DISCLAIMER: Hetalia: Axis Powers – Hidekaz Himaruya

AND Dracula – Bram Stoker

CASTLES IN THE AIR

SIX

25 JUNE 1897

I awoke at midnight to find Vladimir dressed handsomely in foregone finery, holding his bejeweled hands out to me with a mischievous smile on his face. He would not let me dress in my own sober clothes—the three-piece suit of a respectable working-class man, which I had arrived in—which were threadbare from frequent wear. Instead, he fastened me into the layered, ruffled costume of a bygone age, brightly coloured and delicately adorned and stiff as fibreboard. It was his turn to laugh as I turned from side-to-side, wriggling and scratching and failing to lift my arms up higher than my shoulders.

"I look like a courtesan!" I complained. "I can barely move in this ensemble, and you expect me to dance?"

Vladimir's laughter was enchanting and infectious as he led me by the hand into the grand ballroom, where a hauntingly beautiful melody was humming through long, brass pipes. The pungent instrument looked like an ancestor of the modern steam-organ, a monolith of shining metal and vibrating cords installed into the north-facing wall of the commodious ballroom. Immediately, I wanted to know how the instrument played, eager for the chance to dissect it, but Vladimir denied the request, gently chastising me as he positioned my hands upon his person.

"I did not bring you here for a scientific endeavour," he chided, cupping my cheek to attract my attention. He turned my head and squeezed my cheeks. "I brought you here to dance with me."

"I do not know how," I admitted, aware of the rush of blood to my face. Vladimir's eyes dilated in reply, but the only thing he said was:

"I will teach you."

Before I could protest, we were moving together—dancing, I presumed. I felt foppish and foolish as my steps fell heavily, clumsily, and I held fast to Vladimir for balance. "Relax, my dearest," he said, but I could not. I was tense and graceless in my attempt. In that moment my feet betrayed me, for they had always been sure and sound beneath me when I walked, or hiked, or boxed, but when I needed them to impress my beloved, I failed utterly. I trod on him, and, looking quickly up from my feet, I smashed my forehead against his.

"I am useless at this!" I burst in mortified apology, quickly removing myself from his embrace. "I am sorry."

"I am not," he said, smiling sweetly.

Sweet is not a word with which I had ever thought to describe the vampire, for sweetness is the territory of women and children, not night predators, but in that moment it fit him perfectly. His look was disarming, his feelings laid bare in the heavy-lidded eyes, dark and sparkling, and the curl of his lips.

"I love you like this, Boris," he confessed. "Human," he emphasized, "and vulnerable, and fallible, and raw as ore."

"I do not know what you mean," I replied, at a loss.

"Then we are on very unequal terms," he said, reaching for me, "for I understand you perfectly. Now come."

A wicked glee seized him as he took my hands, and, instead of the structured dance demanded by the music's tempo, he began to swing us both around in wild circles, using his weight as a counterbalance to mine. It was reckless, dangerous even. His movements were erratic, no longer the mathematical steps of convention. I did not realize my preference for it until I remembered a small boy: the memory of myself as an eight-year-old, spinning with reckless abandon as a gaggle of country musicians played a reel. That boy was shrieking with laughter, and smiling the same way Vladimir was now. His luminous face filled my vision as my feet rolled beneath me, finding easy purchase in the familiarity of chaotic movement. His hair whirled in a curtain of curls, the candlelight catching the gleam of polished buttons and spider-webbing of lace cuffs. Instinctively, I dropped one hand to his waist, the other clasped in his hand, and then I was the lead, guiding my lord in the half-remembered dances of my childhood. I began to smile without immediately noticing, feeling it upon my face and in the flutter of my heart. Without warning, I lifted Vladimir into my arms and began to spin us together, drowning in the combined peals of our laughter.

I do not know how long we spent in the ballroom, playing like children, but by daybreak I was flushed and breathless, and Vladimir had lost both of his shoes. We fell into bed together, too exhausted—on my part—to do more than kiss and bid each other sweet dreams.

JULY 1897

If I may be so bold as to speak for my lord: our affection for one another only grew throughout the intercourse of each day, until I could say with confidence that he was the very dearest person I had ever known in my life. I never wanted for joy or love in his company, and, on his part, he never held my fragile mortality in contempt.

I loved him. I loved him earnestly with every beat of my mortal heart.

I felt him in my mind and in my soul, as if he was a part of my very being.

It may be true that there is nothing that people are so deceived in as their own affections, but I did not care. I was certain of my love for the vampire, and hoped he was equally as fond of me. Though, I knew also that it would not matter if he was not. I loved him—was enthralled by him—and would have begged to stay by his side if ever separation threatened us, for I did not believe I could live without him.

He fueled me with life as much as my life-blood fueled him, and, as long as we were together, I knew I would never want for anything else.

I spoke to him of my family and friends, even as I forgot their faces, their scents, the sounds of their voices. I spoke of my village and the beauty of a country sunrise, even as it was eclipsed by the moon in my mind. I forgot that I was ever worried by the sight of blood. I forgot the feeling of fullness; what my body felt like when it was not in some way numbed. I forgot what strength was as my body wasted, my energy ebbed. I learnt to navigate the dark as well as any nocturnal animal, until I could no longer look directly into a flame without it hurting my sensitive eyes. I ate less day-by-day, and I slept for longer. Some nights, I did not wake at all. Sometimes, several days would pass without my knowledge.

But I kept all of this conjecture to myself, because I did not want to worry Vladimir; or—worse—give him any reason to send me away.

He would not—could not, I told myself, for he loved me as much as I loved him.

He trusted me, as I trusted him.

He needed me, as I now desperately needed him.