#while being equally stubborn and unyielding until the very last moment when he bends and she finally drags him into the light

[roominthecastle]

[For Dracula] we wanted somebody who could own the part the way Christopher Lee once did. So it was extraordinary when the very first person we looked at was exactly the impossible brief we’d given out to our brilliant casting director. We watched The Square and went, “Oh look, there is Dracula.” Physically, he is ideal. He’s astonishingly handsome, looks like two and a half James Bonds at the same time. Literally tall, dark, and handsome. Very tall. He has amazing cheekbones and his eyes are like black pits. But also, he is very funny. You can tell from the first frame [of The Square] he’s got funny bones. And the Dracula we were trying to come up with was a “more fully rounded inhuman being”. So we wanted to give him a very dry sense of humor because I think if you were 400 years old, you’d have one.

[With Agatha] we started with the idea of “atheist nun”. A nun who, as she got older, realized, “I don’t believe in any of this” and started researching the dark arts. Immediately, that character bounced off the page. “Atheist nun” is Van Helsing. It’s Sister Agatha Van Helsing. And we were immediately realizing it’s correct. Who is Dracula’s arch enemy? A woman wearing a crucifix. She is wearing the superhero outfit already that is appropriate to battling vampires. And Dolly can turn any line funny. She’s amazing. Sparky and funny and slightly quirky. And she’s got that off-kilter, sort of twisted smile. When Dracula arrives at the convent, she looks out the window and says, “How exciting!” There’s that wrongness. You want a hero who you think will plunge you into danger all the time. Sister Agatha is always gonna take tremendous risks and there’s just a lot of strange things going on when Dracula and Agatha have their face-off. Because as much as they sort of loathe each other, it’s also the most interesting conversation either of them have ever had.

Dracula is like the dark compass. The darkness points you to the light and that became a whole thread. Agatha doesn’t believe anymore but if he’s the ultimate evil, there must be a devil, therefore… There is something about Sister Agatha leading the charge, deliberately taking on the vampire because she’s simply fascinated by him. And Dracula thinks, “She’s great and smart. I’d like to get to know her better.” which, in his case, means opening the jugular. Agatha is full of learning and insight and intelligence. When he drinks her blood, he learns. In our version of the story, blood carries everything with it. He thinks she is an exceptional vintage and says, “I’m gonna make you last.” There is nothing good, kind, or compassionate about this. He does like her, though. He’s careful how much he drinks, how much he makes her dream to make it nice while she thinks she’s in this outside-of-time world.

--- Dracula commentary by Mark Gatiss & Steven Moffat [x] [x] [x]

[skywailer]

Poison-Alice Cooper If you’ve ever seen the video you’ll know EXACTLY why I chose this omg

(so uh, *sweats profusely* here you go)

“You wouldn’t dare.”

Kylo has only just left her chambers; has only just moved her from the dregs of the dreadnought’s prison cells; has just barely arrived in time to order an indefinite stay of execution (at great peril to his sovereignty, if Hux’s disapproving glower is any indication)  - when their connection slaps across his face, and she dares to appear before him with a sickeningly yellow vial pressed to her lips.  The image of it stings.

“Put it down, Rey,” he warns, anger welling wet in his eyes.  He takes a step towards her; she, a step back.  This could go on forever, if he let it- the ship’s corridor long and abandoned.  His subordinates are waiting at their stations, waiting for their Supreme Leader’s command.  The rebellion is on its last leg, hobbling in an enclosed valley of Ibaar, and all he has to do is give an order and it will all come tumbling down- the end of a war.  Except, Rey is waiting as well- threatening a different, just as deadly, end.

“You’re bluffing,” Kylo snaps, and his temper churns viciously, an electric storm in his chest.  Through the bond, Rey’s pure determination strikes true to his heart.  Stunned, his heart clamps tight, there is a burning in his lungs, and his muscles spasm before going terrifyingly numb.

“If you kill them, you kill me.”  

