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thebeautyofdisorder · 5 years ago

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The Undone & The Divine (BBC Dracula) - Chapters 1 & 2

A/N: Okay, I am rusty - very rusty, so feel free to give me some notes. This will be multiple parts - maybe 4 or 5 - and will remain open ended for future additions. It will be a snarky, confused occult monstrosity with a lot of thus far unresolved sexual tension and I'm not sorry. Takes place after the end of The Dark Compass. I will be posting this on AO3 eventually, but for now...

Rating: T, currently just for some blood and maybe language

Pairing: Dracula & Zoe/Agatha

Can be found on AO3 - Right HERE -

“Wherever this shadowed path might lead, we were both irrevocably committed to follow it to the end.” - Susan Kay, Phantom

Chapter 1

The first thought that arose in Zoe’s mind was simply that she shouldn’t be having any. No, an inward argument seemed to be countering, but that she had been growing accustomed to. Faith was an inner struggle she was stubbornly coming to terms with, given that there was a very literal opposing force in her ancestor that enjoyed prodding at her modern, atheistic convictions. Not even in religious fervor, nun’s habit notwithstanding, but just for amusement’s sake. She could see where she inherited her argumentative nature from.

Head swimming, potential psychosis or no, she had expected at least death to be final. A distant bell of alarm jolted somewhere in her mind, as some sense of memory and consciousness began to return to her, soon followed by sensation seeping back to her body. She expected the worst, but what she experienced instead was simply…nothing. The pain which had been her constant companion for the last few months was gone. She didn’t even feel the typical stiffness of a woman pushing forty waking up on a cold, hard surface should rightly feel.

Cold, hard surface…

Her eyelids shot open, and she sat up so quickly she felt immediately dizzy. At least there was still blood to rush to my head, she mused dimly, though luckily her legs hadn’t gotten the fight or flight message quite as quickly, or else she would have tumbled straight onto the floor. The hard, polished marble beneath her, still sticky with her blood, brought the events of the morning, however distant they were, rushing back to her.

If this wasn’t some twisted form of coma dream, and she wasn’t actually hooked up to some machine at the hospital, she was going to have to have a chat with Auntie Agatha about consenting to suicide by vampire. Mostly due to the fact she was very much alive – or at the very least, moving and conscious. Her hand pressed to her neck, feeling nothing but dried blood surrounding a slightly raised scar at the crook of her shoulder.

Not always equivalent, she reminded herself with barely repressed panic. Or maybe Agatha reminded her. It was becoming harder and harder to tell the difference.

But what of the vampire?

Half freezing in the semi-darkness, Zoe waited what felt like a decade, searching for any sound or sign of movement in the room…in the flat. Nothing. Silence.

The natural curiosity of the scientist, refusing to lay dormant any longer, pushed past her fear and uncertainty, and drove her to slide off the edge of the table on shaking legs. There was no sign of Dracula, dead or alive that she could see. Instead her eyes sought out a light switch.

She half expected to see a large pile of dust and ash, or worse – some sticky pile of blood and skin, like a B-horror film she’d seen as a teenager, but aside of what remained of Lucy, the floor was immaculate, in only the way the living dead could maintain.

Strangely lacking any sense of urgency, she paced through the rest of the flat, observing the dark modern decor with a distant amusement that belonged more to Agatha than to herself. The washroom was almost entirely unused, save for the large standing shower, more of a luxury than a necessity, she assumed. The kitchenette seemed to be only taking up space, and while there were a few stray tea bags and a chipped mug, likely belonging to some human help – the lawyer probably, the rest of it was barren. Finally reaching the bedroom, she found the curtains still fully drawn, and the bed large and vacant.

If he survived, he was gone. Some unknown part of her felt a pang of disappointment, and an equal echo of triumph. She wasn’t sure which one to blame Agatha for, and she was left no hints.

Well, that was one mystery solved.

Collapsing on the mattress, Zoe closed her eyes, and did something she never thought she’d have to do: she fell silent and listened for her own heartbeat. At first there was an unnerving stillness. Finally, after approximately 15 seconds (she had been counting), she heard the first soft thump in her chest. Half relieved, she let out a breath, and began counting again – she heard it once more. Faint and very slow, but present, yes!

Fascinating. Agatha’s quietly accented tone was one of clinical fascination, something Zoe could ascertain easily as it echoed through her mind.

