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anncanta · 1 year ago

Text

Arcadia

Fandom: Dracula (2020)

Characters: Count Dracula, Agatha Van Helsing

Relationship: Dracula/Agatha Van Helsing

Rating: Mature

@hopipollahorror @ravenathantum @dragatha @ladyhaley28

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The blue strip of surf stretched right and left, ending in humpbacked rocks overgrown with pines. Agatha waved to the owner of the fishing boat that had brought her and stood, watching the silhouette of a small vessel move away, dissolving on the verge of sky and water.

Pine trees hung over Agatha`s head, casting their shadows on the white sand. The thick scent of pine needles mingled with the scent of the acacia trees scattered up the slope. Walking forward, Agatha turned onto a narrow path that stretched from the beach.

She didn`t have a watch with her – going here, she left it at the hotel, like a smartphone with a navigator. She did not want to be discovered at the very end of the journey.

Is this the end, she thought, stepping out from under the canopy of pines and looking down at the blue-green sea, the heaps of shell rocks, and the terraced vineyards on the other side.

Agatha closed her eyes. More than six months later, she was still struggling. It was hard to get used to how much ... things there were in this world and how convenient at the same time it was arranged. Zoe was no help to her: after both of them realized that Agatha had returned, and neither of them was crazy, with a feeling of strange relief, the great-niece retired until her death, transferring the body, position – and mission to Agatha.

The mission was to her liking. It was not difficult to manage Harker`s center – Zoe`s memory and Agatha`s own curiosity and ability to absorb new knowledge at a frantic speed allowed her to feel like a duck to water in a new role in a month. But her new life overwhelmed her.

‘How do they eat it?’ she thought irritably, looking in the restaurant at a three-layered fish dish topped with a structure of either greenery or weightless cream. ‘Author`s roll,’ the menu announced succinctly. Complexity, brightness, and variegation seemed to be the calling card of the time. Wherever Agatha appeared, wherever she looked, everywhere she was met by spectacular colors, sharp combinations, and screaming comfort.

It must have been because she was a nun in a previous life, Agatha told herself as she nibbled on an author`s roll, crossed the street on an orange-and-white zebra strip, and circled the acid-lit nightclub.

She found that life is completely arranged – from morning to evening, allowing you to focus on the main thing, without being distracted by almost anything. She didn`t need to clean, she didn`t need to cook – there were services for everything. If desired, you could not even buy a car. Why, when there is a taxi?

Agatha learned everything about the work of the Harker Center, figured out and delved into every detail. She read Mina`s notes and appreciated the work that went into the foundation`s research. She was sincerely sorry for Zoe, but even stronger than pity for her great-niece, she was angry.

They missed him. After they found him and captured him, after holding him in their hands ... It was beyond her understanding. But there was also something else. Something frightening and unsettling, something that made it hard to believe that the events at the Harker Foundation, as Zoe had assured her, ‘didn`t matter.’

This was what made Agatha quit her job, put aside promising research, take her mind off the study of new viruses and focus on one thing.

Dracula gave Zoe his blood. He gave it himself. After that, he left the Harker Center and soon disappeared.

It took Agatha five months to find him. Using the old connections of ‘hers’ and other people`s acquaintances, the secret police departments of four countries, and the scientific reputation of Zoe Van Helsing, she was able to find his lair.

Two days after Zoe`s smartphone received a message – a screenshot of a satellite image with coordinates – Agatha was in place.

How did he end up in such an outback, she wondered as she climbed the slope. Knowing Dracula, Agatha could imagine several options for where he could go. She started with them. Again Romania, if not the old castle, then some of those that have been better preserved. America, North or South, Africa or Canada. In the end, if Europe, then Paris or Rome.

The Adriatic Coast was not even on the list. After receiving the data, Agatha double-checked it several times. But the information was correct – a lone dot on the map sandwiched between a grape terrace and pine groves.

