Paradise

Dracula/Ericka

It was incredible to Dracula, really.

He had not visited Hawaii in a century, decade upon decade of dedication instead set upon his daughter and the hotel that he'd raised her in. And yet, upon his return a hundred and twenty-six years later, it was as though nothing at all had changed. The ocean still rippled with whitecaps, the sky still teemed with vibrant stars, the sand still sparkled like tiny diamonds against the moonlit night. It was as though it had been frozen in time, a scene trimmed right out of the past and pasted onto this present moment. But, as he sat marveling over such striking similarities, there were still certain differences between the last time he'd been here and now.

For one, he was not the same man he was now that he had been then, the one who had scrutinized humans for being one way and one way only – cruel, and heartless, the real monsters of the world. So much had changed when a certain redheaded boy stumbled into his hotel nearly a decade prior, knocking the Count's outlook on life entirely off its axis to what turned out to be a good thing in the end for everyone. He still judged humans for their little oddities at times, but it was nowhere near to the extent as it had been so long ago. Instead of living in fear, he could be happy and freed from the majority of his worries that had plagued him for so long. Freed of his duties to the hotel he'd proudly given to his daughter Mavis and her husband Johnny, and free to spend more time with his own little human spouse, lip locked in blissful oblivion upon the serene Hawaiian shore as they were at that time.

The Count hummed delightfully, heavy lids drooped shut and body languid as he allowed his lips to do all the work, moving in tandem with his wife's own sweet rhythm. Once or twice they parted, a need for air to fill Ericka's lungs, before recapturing each other again with a dash more eagerness each time. Nothing could interrupt such a moment, or so Drac thought. For it was in the next instance that an exceptionally windy breeze carrying the scent of seawater blew by, the chill of the salty breeze shuddering through Ericka and stirring goosebumps awake upon her rosy skin. She tried to ignore it, but found she could not when a second breeze equally as cool, followed the first. She shivered again and, with reluctancy, pulled free from her husband's lips, a whine slipping free from the man in exchange.

Ericka shot him a look, meant to be stern, but it came out instead as a sort of playful, halfhearted glare. "You've got nothing to complain about, mister," she said, picking up a spare beach towel and wrapping it around her bared shoulders. "If I remember correctly, I specifically told you not to dump me in the ocean, and what did you do?"

This time, she was able to accomplish the evil eye that she was after, making Drac shrink back on the spot.

"Eh heh heh... sorry?" he said. "You know I didn't mean to, honeybat."

She narrowed her eyes at him more and he put his hands up.

"All right, all right, so maybe it might have been intentional, but hey! I've been making up for it pretty good, no?"

He made a kissy noise, puckering up and leaning towards her. She dodged his advances, but Drac, as swift as he was, managed to land a kiss anyhow on the tip of her button nose. She couldn't help the giggle that escaped after that, nor the smile that spread across her face when the man leaned in again and stole a few more upon her cheeks and lips in quick succession.

"Okay, okay, so maybe you are!" she gasped out between her laughs, pushing him back some so she could breathe. But as her laughter subsided, it was substituted with a growing feeling of dread, the woman sighing. "Doing a lot better of a job than me, that's for sure."

Her expression darkened, the attitude turned melancholic as sudden sadness fell over her. Drac raised his eyebrows at the shift in emotion, believing he knew what was at the root of the cause. He shifted closer to her, caressing her cheek softly and tilting her head up so that her averted gaze met his.