Zoe quietly agreed. Somehow, she…they were now something more than undead, but less than fully alive.

Something like the count himself.

------

There were times that the highly illegal nature of the Harker Institute was a damning thing, and one that caused Zoe great inconvenience. This was not one of those times. A woman previously dying of cancer showing up to work to get a full range of clandestine tests was not something to be trusted to the general public. If she hadn’t been so amazed, she was sure her predecessor would’ve been highly disappointed to see her.

She had left Dracula’s London flat exactly as it was, and headed straight to the Institute. It wasn’t exactly a police matter, and now that Agatha had destroyed the vampire’s …agoraphobia? Whatever it was she had done, there wasn’t anything they could really do to ward him away. The sun was no longer a viable weapon, and while she was sure his distaste for Christian imagery wouldn’t just vanish overnight, his need to be invited into a location was gone and probably easily forgotten when convenient.

The dirt…well, that was a different story. She found no trace of it in his flat, save for a musty residue in the corner of a now empty closet. That was the one part of the puzzle she had yet to figure out. Was that just another part of his self-ordained folklore, or did it actually have some restorative power. Did it contain some needed mineral or compound? Surely there was a scientific reason behind it if so.

As scientific as why you’re walking around with half the blood you need to function? Or that you haven’t eaten in 36 hours and have no appetite. You can drink water, at least, that’s a blessing.

She refrained from voicing her annoyance aloud – last thing she needed was for her colleagues to think she was undead AND crazy. Neither of which was entirely true… or entirely false. At least they weren’t locking her up. Not yet.

“Dr. Helsing?”

Zoe shook herself from her thoughts to look up at the lab tech who’s just entered the room, giving the girl a distant smile.

“Yes?”

“Dr. Bloxham wants to see you downstairs…it’s about your test results.”

Which test results she wanted to ask, but didn’t, merely got up and followed the girl who was taking great pains to keep a healthy distance between them out of the room. She didn’t blame her. It had taken Jonathan Harker a month to show any vampiric urges. They saw her as a ticking time bomb.

------

“Well, for the positive, any trace of cancer seems to have…vanished from your system.”

Zoe had guessed as much, and perhaps her lack of reaction was what brought the look of concern to her colleague’s face.

“And for the negative?”

The other woman silently bit her lip for a moment, and instead of immediately responding, she stood from her chair and gestured for Zoe to take the seat in front of the computer.

Pointing from over her shoulder, Bloxham indicated two files in the folder in front of her. One was labeled with Zoe’s name, and the other was data collected from Dracula’s blood sample.

“What’re you trying to show me?” She sounded tired, and perhaps she was. It was hard to tell anymore. The enfeebled exhaustion she had felt constantly up until the night before was gone, but the memory lingered like a bad taste in her mouth.

“Open them.” The comment was clipped, but more in anticipation than impatience.

Zoe did just that, and looked over the standard blood analysis results. To say the differences were minimal was almost too generous.

“I don’t know what happened to you exactly – given you won’t tell me…,” she began, eyeing Zoe with a meaningful look, “But your DNA is...I don’t want to say mutated, but...altered. You’re alive, don’t get me wrong – but your readings all look as though they should come from someone on the verge of death – in a coma at the least! And well…look at you.” It was rhetorical, Zoe knew, but she still found herself seeking out the nearest reflective surface, just to ensure she saw her own face as she knew it looking back at her.

“I can’t force you, but I’m going to strongly recommend you stay here so you can be closely monitored for any further….changes.”

Zoe, never one to be a victim of circumstance, rolled her eyes with a casual scoff. If she was going to be anyone’s lab rat, it might as well be her own.

“Well, obviously. I want every even minimal change documented to the fullest,” she agreed, immediately standing to her feet and stalking over to a microscope she knew without needing to ask contained a slide of her sample, rerouting her focus. “Have you compared the saliva?”

The other woman’s relief was palpable. Or maybe she could smell it? Zoe shook that possibility off, quickly, refusing to jump to that particular conclusion quite so quickly.

“Still waiting for the full analysis, but what I do have is Dracula’s sample, which is frankly…fascinating,” Dr. Bloxham stated excitedly, eyeing Zoe with a curious expression as she approached, her caution taking a backseat to her excitement.

“Oh?” A woman after her own heart.