The plateau that the path led to looked absolutely wild. No railings, no trash cans, no benches. There were probably no tourists here, but even the one who lived here did not seem to care about the minimum comfort. In a small gap between the pines and low bushes, a staircase was hidden, carved directly from the stone. The yellow shell rock was washed away by wind and rain. In some places, flexible stalks were breaking right out of the porous surface. Purple thyme blossoms swayed in the bright sun.

The house stood before her and loomed all at once. Two-storey, squat, with French windows, it seemed dormant in the haze of summer heat. There was no driveway, fence, or gate. Thickets of thyme, ending at the feet of Agatha, passed into a trampled area outlining a small courtyard.

She is safe during the day, Agatha told herself as she entered the terrace, which was enclosed by a yellow stone balustrade.

The armchair stood with its high back turned towards the terrace railing, the sun, and possible guests. Large even for its owner, it completely hid the seated person. However, the chair had neither a canopy nor a convertible top.

In the chair, tucking his right leg under him and leaning back on the wicker back, Dracula settled down.

He was wearing blue jeans torn at the knees, a white sweatshirt, and blue loafers. Sunglasses hid the upper part of the face. A windbreaker jacket was lying on the arm of the chair nearby. It had been cold in the morning, Agatha remembered absentmindedly.

He sat in an armchair and looked pleased, relaxed – as if not noticing that he was no longer alone. As soon as Agatha thought about it, Dracula moved and pushed his glasses down on his nose.

‘Agatha?’

For a moment she looked at him in confusion.

‘Why don`t you burn in the sun?’ she finally squeezed out.

‘I am burning,’ Dracula replied. ‘The heat is terrible today.’

He got up from his chair and took off his glasses.

‘Agatha Van Helsing.’

She frowned.

‘Are you sure I`m not Zoe?’

‘Zoe wouldn`t have come.’

It was true. In their last conversation, which took place between her and Zoe, the niece, whom Agatha called to go together in search of Dracula, flatly refused and died. Somehow she looked at her strangely, thought after Agatha. As if she was offered to participate in something that did not concern her, in something alien, moreover, intimate. But Agatha didn`t have time to think about it.

Silently, Agatha watched as Dracula tossed his glasses on the seat of his chair and approached her.

‘You don`t burn in the sun,’ she repeated.

‘Why should I burn – it`s hundreds of miles away,’ Dracula replied. ‘But you need a wide-brimmed hat. You have delicate skin.’

‘What the hell is going on here?!’

In the summer silence, her own voice seemed to Agatha both sonorous and fragile. Dracula looked at her for a long time. He said,

‘Let`s go to the house.’

***

What did she expect? Showy luxury? A replica of a Transylvanian castle she`s never been to? The originals of Dali and Picasso on the walls? Agatha didn`t know. Passing into the simply furnished living room, separated from the terrace by a stone arch, she sat down on a low sofa with light upholstery. Next to the sofa, last year`s fashion magazines were scattered on a rough stone coffee table.

After briefly disappearing into the next room, Dracula returned and placed a glass of orange juice on the table in front of Agatha. He sat down in the chair opposite.

Agatha looked at the glass. She took it, drank it – one sip, then another. She finished her drink and placed the empty glass on the table. She looked up at Dracula. He sat in an armchair with his legs stretched out and looked at her.

‘How long have you been living here?’ Agatha asked.

Dracula smiled.

‘About six months. Frank found this house for me at the end of October ... no, December.’

‘Why?’ Sicilian oranges, freshly squeezed juice, Agatha noted, licking her lips. He keeps human products, so he has guests.

‘I like it.’ Dracula`s smile became disarming. ‘You saw – it`s beautiful here.’

And besides, it`s secluded, calm and no one will hear the screams.

Judging by the expression on Dracula`s face, he guessed what she was thinking.

‘You haven`t changed at all, Agatha.’ Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees. A stretched tear in the right trouser leg revealed tanned skin. ‘You are still vigilant and stubborn.’

‘How did you manage to defeat the sunlight?’

