to b̶r̶a̶v̶e̶ this course of → 𝔪𝔦𝔫𝔢

headcanon #001

Drake is socially awkward and large crowds make him really uncomfortable. It's worse when it's a crowd of strangers. Seedy bar crowds seem to be an exception.

OF ALL THE DEEDS I"VE DONE

i'm not proud of a single one

Black hooves thunder underneath him. The night is silent aside from that thundering and the soft rattling of metal from the tack his horse wears and the bag that’s strapped across its hindquarters. He’s got no idea where he’s meant to go, he only knows that he must. He has to push forward and go. Behind him, fading into the dark, is the home he’d grown up in. Inside of it are his parents. They are dead and it is his fault.

His face is cracked porcelain and dark brows are drawn together so that he can squint into the darkness. Gray eyes are nestled behind swollen, red lids and they are unfocused. His mind is elsewhere and yet he still digs his heels into the horse’s flanks to drive him forwards faster. The animal grunts in response, snorts hot air through flared nostrils and continues on its path to some unknown destination. His hands keep a tight hold on the reins, all the while scenes of what he'd done to his parents, scenes of that blurry figure talking him out of his humanity, they all keep rolling through his mind.

Those scenes, and the face that his mind was already struggling to hold onto, those words, all of those lines he’d fallen for so easily. Anger, an emotion he’s going to become very familiar with, that had been his father’s now flooded through him. It boils his blood and he wants so badly to direct it at that woman, but he cannot. Instead it’s turned inward and he is the target. “So fuckin’ stupid.” He snarls under his breath and like that anger, it’s directed at himself.

When his horse finally slows, he doesn’t nudge the creature forward any faster. He can hear its uneven breathing beneath him, snorting and nickering to try and catch its breath back. Something strange to him is the way he can hear the faint, strong thudding of the animal’s heart. He glances down to the horse that’s moving forward at a walk. He pulls the reins tight and the horse stops with a few bobs of its head. Drake is still staring at the creature and focusing on that steady rhythm coming from its chest. He’s not particularly thirsty now, but still, the sound draws his fangs out and he just sits there, staring at the horse, brows furrowed in thought.

It doesn’t smell appetizing, and that’s likely because all he can smell is horse sweat and horse. He’s not thirsty, nor is he hungry. He’s not sure he’ll ever be hungry again after what he’d just done. It’s just mind blowing to him that he can hear this horse’s heart drumming away in its chest when he couldn’t at all before. In a few centuries time, in a few years’ time, he would be able to hear it much more clearly along with the churning of the blood being pushed through veins. One shaky hand reaches to pat the horse on the side of the neck and then he sits there, listening until the heartbeat slows and fades to a muffled thudding noise.

He finally looks up and around at the scenery around himself. There’s nothing that impressive around, just a bunch of trees and so he nudges the horse forward again. After what feels like hours on the horse, he comes across what he thinks is an abandoned house with a small barn next to it. There are no horses, no animals, no nothing in the barn and the house seems silent. He lingers nearby, watching and trying to listen for any sign of life, but there are none. He and his horse creep closer to the barn and once he’s there he slides from the horse’s back to creep into that building and he finds nothing. He’s not paying attention to smells because that’s never told him anything before, instead he relies on sight and sound and neither of them are telling him that people might still live here.

He leads his horse into one of those empty stalls, removes the tack from its back, and leaves him there to rest. The sky was lightening up, that likely meant that dawn was coming. He’s left the barn and he’s looking for a well, something to get water from for his horse. He’s not paying attention to where the sun is, but he’s found a well a few yards away. He’s on his way back to the barn to look for a bucket when the first rays of sunlight come spilling over the mountains and through the trees. He emerges, a wooden bucket in hand as he makes his way back to the well.

The sun breaks between the trees and touches his skin just as he’s passing back into the safety of the barn. He puts the bucket down for his horse to drink from and then he’s moving to go sit on the floor so he can lean up against the wall of the barn, tucked out of the way and hidden. He stares ahead at the opposite wall, it’s only now that he realizes how tired he really is. Everything he’s felt, everything he feels because of last night, it’s all buried under a very, very profound tiredness. It doesn’t take him long to nod off and he’s sleeping for a few hours until he’s jarred from that sleep by a boot kicking at his leg.

