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One would never know that Renfield was taller than his master, when he was in his Master’s presents he always tended to slouch and curl in on himself. He hadn't always done this, there was a time he walked beside his Master with no fear, no need to physically acknowledge his Master’s dominance over him. Those good days were so long ago he could scarcely remember them.
As Dracula moved slowly towards him, getting angrier and angrier, accusing Renfield of abandonment, calling him a husk, accusing him of playing the victim and using him. With each word and accusation Dracula lobbed at him he curled into himself further.
He spotted the ‘How to defend yourself against a narcissist’ book and childishly thought to grab it and brandish it like the Holy Bible, as if it could chase the demons away.
Instead, he just stood there as Dracula back handed him across the face. The force of the blow sent him crashing to the floor. He shuffled away, until he found himself huddled into a corner by his closet. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He looked up at Dracula who now loomed above him, his eyes angry and his fangs exposed by his terrifying snarl.
“What do you have to say for yourself Servant?”
Renfield just looked away.
Dracula stood up and sneered at his familiar.
“That’s what I thought. I’ve been far too patient with you Renfield, now get me my dinner, before I really get angry.” He turned and started to walk towards the exit, when he heard Renfield mutter something under his breath.
“Have something to say now, do you?”
Renfield tightened his mouth, and looked a little shocked he had said anything to begin with.
“Come come, it must have been important. Spit it out!”
“You abandoned me first.” He mumbled.
“Excuse me, How do you figure?”
“The asylum.”
Dracula scoffed, “Seriously! That was over a hundred years ago. You’re not over that yet?”
“I know that being a vampire must be hard, and I can’t begin to understand what you’ve gone through, but that doesn’t mean you have to belittle my experiences.”
“Oh really? Let me learn from you, tell me of these awful experiences from not even the last century but the century before that!” Dracula mocked.
He regarded his pathetic familiar with contempt.
“You promised to come for me, and you didn’t.”
“You promised to help me get the girl, and you didn’t. Why should I have gotten you out, when it was clear that you were just going to fail me.”
“She was the only kind thing I saw, and you wanted to destroy her.” Renfield pleaded.
“Which really just proves you DID abandoned me!”
Renfield wiped away his tears, and whispered “I was scared.”
“You were weak.”
“Then why did you revive me? Why have you kept me for so long!”
“Haven’t you heard Renfield, if you want someone to truly suffer, you don’t go for the immediate kill, because where is the fun in that, you have to think of the long game.”
“So that’s all this had been, an overly long punishment?” Renfield looked up at him with wide eyes, wet from tears still streaming down his face.
“What else would it be? Did you think that I liked you, that we were friends?”
Something inside Renfield broke, he sold his soul to the devil and got a false bill of good in return. In that moment he realized it didn’t matter how many meetings he went to, or how many silly posters he hung up, nothing would ever change. There was no getting out.
He looked into the kitchen and saw the knife block, perhaps there was another way out.
“I wouldn’t try it if I were you.” Dracula said in a sing-song voice. Why did he always forget that his mind was an open book to his master, perhaps there was some sort of magic that made him forget about it when he stopped thinking about it.
Dracula viciously grabbed his chin and pulled it upwards forcing Renfield to look him in the eyes.
“Don’t ever forget Renfield, you belong to me. You live at my sufferance, and stay alive as long as it pleases me. If you try to change that, do something stupid, I will bring you back over and over again. I will make you beg me till your last breath for me to kill you and I will just tell you no and then do it all again and again. So think twice before you even consider defying me again.”
Renfield continued to look up at his Master even after he released his face, with such a delicious look of fear and terror that Dracula bent down and kissed Renfield on the forehead.
“Now come along, you still have to get me my dinner, I believe you promised me a feast.”