She doesn`t have any weapons, Agatha thought. She didn`t take anything with her. No aspen stakes, no crucifix. Why didn`t she take a weapon?

‘I didn`t have to defeat it.’ Agatha flinched. He sat very close. He smelled of the sea and sun-warmed grass. After giving Agatha a quick glance, he got up and walked over to the fireplace.

‘I have always been fascinated by your love of questions,’ he said without turning around. Taking something out of a box on the mantelpiece, Dracula placed it in front of Agatha, leaning across the table.

Agatha lowered her eyes. On the coffee table next to an empty glass lay a small silver crucifix.

‘Francis Alexander Renfield, my lawyer,’ Dracula spoke again, ‘is a top-notch professional. I can recommend his services to anyone. Frank is quick, smart, and practically devoid of flaws. Except for one thing,’ he smiled at Agatha, who looked up at him, ‘which is terrible ignorance of everything that does not concern jurisprudence.’

Agatha blinked in confusion.

‘When we met,’ Dracula said, ‘Frank saw that I was being held in some strange cell and that the sunlight scared me. He didn`t know who I was, he didn`t know anything about vampires, let alone ancient legends, so he thought it was some kind of quirk, my personal phobia. And he turned out to be right.’

Without letting Agatha ask a question, he continued,

‘Because at the time when I was so ... kindly welcomed at the center, I had not yet settled in London, having rescued from your niece, Frank drove me straight to his house. The night went well,’ Dracula said thoughtfully. ‘But in the morning he wanted to please me and made a surprise.’

Agatha was frowningly silent.

‘He sent a maid to me with a sumptuous human breakfast. A goodly Spanish donna with a crucifix on her chest. At seven in the morning, she woke me up by opening the curtains. And when I screamed, she thought I was having a heart attack and tried to help.’

Taking an empty glass of juice, Agatha looked inside and put it back.

‘She`s fine,’ Dracula chuckled. ‘I gave her a vineyard in Seville.’ He looked at the sea through the archway. ‘I would have given more, but she would hardly have taken it. She said that she and her husband would name a new grape variety after me.’

Agatha got up.

‘You are no longer afraid of the crucifix and the sun.’

‘No, I`m not.’

‘And I understand that the invitation to enter the house –’

‘– is also not a problem for a long time.’

‘Then why are you here?’

‘In what sense?’

He spoke politely as if he really didn`t understand.

Agatha walked across the room. She looked back at the table, at the empty glass.

‘There are no barriers left for you in this world,’ she said, turning to Dracula. ‘You can move freely, you can enter anywhere. You could choose to live where and how you want –’

‘That`s it. How I want.’

Dracula interrupted her abruptly, though his tone remained calm and light.

‘Have you ever wondered,’ he said to Agatha, frozen in mid-sentence, ‘about what the life of a vampire is like?’

Agatha was silent.

‘Oh, of course not.’ Dracula smiled, and she recognized the smile – it was the way he looked at Zoe that day. Seeking look, prickly and passionate. ‘It didn`t even cross your mind.’

He turned around and sat down on the sofa.

‘I told you. I told you and Jonathan and Zoe, and many others. However, none of you heard. Blood is lives,’ said Dracula. ‘Lives, stories, and testimonies.’

The room became quiet.

‘You know ... remember,’ he looked up at her, ‘remember, I threatened you in the monastery? I said that you would become a part of me. That you will always be with me?’

Agatha nodded.

‘So, this is true. They all live in my blood. Everyone I`ve bitten, everyone whose story I`ve learned, everyone I`ve tasted …’ He chuckled, closing his eyes. ‘They are all here. With me.’

Agatha stared dumbfounded at Dracula.

‘I thought you –’ she began.

‘And you know, they all talk,’ said Dracula. ‘Most of the time they chat actively. Some are almost inaudible, others are heart-rendingly yelling. Someone happens to make a conversation. Even argue. It`s easy to control, but …’ He trailed off, lost in some thoughts of his own. Then he raised his head. ‘By the way, you were surprisingly gentle.’