“Yes… take a look,” she offered, changing the slides quickly and offering the scope back for her perusal. “It contains some almost psychotropic like compound. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Zoe felt her body temperature rise for the first time since she’d awoken in London. She wasn’t sure if she had the circulation to blush, but she dearly hoped not. For once, there was no snarky Dutch echo in her mind – in fact, aside from a flash of orange light, and blink of another memory she couldn’t latch onto, her mind went suspiciously quiet.

“Yes. Fascinating.”

Chapter 2

Frank Renfield considered himself a generally normal man, by all intents and purposes. In fact, he had always been considered normal to the point of being right boring, so it was he himself who was most surprised how easily he had adjusted to playing personal assistant, in matters both legal and practical, to a blood drinking supernatural entity. On that note, it was with only minimal confusion that he found himself returning to his residence after a resolutely boring day at the office, to find his front door broken half off the hinges, and a trail of thick, congealing blood leading through his sitting room straight through to the loo.

“Master?” He called, uneasily, taking care to hop over a particularly dark pool seeping out from under the door.

He was met with silence, save for a subtle gurgling sound that brought a wince to his face, though it was not coming from his loo any more, but from the spare bedroom directly adjacent. He used to have a flatmate, but he’d moved months ago. The room now contained nothing but junk, some gym equipment he never used, and a few large crates that Count Dracula had asked him to store, though why he had no idea.

“C-count?” Renfield stammered, his hand turning the knob. Taking a deep, staggered breath, he finally pushed open the door.

The treadmill in the corner of the room, heavy and outdated as it was, was toppled and resting almost completely upside down. A box of heavy and expensive law tomes had been dumped out across the floor, and the box was now leaking a dark liquid which had soaked through the cardboard. The lid of one of the large wooden crates was splintered, and half-resting against the back of the door, making it impossible to push all the way open, though Renfield could see well enough from the hall that the crate was now overflowing with some sort of dark soil, and it was the tall form of what he assumed to be his master that was splayed at an unnatural angle inside of it, though he did not look like his suave and put together self.

His shirt was torn, and stained almost entirely in various shades of black, red and rust brown. His hair was graying in reverse, as though the color had dripped out of the roots, plastered around his aging face.

“Renfield…”

He heard the name whispered inside his mind, Frank realized with mild horror, because the sound that came from the creature in front of him was too much of a croak to contain any proper syllables. Finding the strength to force himself into the room, he rushed to the vampire’s side only to realize with a strange sort of amusement that the entire mess seemed to be due to Dracula vomiting all over his flat much like he had after his first college party. A stomach ache for a vampire, apparently was much worse than for a hungover teenage boy, however.

“Master! You seem to have eaten someone very unhealthy for you…. One moment.”

Dodging around the pools of what he could only assume was half-digested blood, Frank squeezed back out of the room and came back with a sterile bag of B-positive that he cautiously presented to the weakened form.

“Picked it up from the blood bank this morning… nuclear physicist, visiting from Sweden…seemed to be a wasted opportunity,” he offered, weakly, but he needn’t have bothered. The vampire had already punctured the bag with one of his ghastly sharpened nails before he’d opened his mouth and was sucking it down with a sharp and unsettling growl, and Renfield didn’t stay around to watch.

“I’ll go and…fetch something more lively, hm?” And with that he scuttled out of the room, before the count could regain the strength to seek out the next source of sustenance in sight…mainly him.

-------

“How are you feeling?”

“Indestructible.”

Indestructible. That had been the word he’d used, just before the ship had sent him to his century long sleep. He never thought for a moment that it would be true, nor that he would have any reason to lament that fact. And yet… here he laid. Weak, indeed. In pain, surely. But very much alive… as alive as he could get anyway. He had forced himself to ingest the poison, and he had waited for death’s sweet embrace. Nothing. He just laid there, the sun beaming directly into his eyes, his stomach roiling like it hadn’t done since he was an insipid mortal, and yet he never even lost consciousness! For once he had sought out oblivion, instead of fighting it, and it wouldn’t take him! The nerve! He had given death hundreds…thousands over the years! And she would still turn him away like some sort of petulant beggar.

