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"Why is no one else freaked out about the fact that Greg's secret boyfriend is freaking Count Dracula?!"
The young girl's shout was filled with a multitude of emotions, all deeply rooted in the surprise they had just sprung up on her.
To his left, he heard Dracula suppress a huff of discontent at the title that had been bestowed upon him, undoubtedly displeased by the lack of propriety in the way she was speaking. It spoke volumes, in all honesty, that the vampire had opted for silence instead of attempting to instill some manners into the teenager- back when they had started this whole song and dance, Greg would've found himself having to step in to remind the other that he was no one's parent.
The silence echoed around them after Courtney's shout, thick and heavy as the horror of the situation dawned on them all.
None of them had been foolish enough to believe that this day would never come up on them. From the conversations he'd had with the likes of Pat and Lee, the two members of their family closest to the girl outside of the kids, he also knew that both men had been aware that their time of keeping her in the dark was coming to an end.
But this... well, it most definitely had not been the way any of them had been thinking of telling her the truth behind their secretive ways.
Greg swallowed thickly, a rabid bout of guilt beginning to gnaw its way up from his stomach and into his chest; he took a half step to the left in an attempt to create a small cushion of space between him and the vampire that had forced them into this situation. Almost immediately, the vampire was pressed up and into his side, his cold, marble-hard hand coming over Greg's left hip to send a silent message: you're not getting away that easily.
He had been an advocate for bringing Courtney into their tight inner-circle sooner rather than later. Human or not, the teenager was a Soldier through and through; and that meant that they needed to be real with her. But he wasn't Courtney's father- no, that was Pat- and that meant that he couldn't take the decision for them all. As her step-father, the decision had been up to Pat to make. And, in Pat's mind, the right time to tell Courtney had just never come.
Ollie had agreed with him, naturally, after having faced the shock of Roy's ire when the secrets the blonde had been keeping from the child had crept up on them. But no matter how much Ollie had tried to steer Pat away from making the very choices he now regretted having made, Pat had insisted on their situations not having been the same.
To Pat, Ollie had been a fool. No matter how much the blonde had tried to ignore it, Roy had been born a werewolf and would never not be one; keeping this integral part of himself from the child had been dumb. But Courtney wasn't anything more than tangentially related to witchcraft via her mother's bloodline and they all knew how little that meant.
Courtney wasn't like them, Pat had insisted. She didn't need to know about them being freaks until they were all sure she was old enough to handle the truth; to keep it to herself.
Greg had never been particularly fond of his friend using such a term to describe either himself or their family, but... well... it was the truth. In a world of humans, they were the odd-folk out. Negative as the connotation may be, it was still pretty damn true to call them as much.
"Court, there's a lot we've got to tell you." Lee stepped forward, moving into the center of Dracula's expansive, lavishly decorated throne room in order to reach the girl- she turned sharply and jumped away from him before he had even gotten close.
"Yeah, you do!" her anger simmered with unshed tears; Greg's heart twisted something awful as he heard her struggle to keep the sadness from overcoming her anger. "Why are you all suddenly so hunky-dory with an ancient vampire lord?! He's the kind of villain we're supposed to beat up!"
"I am no villain, child." Dracula sneered, seemingly having reached his- admittedly, still short- limit for tolerating insults to his character. "And you would do well to hold your-"
A sharp pinch to the hand currently on top of Greg's hip was enough for the vampire to hiss out in disdain and stop the oncoming monologue. "And you, Gregory, should know better than such insolence. You allowed me to think you dead." the hand he had pinched grabbed onto his hip and forcibly turned him around- even with the power of keeping himself unmoved, Greg allowed the older being to manhandle him.
The long, high-reaching opulence of Dracula's castle had always been the kind that Greg had found a bit too-much for his liking and one of the main reasons they had always been prepared to lead separate lives even while dedicated to one another. He had never been the kind to really enjoy luxury, no matter how he managed to come across it... but he'd be lying if he said he would have preferred to look at his partner over the throne room on this particular occasion.