‘You too,’ said Agatha, unexpectedly for herself.

Dracula raised his eyebrows.

She pointed to her neck. Shrugged.

Dracula smiled.

‘Well, I guess we have a lot to thank each other for.’ He got up. ‘Now, if you`ll excuse me, Agatha, I need to get back to my business.’

He turned and went to the terrace. After a moment`s hesitation, Agatha stepped after him.

‘Are you … are you serious?’ she asked the blue T-shirt faded on the back.

Having reached the edge of the terrace, Dracula stopped at the parapet. Only now did Agatha see that they had walked around the house. At this point, the platform protruded forward, forming a balcony, and hung over a slope that descended to the sea.

‘What do you mean ‘serious’?’

‘Do you think I`ll just … leave?’

‘Why not?’

‘And you are going back to killing?’

Dracula looked at her.

‘Agatha,’ he said, ‘were you listening to me?’

‘Every word you say.’

‘Then why,’ Dracula spoke distinctly and clearly as if addressing a child, ‘why did you decide that we were talking about killing?’

She got angry.

‘What else can you do?’

Dracula laughed. Happy loud. Agatha looked at him in amazement, and he stood with his head thrown back and laughed, laughed.

‘My God,’ he said laughing, ‘Agatha. You really didn`t listen. So read my lips: I`m tired. I have lived a huge, endless life. I have seen more than any person can imagine. I met kings, commoners, and monks, I knew composers, scientists, aristocrats, prelates, thieves. Events and epochs passed me by, replacing each other like some kind of bad carnival. I`m filled with them, Agatha.’

She looked at him without breathing.

‘Thanks to you, I woke up in a world that has everything. Absolutely. Food is delivered to your home. You can get to another continent in a day. A virtual museum lives in my plasma TV.’ Dracula smiled. ‘Do you really think that having ceased to be afraid of the crucifixion and stepped out into the sun, I would prefer someone else`s throats to all this?’

He fell silent. Agatha blinked.

‘You need to eat.’

‘Donors, donors, Agatha Van Helsing.’ Now he looked disappointed. But at the same moment, as if thinking about something, he smiled again. ‘How long have you been here? Six months? Eight? And all of them spent to find me? Oh, I`m flattered, but Agatha, trust me, there are more important things in this world.’

Agatha looked at him in amazement.

‘You are forty-two years old, as far as I know.’ Dracula tilted his head. ‘You grew up in the countryside, then moved to the city, where you lived for a year or two until a story happened that you do not like to remember. The monastery was your salvation – at the same time shelter and support. How did you say to Jonathan – marriage without love? But now, Agatha, you can go there,’ he waved towards the sea, ‘take a bus, a train, a ship. See Taipei and Paris and London. Go to the desert, to the mountains, to the rainforest. You can dance with young admirers and learn music online. You can live not one, but a thousand and one lives.’

He paused and smiled.

‘Go and live them. And let me stay here.’

Agatha bit her lip. She felt dizzy. Everything was confusing, mixed up inside. She worked so hard, it took her so long to get here. So much energy wasted. She wanted to protest, attack him, scream, all at once. She took a breath.

He`s lying, she told herself. He set everything up. He gave ... why did he give Zoe his blood?

‘I thought you wanted ... to bring me back,’ she said, bewildered. ‘I thought you wanted ... You want to continue the game.’

So silly. How naive and stupid.

‘I wanted to,’ Dracula smiled at her. ‘Believe me, I really wanted to. Poor Zoe,’ he rubbed his forehead with his fingers, ‘I pressed her. Literally, put the idea into her head. I made her obsessed with it.’

Dracula turned away from the green horizon and the blue sea below.

‘For the first three weeks – maybe more – after I was released from Harker Center, I waited for you almost every evening. I`ve been waiting for you to come. And then I stopped.’

He paused, smiling thoughtfully.