It was hours before he decided that if death wasn’t going to be quick about it that there really was no use waiting around. Zoe’s body lay stiff beside him, and though he knew the likelihood was slim, the sick ones rarely did more than rot, he left her there just in case. If he were any less…himself, he would’ve labeled it a blind, potential hope that she would rise again. That if he were going to be stuck being alive (not that it wasn’t her bloody fault he was suddenly so aggravated by that!), that maybe she would be stuck with him. Would serve them right… the Van Helsing women, the biggest inconveniences he’d had in his whole un-life.

He couldn’t stay there…that boy knew where he was, and would no doubt send someone to look for him, or return himself. He considered, of course, waiting around, but honestly he didn’t even know if a stake to the heart was worth bothering to test at this rate. All of his other beliefs were useless… his fears. Why would he think just because it’s worked on some half-mad fledglings it would even work on him? Luckily he knew better than to keep his potentially useless dirt all in one place, at the least. Would he eventually regenerate without it? He didn’t know anymore. All his memories seemed to twist and deform. And with five centuries worth, that was an awful lot.

A chance he decided not to take. If he survived this, he would need to buy his lawyer new carpet. He would need to do a lot of things. Perhaps venture south of the equator.

------

It was fascinating how much the lack of needing to eat and sleep as often, nor attend five different doctors, affected her time management skills. Zoe felt like she never ran out of time, for research or reading or…well, that was it really. That was what she devoted her time to – not just for the sake of others now, but for her own future. So much so that not leaving the institute didn’t really seem like a confinement at all, even though that was precisely what it was.

As the days turned into a week, the other doctors – her friends, her colleagues, became even more unsettled by her presence. Not because she looked, or behaved like a walking corpse, but just the sheer lack of human ‘distractions’ she participated in. Also the constant shifting of vocal inflection didn’t seem to help.

Apparently Sister Agatha Van Helsing was not going anywhere. Either she wasn’t able to, didn’t want to, or had permanently infected her mind. She was beginning to get used to it. She had to wonder if Dracula himself ever had issues like this with anyone. Did Agatha hound him to? How much of his personality is his own and how much is taken from his victims? One had to assume it was the superstition of his victim pool that had tainted his own beliefs – that and the fact that even he refused to embrace the art of being a predator with limitless power.

She sincerely hoped that wherever he’d gone to, he’d kept that in mind. Something told her, however, that he wasn’t actually that far. It wasn’t a voice, or any particular deductive reasoning that gave her that knowledge. It was just something she knew, however unsettling that fact was.

“Zoe!”

She frowned, blinking out of her daze. Dr. Bloxham was blocking her from pacing back to the computer where she’d been unconsciously headed.

“Love, you have got to get out of here for a while. You haven’t slept longer than 3 hours a night since you’ve been here, you barely eat. You need to take a break.”

Zoe sighed, reluctantly relenting her attention.

“My body’s becoming intolerant to certain...things, I’m currently trying to find out what it isn’t intolerant to. And what it’s desperately lacking – iron, for starters. Does that help?”

“Great. We’ll figure out what it’s intolerant to at the pub, before you drive yourself batty… no pun intended.”

“I don’t drink,” she protested, but found herself shrugging out of her lab coat anyway.

“You stopped drinking because you were ill, which you no longer are,” the other woman protested, quite logically unfortunately, taking the coat from her. “Besides, there’s food there as well, which you desperately need, and sunlight would do you good. Have you even tried to eat anything but crisps and Chinese take away? Maybe you need something a little more tangible, that’s all.”

She sincerely doubted it, but anything – even tossing up her guts at a pub – was better than everyone looking at her like some sort of foreign contagion. She wasn’t a vampire. Not yet, and if she could help it, she never would be.

---

Edited to add tags for the people on this hellsite that have been keeping me from writing this by posting their own undead content that I’ve been consuming instead - be it fic or gifs or playlists or just thirsty shitposts. Ha, I have defied your attempts at distraction, but I honor you all the same: @my-fanfic-library @ohveda @imagineandimagine @wannabebloodsucker @hoefordarkness @mymagicsuitcase @crazytxgradstudent @itendedbadly @theplumsoldier @gatissed @allfandoms-writings @littlemessyjessi @punk-courtesan @vampiregirl1797

I’m sure I’ve forgotten many of you, but I legit just scrolled my last week worth of likes, and now I have to go to the dentist, then hope I’m not too whiny to finish my fanvid.

#bbc dracula #dracula bbc #dracula 2020 #dracula fic #agatha van helsing #zoe van helsing #claes bang #dracula #my writing #the undone & the divine

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