Why Vampires Sleep With The Lights On

Dracula Was Such A Dick

The evening came around unusually quick. Too quickly for my liking.

Me and Kian spent time binge-watching After Life and generally trying to ignore the obvious tension between us. We heard my mum put the vacuum cleaner on, and start to clean downstairs.

It was apparent that eventually, we were going to have to discuss it. What the heck, I might as well go for it...

"So... Count Dracula?" I asked, making Kian look away from the laptop screen and at me. His red eyes were misted and distant.

"Dracula was the first male vampire." he explained "Carmilla was the first female vampire. Nobody knows how they first became what they were, but together they started a campaign to recruit others to their lifestyle. I guess that immortality can be a pretty good persuader to get people on board."

"It always seemed more like a curse to me. Having to live and watch everyone around you, everyone who means something to you die." I said, "Plus it always tends to come with a sort of price to pay."

"Having to live from drinking the blood of others?" Kian asked.

Oh, shit. Damn my stupid mouth! Always saying something without bloody thinking!

"I didn't mean..."

"I know." Kian replied "But, your right. They prayed on people who didn't know better, people who saw it as a good thing. People like me who joined them willingly."

"You've never spoken about how you were turned before," I said softly.

"Well, it's not exactly something I like to go back to in my mind." Kian said with a sigh "I was such a different person back then."

"So why don't you tell me about it?" I asked, wanting him to open up to me "It's all in the past now."

A dark look briefly flashed across Kian's pale features. For a moment he looked deeply troubled. I was pretty sure that it was there, although it was gone in a second, replaced by a sad sort of smile.

"I don't want you to think of me like that, like the monster I was." Kian said "Because that's not who I am. Not really."

"I know exactly who you are, Kian," I replied, taking his hand in mine. I found that his coldness was kind of comforting "And, trust me, nothing you tell me is going to change how I feel about you."

He smiled then, his fangs showing and a light glinting in his eyes.

"How do I deserve you?" He asked playfully "Okay. Well, the year was 1883. I lived in London then. Well, I survived in London then. I was seventeen, without a job or a family. I grew up in the workhouse, but, I couldn't stand it. I ran away and to make ends meat I took to picking pockets."

I laughed "Very Oliver Twist."

"You'd be surprised what people carried around with them." Kian carried on "It wasn't great, but I got by. Then one night I saw a man, very well dressed, well to do. I just knew that I needed to pick his pocket. He just looked the type to be carrying around a small fortune."

"So you picked his pocket?" I asked.

"I followed him for a bit, then yeah, but as I went to pull away he grabbed my hand." Kian said "His eyes were red and he had fangs. Then he must have knocked me out."

"And this was Dracula?"

"It was him." Kian replied, nodding his head "I woke up in a strange flat, then he came in and made me an offer. He could make me immortal and take me in if I worked for him, or I could go back to the streets and probably die before I turned twenty. It wasn't much of a choice."

"So you agreed to be turned by him, you let him make you a vampire?"

"It was worse than you think." Kian said "He drained me of most of my blood, almost killing me then made me drink some of his blood, and then..."

Suddenly Kian went quiet, almost like remembering what he had gone through was physically hurting him.

"Then what?" I asked, "What happened next?"

"For the process to complete I had to drink." Kian finally managed to reply.

I said nothing. I knew what he meant by 'drink'. He had been made to drain the blood of some random victim, take their life to make himself immortal. No wonder he didn't like to think about it. No wonder that he wasn't proud of his heritage or how he had become a vampire.

God, Dracula was such a dick!

Offering vulnerable people an entire new life, a way to survive when they needed it most only to make them do the unthinkable in order to achieve it. A tyrant is what he sounded like.

"They become my family. Dracula and Carmilla." Kian explained "They give me a roof over my head, all the blood I could drink, all I had to do was find willing people for them to turn into vampires. I helped them build the very first version of The Church Of Dracul and I was the one who caused all of it to fall apart. That's why we ended up here in Moonstone."

I really didn't want to push Kian too far. He'd just opened up a lot, and I knew there was more that he would tell me in his own time. Everything he had done and been through was horrific, but I had been telling him the truth, I didn't change how I felt about him. Not one bit.

I mean, everything he had done to help me, even when he had absolutely no reason to - that is what shaped him in my eyes. Not something that his situation forced on him over a century ago. It was a different time, a different world. As he had said, he was no longer that person. Honestly, I don't believe he had been that person in a very long time. I might not know what had caused him to change his ways, but I knew that he had changed since those days when he worked on picking up people for Dracula to turn into his own personal army of supporters.

The Church Of Dracul.

I had never before wondered about the origins of the Church or the Vampires. It kind of begged the question of what the hell had happened to Dracula? I hadn't been part of the supernatural world for long, but I knew that reality and fiction tended to have blurred lines.

"We've all done things we regret." I said "God, look what happened to Harry Jekyll. Look what happened to you. Jonathan did all of that because of me."

"None of that was your fault."

Kian looked at me, his blood-red eyes boring into mine and he grabbed my hand.

"Promise me that you won't blame yourself for what Jonathan did." He said, "That asshole got what he deserved."

"You'd better promise the same then." I retorted "Your not responsible for whatever Dracula made you do. He was probably controlling you the entire time anyway."

Kian laughed then.

"Well, I can't argue with that logic. Well played, lycan."

Bloodsucker.

I let the thought out knowing that he'd hear it, and I couldn't help but smile back at him as he reacted by raising an eyebrow and trying not to laugh. As much as he frustrated the hell out of me, I loved him and all of his quirky, vampiric ways. We all have baggage at the end of the day. It's just that Kian's baggage was having been turned into a vampire by Count Dracula himself. I suppose it could always be worse.

Luckily Kian was spared from answering as my mum's voice come floating up from downstairs to let us know that dinner had arrived.