He jolts upright from his sleep, hands on the floors that he can already work to push himself up to his feet. He finally looks at the one who’d kicked him awake and instead he’s looking down the barrel of a gun. “Who the fuck’re you?” Drake can feel his own heart thrumming in his chest and something stirs in him because he can hear that this man’s is doing the same. “Dr-Drake.” It takes him a moment to form the word, his mind still weighed down with sleep. He’s reminded of everything that’s happened in the last 48 hours and his heart is breaking in his chest all over again. “What’re ya doin’ in here, boy?” He’s glancing around, behind the man is a boy, a young boy. Likely his son, and standing at the open door of the barn is what Drake assumes is his wife and their daughter. He’s apparently looked for too long and the barrel of that gun presses against his chest.

“Answer me.” Those gray eyes flick back to the man. And Drake is trying to come up with something, anything he can say that would make sense. “I, uh… I…” But he’s having trouble, he’s distracted by four frantic heart beats faintly drumming in his ears and that slow steady bassline that was his horse. He swallows. “I got lost in the woods. I was tired, needed a place t’sleep. I didn’ think anyone lived here. I jus’… jus’ needed a place t’sleep, needed somewhere t’keep ‘im.” He nods towards the horse. “Didn’ mean nobody no harm.” His breathing is more ragged than he realizes and he keeps flicking his gaze between that man’s neck and his face. The gun finally lowers. “Righ', righ'. Where you comin’ from?” Drake glances down, his expression dark. “Left the city, jus’ on my way home. Got lost, tha’s all.”

The man glances towards his wife who looks between him and Drake for a few, silent moments before she finally speaks. “You look like you need a good sleep, ‘n somethin’ t’eat. Shawn, maybe we could let him rest up here for a while?” And then the man is looking back at Drake, he nods his head at the intruder he'd almost shot. “She’s right, you don’ look well, son. Why don’ you go in the house ‘n lay down. Mary’ll bring you somethin’ warm t’eat. Once you get some rest we’ll help you get back on track to wherever it is you’re tryin’ t’go.” Drake just nods, still having a hard time focusing on anything beyond those heartbeats. ”C’mon then, lad.” Drake staggers to stand on his own before he stoops down to get his bag and then he’s following this man into the house. The sun is tucked behind thick clouds, this is a lesson he’ll learn another day, another day very soon. The sun was no longer something he could enjoy. The stronger the virus grew in him, the less tolerant to light he would become.

He's led into a room, it was a simple room and a simple house, but there was a bed. He strips to his underclothes and he collapses into it, that exhaustion still strong enough to drag him back to sleep. He's not sure why they'd been so willing to take him in, to help him. Maybe it was because he'd only been sleeping, because he seemed honest, but more than likely it was probably because he looked like he was sick and maybe Mary had felt sorry for him when her husband would have rather just shot him. He's not thinking about that when he's roused from sleep a second time. This time it's not from kicking, or any outside source, this is something internal urging him to wake. It's urging him to move, to feed.

His eyes are dark as the fledgling gets to his feet. Once again, he's powerless to stop himself, he's not in control of his own body. He's a puppet to that growing thirst and the virus that is taking over his body. He pads towards the door, his movements are still very human, but with time he would refine them. He would eventually become that silent killer his kind were known to be. The beast opens the door and leans against the frame, his head slips out into the hallway and the house is silent. Everyone is asleep, all he can hear are the subtle snores, the murmurs and mumbles of restless sleep, and those faint heartbeats again. That smell, the familiar, warm metal smell is drifting in the air. He slowly stumbles out into the hallway, a zombie ambling towards its next meal.

He finds that meal in in the room nearest his, the room where Mary and her husband sleep. He twists the knob and pushes the door open silently and for a moment, he is staring at them, watching them sleep. His mouth drops open and those fangs are already extended. He pads towards the bed. There's no rhyme or reason to the side he wanders to first. It is simply the closest. It's the side Mary sleeps on, her face is peaceful. Drake looms over her and slowly he sinks down onto her, one hand clears the hair from her neck and a moment later, in a flash of hunting proficiency and the capability of those reflexes and speed, he yanks her into a better position. Those fangs dip into her jugular before she is even fully awake. By the time she screams, it's weak, but it does wake her husband.

