This chapter is slightly shorter than the others. Okay, it's a lot shorter. I apologize, I needed to get this out before another week passed by. Marching Band and school are taking over! The next chapter will hopefully be longer to make up for it. Thanks to all of my reviewers, they help to inspire me to keep going.

Chapter 4: A Slight Rekindling

Van Helsing awoke with a start, shaking his head to clear the fog. A pounding headache sufaced immediately and thrashed against his skull. Strong hands were clamped on his shoulders. Opening his eyes slowly, he came face-to-face with Vlad.

"Why are you here?" The hunter asked defensively, completely awake.

Dracula only chuckled heartily, shaking his head at him, "I forgot you aren't a morning person." He stepped back casually to allow Gabriel leniency.

Van Helsing was leaning against a tree, the corrugated bark creating patterns in his back. Glancing around the area, reeds and ferns were scattered throughout the field. He was even in completely different clothes than he was earlier. His leather coat wasn't anywhere in sight, his gray turtle neck and leather vest were missing too. All he wore were loose-fitting black pants and a ragged looking light brown shirt. His feet were clad in light leather mocassins. They felt odd to his feet, used to the heavy black leather of modern times.

"Why are you here?" Gabriel asked again, more sternly.

Dracula looked quizzically at him now, his head slightly tilted, "I was waking you up, you dozed off. What did you think I was doing?" He was wearing a plain, white silk shirt. It was open to his sternum, exposing a well-toned chest. Tight, dark navy pants hugged his hips. Tall, slick boots went up past his calf.

Van Helsing stared at him blankly. Waking him up? What happened to the heartless vampire Dracula? What in the world was going on?

"Where am I?" Van Helsing asked sharply.

"We are in a field, are we not?" Dracula replied sardonically, waving his arms in an encompassing motion. "We were supposed to return to the village an hour ago. I let you sleep in."

Van Helsing stayed firmly against the tree.

Vlad crossed his arms like an irritated mother herding her children. "Are you getting up or not? Did I not say we were supposed to be at the village an hour ago? Be better hurry."

The hunter's legs lifted him up without his consent, the other man turning around and heading off in an invisable path. Gabriel followed, unsure of why he wasn't stabbing the monster in front of him with a stick.

Now that he thought about it, Dracula looked a lot younger. His usually pale skin was handsomely tanned. There were no aged wrinkles on his forehead or around his eyes or nose. What was even odder was that Vlad was in direct sunlight. He didn't seem bothered by the rays at all, not even a little bit. Gabriel even had the feeling that Dracula was enjoying it. Was he dreaming? He must be, this wasn't possible.

"Are you coming?" Vlad asked, staring at him with his eyebrow raised.

Van Helsing stumbled slightly over a hidden vine in the brush. "Yeah."

After a good deal of walking with only Vlad talking and laughing animatedly and Gabriel either nodding or replying in short answers, they came to a small river. The river itself was somewhat wide, wide enough so you couldn't just simply jump over it without a thought. But yet, it wasn't so wide that you needed something really large to cross it with. Rocks jutted out here and there as a small waterfall surged and roared by. The water was extremely fast moving, and even dangerous if swept into because of the swift current. The sides were slowly being deteriated by erosion, the process moving along much quicker because of the fast moving waterway. A small muddy cliff stood over the river on each side by about two feet.

"Let's go." Van Helsing yelled, attempting to talk over the roar of the moving water.

"There's a log not too far up where we can pass safely, Gabriel. We've been over this trail many times. Are you ill?" Dracula asked, clearly concerned.

"This is faster." Van Helsing replied simply, heading for the jutted rocks. He readied himself to hop over them. Vlad swiftly snatched his arm, pulling him back. The hunter had to resist the urge to punch the man in the face; it would have felt quite satisfying against his knuckles at the present moment.

"Are you blind, Gabriel? If you slip because of a simple error, you could be seriously injured. Not only would it put you in a bed for weeks, but you would be useless in battle."

"It's fine." Van Helsing said slowly, jerking his arm out of the other's grasp and heading back to the edge of the river.

'What are you--I--what am I doing!' The hunter yelled agrily in his mind. He was confused beyond all reason, and he loathed being confused in such dire situations. His limbs and mouth no longer obeyed him. It was as if he wasn't actually himself...

Suddenly, like a smack in the face, he realized what was going on. This was a dream sequence, of real memories from the past. His heart began gradually began to beat faster. But could these dreams be trusted? They seemed awfully real to him, he could smell everything around him and could see with amazing clarity. It was as if he was really standing there, in the past talking with his rival in civilized conversation. What the vampire had said so passionately during their fight must have been true, Vlad and the hunter were indeed best friends in the past. It was almost too much for his jumbled mind to take in, but still he watched avidly to see what was going to happen next.

If what he thought was true, then the Gabriel standing by the river's edge was much younger than what he is now. Just seeing his compulsive attitude and actions told the hunter that he was quite niave and arrogant when he was a youngster.

But of course they weren't that young. Gabriel guessed that he was roughly around twenty-three years of age. He had already started to grow out his tangled locks, and they settled at about his shoulders. His gothic style hadn't quite evolved just yet. Vlad looked slightly older, perhaps a little more than twenty-five. Vlad already had his style of fashion picked out. Even though the sun beat down heavily on the field, the older of the pair chose to wear all dark colors except for his white shirt. His hair was already slicked back into a ponytail, but it was clearly a little longer than what it is in the present, and it rested at the smooth junction of his shoulder blades. If the circumstances were different, he would have chuckled out loud at both of their naive actions, but since this was his first experience with his past, he looked on with intense curiosity.

Vlad looked on with resentment, but said nothing else. Turning on his heel, he went upstream about fifty feet where there was a small, moss-filled log.

The hunter looking out on them both, shaking his mental head. It was just plain idiotic to go out on the surging river with only small footholds on slippery rocks. What in the world was he thinking? He should have known better. Hell, he knew better! But his apparant hot-headed attitude kept him from seeing that.

Gabriel hopped skillfully onto the first rock, then the next, and the next. Water sprayed on his legs and feet, but he kept moving. The roar of the water was deafening, and even if Vlad had called out to him or vice versa, it would be drowned out only inches away from their faces, lost forever.

Dracula safely bounded over the river with the use of the rotting log, making his way to the other side to watch Van Helsing jump swiftly from one rock to the next. Vlad watched with dark, wide eyes as Gabriel nearly slipped, his left leg dragging in

current. But somehow, just as quickly as he had slipped, he had everything under control again. Dracula hadn't realized that he had been holding his breath through the whole ordeal, and he let it out with a low whistle.

Van Helsing at last hopped to the side of the river, the soggy mud beneath the grass bending a little with the added weight. After straightening his back, he crossed his arms, an extremely smug grin covering his features. "I told you it would be fine."

Vlad's reply was a indignant snort. "You were helped by luck."

"That was skill, not luck." Gabriel replied just as indignantly. He lifted his chin up high, "With no thanks to you."

Dracula narrowed his eyes vehemently, "I do not find what you did to be a proud act. It was foolish."

Gabriel only shrugged his shoulders indifferently, "It was an adventure! You need to take risks, Vlad!" He yelled, throwing his arms in the air.

"My 'adventures' are on the battlefield, where they are worthy of being called risks," the taller of the pair replied, growling lowly.

There was no reply. Looking up, Vlad noticed that the large clump of mud where the hunter had stood was gone. And so was the hunter..

"..Gabriel.."

..tbc.

Cliffhanger! I'm evil, am I not?Read and Review to find out what happens!