Her words are unnecessary with the intensity of their connection; it is a live-wire constantly electrifying him.  It has never been this raw before, this potent.  And she has never before given him an ultimatum.  She has never bartered her life, poised it so bluntly upon the sacrificial altar.  And for what?  For the likes of them- the thought is venomous spit- they whose hands carve her into a disposable pawn for their meager, wasteful cause; whose hands place in hers a poison.  His blood boils to know whose hand it was that gave her such a vile option, boils to sever it with his own bare hands.

Rey blocks his attempts to see this criminal’s face.  

She protects them, with her life.

Knuckles clenched, nails nearly cutting through leather and flesh, he seethes, “it’s pointless, Rey.  Careless, pointless.  I’ll heal you, and I’ll destroy them for ever making you think this was worth their shitty crusade.”  It is a vicious promise, barely softened by the trembling of his lips.  His hands ache to seize her, shake reason back into her skull, heal her of this damned need for purpose.

She simply shakes her head, and the yellow liquid glints gold in the sparse light.  He knows it’s glint well- the coma-bloom inside promising a swift exit into oblivion.  ��I know the second I drink this, we’ll lose connection.  Just like I know you’ll have a very short time-frame to get to me, to heal me.”

And even then, it would take time.  Time she’d buy them to escape. Risking her life, on the off-chance they can escape.  Knowing he can’t call off the attack- or, worse, not trusting him to.  The realization of all this crashes down on him, leaves his face blood red.

“They wouldn’t do the same for you!” he shouts- outraged, horrified.  Desperate.  “They don’t care!”

Not like I do. He can never quite say it the way he means to, but it’s there, rippling tidal currents in the air between them.  Violently sweeping her off her feet.

There is a heartbreaking flutter in her energy, a tremor in spirit that she refuses to express in flesh.  Rey stands, resolute, the final pillar the Resistance stands upon- crushing weight be damned.

“I know.  I wouldn’t expect them to,” she says, a slight fracture in tone exposing old wounds he immediately regrets tearing open.

“Rey,” he breathes, takes a step towards her, arm failing to reach out the right way-

“It’s time to choose, Ben.”  

The words are as solid as her poison is liquid, spilling over into her mouth.

Kylo is running before he can see her body fall to the ground, before he can feel the tether snap.  He is at the door of her chambers, blasting it open with just a look of sheer rage.  He is on his knees, where she lies - motionless, lifeless - on the floor.  Hands clasp her face, effortlessly lifting her upon his thighs as he searches for a pulse of heart and spirit.  He finds both, both quiet and dazed, and clings to them with his mind.  He closes his eyes, tries to focus - focus - beyond the panic, to pull her back, knowing this could go wrong in so many ways.  All the while, cursing her for being the last in a haunting line of loved ones willing to die because of him.

In the midst of his anguish, in his attempts to focus and heal, Kylo realizes something is… wrong.

He opens his eyes, and looks at Rey- studying her: the peaceful rest of her lips and closed eyes (the same as when she sleeps) and the stubborn color in her cheeks.  Carefully, he rests her head upon his arm, peels the leather glove off his free hand, and presses his fingers to the side of her neck.  It is the first time, in a long time, that he has touched her- flesh to flesh.  And when he does, he finds her life beneath his hand, beating vigorously.  

And not because of his efforts.

When she comes to, she is still resting upon his thighs, head still nestled in the crook of his arm, and his fingers still pressed onto her neck.  Her vial of senflax, however, is no longer held in her fist.  Sleepily, her eyes trail down the arm that cradles her, curving around the bend of his elbow until she lands on the (surprisingly intact) little glass in Kylo’s fist, which lies knotted and heavy on her chest.  Or at least, she assumes it’s heavy.  The neurotoxin’s paralysis lingers just enough to keep her oddly numb.  Not numb enough, however, to soothe his anger.  It rolls off him in waves, foaming against her skin.  

Strangely enough, it tickles.

Of course, when, finally, she raises her eyes to his, he does not look very tickled.  Not at all.

He has had time, Rey can tell, to compose his features while she was unconscious.  Yet, still, there is a retreating undertow of hurt and fear when he commands, “don’t do that again.”

She tries to smile, not sure if it’s supposed to be smug or reassuring- either way, it doesn’t work.  She can’t even feel if her muscles are doing what she wants them to do.  