Shawn was a hard working man, he worked in the fields day in and day out, he was strong. When he jolts awake and sees the man he'd taken in for the night, now straddling his struggling wife, his mouth on her neck, he reacts. Shawn reaches to try and shove Drake off of his wife, but he does not budge. He drinks more of that blood oozing from her neck. Shawn is screaming, shoving and punching Drake along his back. The human's fists aim for the vampire's spine and he punches as hard as he can. Drake grunts and snarls at the impact of those punches that would bruise his skin and leave him stiff for a few days while his body learned to heal itself. He's too focused on the feeding to acknowledge that pain right now. He is not himself, but he would never forgive himself for what he'd done here. It's not until a bullet slams into his side does Drake rip those fangs from Mary's neck to roll off of her and onto the floor where he will crouch like an animal, snarling and writhing at the sharp pain throbbing in his side. But that high that comes with the kill and the feeding sends him flying back up to where Shawn is desperately trying to wake his wife.

She would never wake up. She would bleed out there, in their bed. Meanwhile, Drake takes advantage of this weakness, this grieving, to catch the man by the shoulders and sling him back against the bed. The gun whips for Drake's face, and hits hard enough to knock his face the other way. Instead of slowing him down, it seems to send Drake into some sort of frenzy. He snarls, the sound almost inhuman, and grabs hold of that gun and in the fit of rage he wrenches it free and slams it into Shawn's skull three times in rapid succession. The human is not dead, but he is bleeding and disoriented. That blood catches the attention of Drake's sight, his smell and his mouth twitches open. In moment his fangs snap into the neck of this man who'd only wanted to protect his family, his wife. While blood oozes from the gunshot wound on Drake's side, he drains every drop from Shawn and then he tears those fangs away and leaves the man to die next to his wife who's still bleeding out.

He turns to leave the room, but there are two sets of watery eyes staring at the bloody, bleeding man who'd just murdered their parents. Mary and Shawn's kids, John and Abigail, are in the doorway. Abigail has turned to cry into the chest of her brother who is staring angrily at Drake through teary, blue eyes. For a split second his heart wrenches in his chest, he stares wide-eyed into the eyes of that boy and for a second he knows. He knows what he's done, what he's doing and what he's about to do. He fights that urge that sends him forward, that urge that has him grabbing John by the neck and Abigail by the hair. He drags them both into the same room he'd killed their parents in and kicks the door shut. That same urge, that desperate, insatiable urge that'd killed his parents, has him forcing John to the ground so he could tear into his neck while his sister watched helplessly, screaming and begging while she slammed her small fists into the back of the monster that'd take her whole family from her before she met the same fate a few moments later.

Like a gorged tick he would roll off of his meal, he would lay there in the floor with them and pass out there among them from a combination of the huge feast he'd just had and the blood he himself had lost after that gunshot.

He stirs a few hours later, his gunshot wound had stopped bleeding, scabbed over and started the slow process of healing while his body adjusted. He blinks up at the ceiling, his back aches, his spine hurts, and his side is burning. He reaches to run a hand over the healing bullet wound and suddenly it comes flooding back in that same, devastating clarity. He jolts up to his feet, his back screaming in pain from the movement. The first thing he sees is Shawn, his skull smashed, a bloody gun laying on the floor, his eyes open, his mouth hung open in a look of terror. Drake's eyes are watery, a hand comes up to his mouth. His eyes move on to Mary, her eyes open, lifeless. Her hand was still curling into the blanket. His lip twitches into a frown, the tears fall freely. He turns to leave the room and that's when he sees them, John and Abigail. He shakes his head, panic sets in and then comes that dread, the guilt, the regret. "No, no. No, God, please. No." He whimpers it, hits his knees and scrambles forwards to try and shake John awake first, despite the way his neck is torn open, then he does the same for his sister, but neither of them wake. They are all dead, gone, murdered. It was his fault.

He sinks back against the foot of the bed, his knees curl into his chest. "'M sorry. 'M so fuckin' sorry." His voice is hoarse, desperate and so tired. It cracks under the weight of what he's done, his conscience is obliterated as is his heart. His hands tangle into the bloody mess that is his hair, tears fall freely and he stays there for a long time before he scrambles up to his feet. He rushes from the room, slamming the door behind him, and back into the room they'd given him for the night. He cleans the blood from himself as best he can with the blanket from his bed. He stumbles into his clothes as best he can through those blurry eyes.