At the same time one of his hands forced Greg to move, Dracula's other hand crawled its way up onto the side of Greg's neck. The ice-cold touch caused a shiver to suddenly rip through him, a frigid shock seeing how his own body temperature generally ran far hotter than a normal human being; far hotter than a normal vampire.
The hand on his hip decried possession; the one on his neck demanded attention.
It was the first time that Greg got a good look at his partner. Prior to this, all the other times he had looked at Dracula had been from afar or just flashes, seeing how there had been matters far more pressing than walking up to the vampire and letting him know that everything he had believed for a good few decades hadn't just been wrong, but grossly exaggerated.
The world was about as right as it could get now, though, and there wasn't any other excuse he could hide behind; at least, no other excuse that Dracula would allow him to hide behind.
There was a need to handle what was currently going on with Courtney and Greg had a role to play in that yes but... it wasn't the most important thing he needed to do right now.
Dracula had allowed his hair to grow long once again, down past his shoulders, a stark difference to the harsh and blunt cut he had opted for back in the 40's. There was a disheveled aura to the long, salt-and-pepper tresses; orderly, sure, because that was the kind of man the Count had always been, but with an edge of disarray. The beard that now covered the lower half of his face was finely trimmed, if in need of some kind of touch-up due to having odds and ends sticking out- undoubtedly because of the roughhousing that had been undergone in the last few hours of the night.
The vampire's eyes had always been a startling, striking thing- had been one of the main features that had initially drawn Greg in, so many centuries ago. When disguised to look like regular, if somewhat uniquely colored, human eyes, they were alluring... but when in their natural state, surrounded by an ocean of darkness, those bright and shining red eyes were like something far beyond this world.
Opaque, fang-like pupils watched him with a storm of emotions; Dracula's harsh, angular face was pulled into a displeased frown that was only further accentuated by his thick eyebrows being narrowed into a deep glower.
"Family they are and family I call them," the vampire's voice was thick even as it dropped in volume, "But there is much we must discuss before we begin to play any home-making games." his words dripped with contained anger, coiled tight and yearning for immediate, sudden, and violent release.
Those wonderfully breathtaking eyes glanced away from him and towards the rest of his family- Greg was able to release the breath he had not noticed he had been holding and found a resounding silence to have fallen between them all.
"You are more than just guests, you are family." Dracula repeated with a stronger voice, making a point of having all in his hall hear him. "Explore, relax, enjoy your time within my castle. Should you have any need, do not be afraid to ask any of my servants; be assuaged by the knowledge that you are free to roam as you please. But, please, allow me this selfish request: leave Gregory to me until daylight rises."
Greg had to force himself to swallow past the knot that appeared in his throat, suddenly incredibly aware of the fact that Dracula hadn't seen hide or hair of him or even heard a single word from him in what had almost been a full century.
To him, this had been the blink of an eye but... to Dracula...
"Thank you, Count." Lee sounded so exhausted he could just about keel over, followed by an appropriately guilty Sir Justin adding, "We came as soon as we could, my lord. Unfortunately, fate wanted us far from your lands."
Greg was able to see the slow, considerate nod Dracula offered the man that shared importance to them both, knowing full-well what it meant even as silence remained. Dracula would undoubtedly call on Justin to come up to his quarter at some point, seeing how he had been just as lost to the Count as Greg himself; but, for now, it would just be them.
"We shall take our leave."
He wasn't able to get a single word out before frigid, opaque shadows had enveloped them and begun to transport them far and away from the rest of his family.
He had known, from the moment the Justice League had informed him and the rest of the Soldiers about Count Dracula's efforts to take over the world, that Dracula wouldn't be in a particularly positive mood when they finally had the conversation they needed to have. The last time he had seen Dracula had been in the middle of World War 2, back when Transylvania had needed the Soldiers to come in and help the Count defend his lands from the oncoming Nazi invasion.
