucid dreaming was the ability to decide to ignore any horror the mind threw at him. His mind may have intended to frighten him, but the actual result was mild curiousity. And so he leaned down, grabbed the blanket, and pulled it away.

He'd half-expected his subconcious to have provided a buxom young lady. A large pet dog from his childhood that had often slept on his bed wouldn't have been a surprise. A monster would be nearly as likely as the feminine visitor, especially considering his recent activities. With this in mind, he noted the sleeping form of Dracula with only mild surprise. Not as interesting as a willing maid or two or four, but not a bad try for his subconcious, either.

Though why his subconcious had put it in the bed while still bedraggled and filthy and scrawny, he couldn't fathom. Probably for the same illogical reason the beast was curled up against his legs, arm tossed across his shins, head pillowed on the arm, and so soundly asleep that its mouth was hanging open and drooling on the bedclothes.

Yes, it WAS much like his childhood pet, down to the drool. Far too much like his pet, and he found himself reaching down to tousel the rough gray hair. Rough? Surprisingly soft despite the grime. Why was he dreaming about the vampire being a dog? Half-expecting the vampire to morph into a dog, he continued to pet it, then sat back to watch it, thinking about his childhood dog. He hadn't thought of it in years. The vampire was moving? Apparently his subconcious didn't realize how immobile a sleeping vampire was, because this one was wriggling slightly closer, brow slightly furrowed. Amusing...and he couldn't help it, he went back to petting it, grinning at the contented sigh as the beast stretched its neck out, clearly encouraging the attention. Sleepy red eyes blinked open, half-lidded and drowsy with contentment, then sagging shut.

A knock at the door announced the arrival of his servant with a morning breakfast tray. He'd never come to grips with the English concept of breakfast (fishheads? Really?), but their teas made up for it. His toast, eggs, jam-smeared bread, and sliced tomatoes were accompanied by a steaming cup and a teapot. He'd hoped that a dream might have had something more fantastic, but a sleepy vampire wriggling up against his knees in a bid for more attention was suitably fantastic, and more would just be greedy.

Too bad the vicious bastard he'd penned up down in the basement couldn't act like this. This...was almost cute. He petted his strange dream denizen with one hand, sipping his steaming, scented, beguiling tea from the other.

It was when the butler's strangled gasp finally registered, and the sheer detail of the dream penetrated, that Van Helsing realized it was not a dream. And that fine cup of English tea splattered across the floor as he hurtled off the bed and out of reach of the monster...who responded by mumbling a bit, cracking open his eyes, and wriggling slightly before burying his face in the warm sheets Abraham had so precipitously vacated.