“Don’t worry,” Rey mumbles, relieved she can speak- even if she sounds like a drunken yuzzem.  She feels like she’s going to have an equally terrible hangover.  She closes her eyes, as the headache creeps in.  “Even if I wanted to, I can’t.  Seems like a one-time deal.”

The fingers Kylo had softly caressing her pulse don’t feel so soft anymore.  His thumb, resting at the hollow of her throat, drags up the length of it, catching her breath and hooking it beneath her chin, lifting with nail and calloused skin until her eyes are caught by his.  They are darker than usual, sublime in their passionate depths.  In their fury.

All of which is directed with intense precision at her, where she lies upon him, completely at his mercy.

“Because you tricked me.”

She didn’t think quite this far ahead, acting on impulse when she heard the calls for battle.  She hadn’t even thought it would work.  

“Barely,” she snorts.  Rey thinks she might have also managed to shrug.  Definitely smug this time.  Fully in spite of her vulnerable position.  “You drew your own conclusions about what was inside.”

The Resistance had long decided it was better to feign death than to become it.  Unfortunately, she chances exposing that with her actions.  Though, Kylo seems too focused on her to think about the bigger picture.

“Besides,” she rants anyway, sensation returning to her in small spurts.  Not enough to get up, not enough to run for the exposed exit just behind him, but enough to speak her mind.  “You started this.  You imprisoned me.”

That does the trick.  His eyes narrow, and his hold on her throat tightens just enough to send a thrill down her spine.  Sensation is definitely coming back.  Perhaps, too much so.  It begins to dawn on her that it has been a long time since he’s touched her like this- and it is slightly distant in feeling, like a slight drizzle on her skin.  But in a desert, that is enough to drive her mad for more.

“Barely.  May I remind you it was Hux who captured you, and I who came just in time to save your life.  Twice,” he fumes, breath hot on her cheeks.  His eyes flicker down, and Rey writhes in her mind- afraid her body is betraying her somehow.  When he looks back at her, its her eyes that do the betraying- pupils flaring wide, awakening with need and eagerly drinking him in.  

She can feel and hear his mind, humming; he is arrogantly pleased by what he sees, wholesomely relieved by what he feels: her.

“Besides,” he breathes, and his tone is just as unyielding as before- but the tension comes from somewhere low, profound and hungry.  Much more dangerous.  “This is hardly a prison.”

He says this, arm of steel coiled around her, hand wrapped around her pulse, thumb dictating every inhale and exhale with its strokes up, and down, her throat.  Her breaths come long, and deep, and slightly trembling.  Like his touch.

“I guess we’re even, then.  Let’s just call it a truce.”

“No.” It is more hiss than human.

Kylo’s trembling has stopped in sudden, stone paralysis- as though she has poisoned him.  In a way, she has.  She did, the moment she poured what he thought to be her death down her throat, injecting that same venom into his veins.  Rey can see it spreading in his eyes, feel it through clenched muscle and clawing hands as it incapacitates reason.  

Rey realizes her mistake in all this the same moment she is coerced into thinking it isn’t a mistake- when his lips sink into hers with one final, hissed, “no.”

His kiss is at once venom and antidote.  It is sharp and biting, tongue dripping toxins deep down her throat- the kind of deadly that melts bone and scorches veins.  Yet, it is distressed and yearning, that same tongue licking and dragging the last of the neurotoxin out of her- until she is raw to every part of her body and his.  

His arm has constricted around her, pulling her flush to him- so close that she can’t distinguish his heartbeat from the maddening pulse of energy surrounding them.  She can find hers, though, moaning and vulgar beneath his hand- the hand that is still wrapped around her throat, clawing and stroking.  He croons into her mouth.

Frenzied and feeling, Rey grabs him by that damned cloak and pushes him to the ground.  He falls willingly, pulls her down with him.  There is a tearing of gasps and clothing.  A sealing of sweat and bodies.  There are to be no truces between them, only a give and a take- a vicious cycle of it.  It is not the first of illicit intimacies between them, though they swear (as they had before) that it will be the last.  Because it is toxic, how she wants and presses into every part of him- even as her eyes glance to the gaping exit, her escape, and plans to leave him again.  

It is just as toxic, just as painful, how he will let her and love her all the same.