That had been less than a year ago to Greg; it had been almost a full century for Dracula.
"I love you. I am happy to know you are alive and well; am relieved to see you once again. But I am enraged beyond words." was all the vampire had told him before he had begun to ferociously pace back and forth in the grand room they had wound up within.
This was not Dracula's main quarters- no, the room where he kept his personal coffin was left to the darkest edges of the castle even now, it seemed. In the past, Greg had ribbed the vampire over perceived paranoia; now, after everything they had survived through, he knew better.
The room was as lavish as every other spot of Dracula's castle, immaculately decorated in hues of crimson and black through an expanse of furniture, ornaments, and trinkets that had been acquired throughout the expansive lifetime Dracula had experienced. The bed he was currently sat on had a comforter with an intricate pattern in dark crimson hues; Greg couldn't quite place where it might come from but could definitely appreciate the soft thickness of it.
For the first few minutes they were sequestered away in the safety of a room far away from the rest of the world, they remained in suspended silence. It was thick, charged with the kind of electricity Dracula could conjure up only in the worst of his anger. Greg opted to allow the silence to keep up, admittedly, partially afraid of the way in which the vampire might lash out should he say the wrong thing.
"Everything that took place to make me lose you- tell me." a sharp stop and Dracula's inflamed eyes were on him once again; his face was as hard as stone. "Now."
Dracula knew better than to talk down at him; Greg knew better than to antagonize the vampire. Over the centuries they had been romantically and sexually involved, they had managed to fall into a comfortable, almost cozy state in their relationship wherein they both regarded one another as absolute equals. Or, well, at least as equal as they could, seeing how Dracula was still nobility and Greg had very much been born into a simple, unimpressive family residing in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming.
Back in the past, when Dracula had tried to domineer and pull him every which way, Greg had bit back; it had been the main reason why the vampire had eventually become infatuated with him, after all. There was a time and a place to fight back, after all; especially when calling out Dracula's terrible decision making skills.
But now... the demand wasn't one of control. It was one of fear.
"Remember how we beat back them krauts?" he asked before sighing heavily, mind jumbling and tumbling with the onslaught of neverending chaos his life had become after that particular event. After a stiff, wordless nod from the vampire, he continued to say, "By beatin' them back, we got ourselves on a right bastard's naughty list."
He clasped his hands together, turning his gaze down and away from Dracula, instead focusing on the way his fingers felt as they touched one another now that they were freed from their gloves.
Fact of the matter was that he wasn't happy with everything that had happened in his life. He was particularly displeased with the way he had not been able to interact with Dracula... but... he hadn't allowed himself to think much about the circumstances until right now. For him, it had only been a year; that was most definitely not the longest gap of time to pass with them on different shores. But for Dracula it had been almost a full century.
They had arrived at Dracul Castle with the express mission of stopping a maddened Count Dracula from attempting to take over the world; in Greg's heart, he had hoped that there was more to the story than Dracula having just gone mad because he wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to put the love of his life down in the horrifying case that he'd truly lost himself.
Sir Justin had thrown out the possibility of mind-control, Lee had reminded them both of the fact that Count Dracula had never strayed from an ambiguous, purely self-serving kind of morality unique to vampires all around the world. Ollie's own input had been to tell Greg that they would solve whatever was wrong, no matter what, while Pat simply grounded them all by stating that they had a duty to the world, no matter how tired they may have been. The kids had remained suspiciously quiet during the deliberations on the ride over to Transylvania.
He had been relieved to see that Dracula had been working on his own, that there were no master plots being schemed up by a grand group of enemies; he had been horrified to see that the love of his life had been wholeheartedly prepared to raze the world to the ground in order to bring about a new world of never-ending night.
