"Darkness Shared"
Work: Van Helsing
Character(s): Dracula, Van Helsing
Category: Angst, romance
Rating: PG
Imagine loving someone so completely that for this one person, you would lay down your life; that you saw your beloved's face every time you closed your eyes to sleep. Imagine this love fully requited so that the nights were bliss and the mornings even sweeter.
No doubt a bit difficult for you to picture Gabriel, with your new ruthless life.
Now imagine killing that one person you loved. Imagine slaying him in cold blood, and feeling no remorse even as warm crimson spilled over your hands and soiled your sleeves.
Ah, but this should not be so hard to picture, lost memories or none, for you have done this before. You did it to me.
Many years before, you and I were far less cruel, far less bloodthirsty than we now find ourselves. For now we have nothing, now we are alone. Then, we had each other if nothing else. Yes, there was a time when Vladislaus and Gabriel were inseparable: the best of friends under the watchful eyes of the holy men who trained us, and so much more when we escaped their presence. I was on your side then, believe it or not. You were the world to me, Gabriel, and the many tender words whispered in the darkness verified that you felt the same of me. For the darkness was the only place we could be together, it seemed. Strange, is it not? We have always been creatures of the dark, you and I; we met in the dark for love once, and now we meet in the gloom of the castle for hatred, for revenge.
I adored you, I would have died for you, and yet as the Fates would have it, I died rather by you. You see, I was beginning to tire of the Church's restrictions, and how the leaders sought to control us. I knew I was meant for bigger things than pottering about slaying beasts at the whims of a handful of old fools. It was a thankless, difficult life, and the more I went at it the more I despised my servitude. After all, there was a whole world outside what we knew, a world full of excitement, not solemnity and duty. I admired greatly how you had never complained, but you were the more introspective of the two of us, whereas I have always been a rather outspoken person.
When my displeasure became known, a good number of monks were sent to help "return me to the righteous path." They told me that just because the life God had chosen for me was difficult did not mean I should try to escape that which had to be. They promised that all I went through to protect the world would be rewarded after death. But I was not a particularly excellent hunter of monsters, preferring cunning to force, and I felt that this was not the life I was meant to live. I therefore told all the monks quite calmly that I was the one who would choose my path, not God, and certainly not any of them.
I have learned, since then, that to speak too soon is a dangerous thing. I tried to leave; you did not make any attempt to stop me, but the clergymen did. The man who was cardinal at the time refused to let me leave his little society. He had me locked up to ensure that I could not get away and sell valuable information to the darkness with which he believed I had myself allied. But in time, I escaped, eager to fulfill whatever great deeds awaited in the outside world. Unfortunately, I had to kill two monks in the process, and from then on I was a marked man. The cardinal declared me a rogue and a heretic; he put a price on my head; but worst of all, he sent you to destroy me. The blind old man believed that I had a pact with the devil, and so he told everyone in the society, but this was not so – not yet, at least. You were my Gabriel, my angel, and you I never would have harmed.
You were always one to get the job done under any circumstances, and so you set out straight away. You tracked me down, and I was joyous to see you. I knew you of all people would understand me – or so I thought. Your face was grim, not happy as I thought it might be upon our reunion. I did not at first know why.
One stab to the back later, both literal and figurative, I knew full well. I struggled to draw vain breaths, fell to my knees, looked up at you in disbelief. "I am sorry," you whispered as I finally lay helpless on the ground, but your eyes were cold and held no sorrow.
It is no small wonder why all detest and fear you, why they call you murderer. We are both killers, but you, Gabriel, are a betrayer.
You crossed yourself over me as I lay dying, and when you were certain I was gone, you added insult to injury. You cut off my third finger, taking my ring as proof to the cardinal that I was dead. I have liked to think that you took it for other reasons as well – why, you wear it still, though you do not know why – but such things are not important now.
The cardinal was much pleased with you, naming you the Left Hand of God for taking down without hesitation someone you had cared for, but who was clearly a spy of the devil.
Did you truly believe I was evil, Gabriel? Our mission was only ever to destroy that which was evil, and though I know not what the cardinal said to make all believe in my malevolence, he must have somehow swayed you too. Did you ever think of me afterwards? Did you ever look at the ring on your hand and recall better times? Did you ever feel guilty for murdering the man you had loved, regardless of what was said about him?
And yet it was not over for me. The cardinal's words came true, and the devil, as you say, gave me wings. Now I am Lord Dracula, feared and abhorred. My life is a lonely one, as is the life of Van Helsing, as were both our past lives before we found each other. I have had many wives since my rebirth, and I have loved none of them. They are beautiful, this I cannot deny, but their uses are few. However, they do share one very admirable trait: they are endlessly loyal. There is nothing they would not do for me; they would stake themselves through their black hearts if I asked it of them.
I do not love them. Oh, Gabriel, how I have tried, but I can feel nothing anymore. I have crystal-clear memories of you and me in days past, but I am as an impassive viewer. Even as I look upon the face which I once held the most beautiful in all the world, I remember loving you, but I feel no longing, no pangs of melancholy.
See what you have made me, Gabriel?
Now I only wish revenge. All that is left in me is anger and hate, and the desire to destroy; I have become exactly what they said I was so many years ago. Such is the price of immortality, I suppose.
You look upon me now, and you feel these same destructive emotions towards me as well. You remember nothing of what was, and somehow I believe you would be disgusted to know. You only see in me Dracula, the bloodsucking monster, and none of Vladislaus to whom you swore love in every touch and every glance.
But now in this grim darkness it is time for us to show who we truly are today: I, the unfeeling killer, and you, the traitorous murderer. For I shall break you, Gabriel called Van Helsing, surely as you broke my faith in this world.