‘I knew that Zoe most likely wouldn`t stand the temptation and drink my blood. Which will most likely wake you up. Because your DNA will match. And then it suddenly occurred to me ... That if you really come back …’ He looked at Agatha, then at the landscape over his shoulder. He paused again and walked to the edge of the balcony.

‘Look, Agatha.’ He turned around. ‘I just bought this house then. I remember going up here and seeing how beautiful it all is. It was like I saw the world for the first time. I saw how bright, huge, detailed it is. In all my life as a vampire, I`d never been able to grasp it completely. And then I thought, I don`t want you to come.’

Agatha listened silently. Some birds were singing in the distance – or maybe insects. The smell of acacias mixed with pines and thyme was stupefying.

‘Why would you come?’ Dracula continued. ‘Who and what would you come to and what could you find here? Old walls and old books? An old vampire, tired of other people`s voices?’

‘I finally figured it out.’ Dracula smiled, as if not at her, but at something inside. ‘If I can get you back, then the best thing I can do for you is leave you alone. Go in peace, Agatha Van Helsing. And may the world give you everything it has.’

He stopped. Agatha stood looking at the small pebbles of the shell rock resting on the toes of her shoes, feeling how the floor of the balcony heated to the core gives her warmth. The wind carried the breath of the sea.’

I waited and didn`t wait for you. In the dream I heard you coming, sitting on the edge of the bed, feeling your thigh pressing against mine. I was overwhelmed, washed over with a wave of anticipation. I knew that you would throw back the blanket, climb up to me, I could almost taste the moisture on your skin, your shivering shoulder blades, the vein on your neck, my hands on your shoulders.

I knew: that`s impossible, and yet I heard how you quietly step on the creaky floor, how you enter the rooms, how you recognize, study the layout of the house, how you rearrange things in the rooms, how you inhabit them. I loved you and confessed, searched and raved, imagined every rustle, your every breath, and every splash of the sheet.

I was here with you. I was with you. And now I`ll be alone.

Agatha woke up, looking at him. They stood opposite each other, and Dracula, slightly throwing his head back, gazed into her eyes. The sun showed wrinkles on his face.

‘You said it out loud.’

He twitched as if coming back. Like he was only just now noticing her.

She approached.

‘You have been alone for too long. I know how it is. You get used to speaking your thoughts because no one hears them anyway,’ she said. She put her hand on his neck.

There was no way to the rooms and no time to think about it. There was no time to wait. She was naked – a string on a lyre. A sunspot on the bed, pine trees on top of the mountain. She was inside a body that knew kisses and caresses, given to her by a person who could and knew how to love. And yet she was the first, and the first was the one who was now next to her.

…

‘Does it always smell of the sea here?’

‘Almost always.’

Agatha rolled onto her back.

‘Impossible.’ She laughed. ‘It just can`t be.’

Dracula looked at her in surprise. He moved closer, pulling her towards him.

‘This place. Pines and the sea. Acacias. Grape. And I kept thinking – how did you get here? You don`t remember.’ Seeing the puzzled look on his face, she smiled.

‘What should I –’

The understanding in his eyes was so obvious that Agatha laughed again.

‘A dream house,’ she muttered through her tears, ‘a gently stolen dream house.’

There was only one time when she came to her senses on the Demeter. Even before she understood what the glass in his hands meant, before she realized that pieces were disappearing somewhere, before she could figure out the essence of the game.

The brief moment when the cabin flashed before her, the sea in the porthole and the spread-out bed, was replaced by a picture: she is standing on the terrace, looking at the mountains, and light green waves are splashing somewhere below. The summer sun heats the shell of the balustrade and Dracula stands behind her, inhaling the scent of her hair.

‘Why is it stolen?’ Rising up, Dracula looked at her. His eyes were openly laughing. ‘I would say – the returned one.’

He leaned over. For a long time.

‘This is your house.’

The sun`s rays tinted copper to his tousled black strands.

‘No,’ said Agatha, shaking her head. ‘It is ours.’

#dracula bbc #dracula 2020 #bbc dracula #count dracula #agatha van helsing #dragatha #fanfic

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