Swallowing past the knot in his throat, Greg explained the dizzying tale that had been his life in the past year; starting from the moment Per Degaton and Nebula Man hunted them down with the express purpose of throwing them out of time in order to exact a cruel revenge on the Seven Soldiers of Victory having managed to foil their plans to domineer the planet.
When he mentioned where they all wound up, how Pat specifically had been living in this present for long enough to have made a family for himself, he stopped speaking when Dracula's face became an unreadable slab of stone.
"Pat has been within my reach for years?" while Dracula's face was as cold as a winter's night, his voice was as tumultuous as Greg's heart. "Why did he never reach out? I could have- I would have-" he stopped suddenly, pressing his lips harshly together as he forced his eyes shut. "Please, continue."
Greg's heart shattered upon hearing how hollow; how broken; the vampire's final words sounded.
With a flexing of his fingers, Greg forced himself to continue speaking. Even though his heart yearned to reach out and pull Dracula into him; to grab onto the vampire and never let him go; he knew that it was not yet the time for such a move.
In order to properly begin to heal this ache, Dracula needed all the truth laid out before him.
Ollie and Sylvester had been dumped in a developing Sumer, Sir Justin and Roy in pre-conquest Mesoamerica, and Lee and Stuff in 25th century space, right in the midst of a harsh war between humans and alien invaders. Greg and Wing had been cast into the 31st century, wherein they had been luckily able to eventually get into the good graces of an up-and-coming superhero called Booster Gold- who had then opened the door for them meeting Rip Hunter and his time traveling capabilities, which had then allowed them to start coming up with a possibility to get their family back together.
"We tried to get back as fast as we could- we really did. But by the time we were all together and we heard 'bout your plans to take over the world with a vampire army..." with a sigh, he admitted a grand regret, "That feller with the time machine, Rip Hunter, said that we wouldn't be able to get back to our proper time. If we try to, he'll make sure we don't make it."
It was a cold decision to have made; Greg had lost a lot of love for a man he had come to see as a comrade in arms through the last year they had been working together. Even though he could see where the man was coming from... Their whole lives, completely uprooted and all for a time-stream that would never be none-the-wiser.
This wasn't Greg's first rodeo, seeing how he had first met Dracula centuries ago precisely because of an unfortunate time-travel related mishap. But this was the first time he wouldn't be able to come back to the life he had once known without any further complications.
By the time he had finished recounting their tale, Greg could tell that the sun was slowly beginning to creep up into the sky.
After a bout of thick silence reigning over them once again, Dracula moved towards him, offered him a cold, desperate hand. He took one look at that hand before following it to look into Dracula's face; the vampire's eyes were watching him through narrowed slits, "Allow me to be selfish. They have had you for far less time than I have suffered your absence- join me in slumber."
This time around, it wasn't a demand; it wasn't an order; it wasn't a command. This time around, Dracula's words were a request, quiet and pleading even as he continued to hide behind the veneer of courage and confidence Greg had never seen him completely lose.
As he lowered his gaze back to Dracula's hand, he noticed just how heavy his eyelids began to feel. Ever since they had reunited with Pat and the Justice League had come into contact with them, it had been constant go-go-go; in truth, the past year had barely been spent in a moment of relaxation.
When his hand came into contact with Dracula's, the response was immediate- the vampire's hand curled tightly around him in a grip so vicious he knew he wouldn't be able to escape.
"Sounds right fair, I reckon." he stood up and used Dracula's tight grip against him, forcibly pulled the vampire into him to wrap him up in a hug so tight it would have crushed most of the other Soldiers. "I ain't ever lettin' you go, my own heart's root."
Dracula's other arm grabbed him fiercely around his waist, pulling them so close that there wasn't a single space left between their bodies. Greg felt the vampire drop his head right beside his ear before whispering, "You are my life."
His heart squeezed so tightly that tears began to burn his eyes; when the cool wraiths of Dracula's shadows began to envelop around them, Greg was assuaged with the knowledge that things were finally going to calm down and he was once again in the presence of the love of his life.