He runs from that house, into the barn and he packs up on his horse. Once again he's tearing off, unsure of where to go or if there was anywhere for him to go. There's a voice in the back of his mind, a quiet nagging telling him to put himself down before he hurts anyone else. He won't listen to it though, he could fix this, he could beat this. Somehow. He urges his horse on faster, he leaves another house full of corpses in his wake, but he will never shake the look in John's eyes, the way Abigail cried and screamed, the terrified look in both of their eyes before he tore them down after they'd watched him do the same to their parents. He will silently curse Shawn in his mind as he goes and then out loud, under his breath as he blazes through the woods.

"Shoulda been a better shot." And for the next few decades he will wish desperately that he had been.

i see red, i see red, i see red

and you're playing with fire

The vampire has overstayed his welcome in another town, the sound of hooves pounding the earth signal his retreat into the woodlands. Another family had opened their home to him and he'd left another home of corpses in his wake. There's blood on his shirt, his hands, in his hair and he's pushing forward into the cold dark air of the early morning. There's a gash over his eye and bruises on his shoulders, along his sides, but they are healing. He stares ahead, not really paying attention to where they are going, blood trickles down his face around a tender eye socket. The family consisted of two parents, Andrea and Mack, and their son, Trevor. Trevor was about the same age Drake had been when he turned and the one to give Drake all of those bruises. Unfortunately for Trevor, he'd triggered one of those animalistic frenzies and was now dead, his neck ripped open like his parents'.

He's dazed and only realizes he's not been paying attention to where he's going because he's left the safety of the trees. The sun touches his skin and immediately he is screaming. There's a fire dancing over his exposed skin, up his sleeves and across his chest. He yanks the reins hard and his horse rears and throws the burning vampire to the ground. Drake is struggling to get up to his feet through the burning. His horse is still panicking next to him but there's no time to worry about him. The young vampire is scrambling through a burn like nothing he's ever felt before back towards the trees only because something instinctual drives him there. He hits his knees in the shade of those trees and he's panting, panicking until it all becomes too much for him and he passes out in the shade of the trees.

He lies there, unconscious until the sun slips through a gap in the leaves and burns the already burned skin on his cheek. There’s a few seconds of silence before he is wrenching up off of the damp grass, screaming with a new burning sensation. He is reeling from the lingering pain from the first round of burns, the fresh burn hurts even worse. A breeze slips through the leaves and more rays of sun scrape across his skin. He can feel fangs against the inside of his mouth, fangs that are bared in response to the distress, the pain, and the panic.

In the midst of his scrambling, he feels eyes on him. He turns to stare up into the eyes of a man with a rifle propped against his shoulder. When the vampire parts his lips to speak that rifle will turn and the barrel will press harshly into Drake’s burned chest. Gray eyes stare up at the man, confused before they darken with anger. He is in so much pain, he is no threat to anyone in this moment and here this man is standing over him with a gun pressing heavily on his chest. Drake will lift burned hands to quickly grab the barrel off the rifle and despite the pain that burns him alive with every movement, he yanks the rifle away. He staggers up to his feet with great difficulty while the rifle sits in his hands like a baseball bat. He snarls and screams through the pain to sling the butt of the rifle for that man’s face. It’s all happened too fast for the hunter to react, the barrel crushes his face and Drake will beat the man over the face with the butt of that rifle until he stops begging for the vampire to spare him.

The man was young, but now he was dead. His face bashed in with his own rifle. He breathes through the pain, willing himself to dig through the dead man’s clothes to find bullets for the rifle he will keep for himself.

He knows now he can’t stay under the trees, the light moves too much and every time he thinks he’s safe a new burn tears at his tender skin. People must live nearby, judging from this man he’s just beaten to death. He’s not safe out here so he starts looking for anywhere to hide, he finally spots a cave and will start to make his way through the trees. There are uncoordinated jerks and flinches from him as the sunlight gets too close.

He finally makes it and he crawls into the cave and it’s the first time he can really look down at his skin. It’s red, the older burns are scabbing and oozing. He runs his hands over his face, into his hair, there are scabs, rough skin and it burns his hands to touch anything. He’s hot, despite how cool it is in the cave.

The rifle props against the wall of this cave and he’ll ungracefully sink down into the floor. He can do nothing but sit there. Sit there and deal with the excruciating pain he is feeling. It’s like sitting in a fire, nothing he does eases the pain he feels. His breathing is tense, ragged, and he’s struggling to stay conscious through it all. Eventually his horse comes to the mouth of the cave and will linger just outside of it. He makes a quiet clicking noise with his mouth and the creature turns to sniff the air of the cave before it will quietly start grazing.

He stares at that horse while sitting still, focusing on his breathing as much as he can until eventually his body will force his brain to shut down and he passes out again.

there's a devil inside of me

and he's holding on

» MUSIC «

The ER is a hazy blur that smells like blood, sickness, and a clean smell that burns up his sinuses with each breath. He doesn't hear anything, he doesn't see anything. There are noises, children crying, coughs, sneezes, and hushed conversations that don't come through over the beating in his ears. She disappears behind swinging doors and he is left alone in the waiting room. He stands there, lost, soaked in blood that doesn't belong to him. It dries on his hands and seals his shirt against his chest. Each breath smells like her first. The hole in his chest aches, it burns raw and angry.

There's a cough that rattles around his brain, a high pitched child-squeal that grates against his skull. He backs up for the door. He can't be with her and he can't be here. This time was filled with uncertainty, he can't entertain possibilities right now. He wrenches around and he is sprinting out of there, burning with hate and agony that are fueled by the adrenaline. A nurse shouts at his back, but he is not stopping.

He isn't sure he can. Those legs carry him at alarming speed, away from the place where the air is sterile and full of death, they carry him towards smells he knows. They carry him towards the city, towards the smell of gasoline, smoke, garbage, and so many beating hearts, so many humans. They are breakable and there is an uncontrollable urge, an almost reflexive desire to show them just how fragile they all really are.

What did it matter now? What did any of it matter now? Something in the back of his mind nags him but right now he isn't listening. He instead focuses on the pain in his chest, the pain of not knowing, the pain of failing the one person he cared for most, the pain that comes with a vicious, burning rage that laps at his insides. It's easy for him to burn. The anger is loud and demands his attention and eventually the voice in the back of his head is silenced. All he can hear is that angry, rapid drumming in his ears.

It's all he hears when a man staggers out of a bar, drunk and oblivious. He is slammed into with the force to send him rolling across the pavement. The vampire comes to a dead halt and watches him roll, mouth hanging open in an angry snarl, fangs bared. The man pushes himself up and is yelling about something, Drake only stares through him. He is on a rant and is squaring on Drake but the vampire launches at him before he even gets his stance situated. He is grabbing the man by the hair and the shoulder before he has the sense to stop him. Fangs tear into his neck and he will hook them around veins and rip, tear, and snarl like the monster he is.

He drags the bleeding prey into a nearby alleyway, and throws him roughly to the pavement. Red pours from a nasty tear in his throat and he is gasping, choking, begging. It wouldn't stop hurting. He drinks his fill and then lets his temper go, he beats this man to nothing for no other reason that he was in his way on a really, really bad night. Each punch, each kick, each snarled curse had not made him feel any better. He leaves the alleyway, splattered in blood and he is sprinting again, leaving a corpse behind.

Each body he leaves behind, each walking, living, breathing person he lays flat, each one he tears down into nothing, each one he shreds to ribbons, all he feels is that agony. That helplessness. It won't stop no matter how far down he spirals. He runs himself ragged and when he finally stops, he's at a familiar house. It wasn't home. It may never be home again. There's yellow tape he's not meant to cross. It's too quiet.

The smell of gunpowder and blood, the smell of that human he can't identify yet, they linger here. And they dig claws into the broken place in his chest and they wrench it. He draws breath in through an open mouth, around fangs that won't retract, through a throat burning raw, a throat that threatens to close. He goes around to the back of the house, he strips out of his bloody clothes and shoes. He pads into the house, bags those clothes to get rid of on the way back, he showers, dresses. He leaves. He can't be here.

He can't be anywhere.

He forces himself back. Back to the place that is too clean, sick, and full of death. He goes back to the uncertainty, to sit and wait for what feels like the inevitable. He sits in a chair, tucked away in a corner, no one sits by him. He leans his head back against the wall and digs his nails into his palms, he stares at nothing and grinds his teeth, those gray eyes are dark, something in them broken, and he longs for a numbness that no one can give him.