Title: Settling the Score

Author: Jedi Buttercup

Rating: T

Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.

Summary: "That's better," Deckard grunted as Owen sat up. "Now you're all pretty again. So, you done playing games for the old Spider?" 1600w.

Spoilers: Dracula Untold; Fast & Furious 6; Furious Seven

Notes: For xlade, for the prompt: "Fast and Furious + Dracula Untold. With Luke Evans as Shaw/Dracula? Maybe dark times for Dracula, living under a new name? Maybe post-airplane revival. Who knows. So many possibilities!" An alternate opening scene for Furious Seven, because Jason Statham. Warning for canon-typical not being nice guys. Also a sort of backward fixit for a particular issue in FF6 - no, not that one, the other one. :) Originally posted elsewhere 11/22/2015.

The nurse trembled as Deckard bent her over the hospital bed, breathing in shallow, terrified gasps. It was a shame that she and her friend had been in there instead of a pair of the officers cluttering the halls outside; he'd never been one to cringe from collateral damage, but neither was he a fan of unnecessary waste.

Still, it couldn't be helped. He'd been a bit thirsty after all the damage he'd taken getting into the building, and the wreck of a man strapped up to the machines would be useless without a fresh infusion. He drew one of his knives, keeping the woman pinned with one hand while he slashed a deep wound across one of her arms, then sheathed it again and held the bleeding limb over his sire's lips.

The legend of Dracula was better than five hundred years old, and Deckard more than a century the younger, but in this lifetime he'd been the one to set up their identities and claim to be the elder brother. And he certainly felt like it now, cleaning up after Owen's rather spectacular mess. It was damn difficult to get away with the more obvious uses of their power in a world that had adapted to CCTVs, identity databases, and facial recognition; but if the erstwhile Impaler had learned any temperance, you couldn't prove it by Deckard.

Slack lips suddenly moved, a dry throat clicking noisily as the blood began to trickle down to parched tissue. Then scarred arms jerked upward, latching on to the nurse and dragging her closer to Owen's mouth.

Deckard snorted and let go, moving to disconnect the tracheotomy tube and the other medical paraphernalia attached to Owen before it got in the way of his reactivating healing. It had been far too long since he'd fed, if a high-speed fall and a little road rash had put him down this hard to begin with... or else he'd burnt through his resources spending too much time in the sun on his last job. Probably both, or more of his opponents would be dead. What had the idiot been thinking? Dracula he might be, but even he wasn't invincible.

Finally, the ravenous sucking sounds slowed, and Owen released his grip on the nurse's arms. She slid to the floor, one last breath shuddering out of her. Then Owen sat up, the last of the thick, patchwork scars fading away on his torso.

"That's better," Deckard grunted. "Now you're all pretty again. So, you done playing games for the old Spider? He made you a vampire, you freed him, that should have long since been the end of it."

Owen shook his head, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, then stood, swaying slightly as he balanced on his own feet for the first time in far too long. "I'm afraid it's not that simple. The device I was assembling- you don't know what he intended to trade it for."

Deckard rolled his eyes as Owen peeled off his scrubs, exposing an obscene amount of sculpted muscle. Benefits of having been turned in his early thirties, rather than late forties; not that Deckard was complaining. He knew what the odds were of any new-made vampire making it through the initial euphoric rush of the bloodlust with personality intact rather than turning into a psychotic nutter, after watching his sire try it with a few others he'd decided were worth trying to preserve over the years. However irritating the man could be, Deckard would always be grateful Owen had chosen to risk it with him.

Owen had no such reason to be grateful to the old Roman, though; the hawk-nosed vampire had made a deal with a bonafide demon and spent centuries gnawing his own liver over the consequences before a certain Vlad Țepeș had stumbled into his grasp out of desperation. "Clothes and weapon on the chair. And what does it matter? Whatever his plan was, it's fucked now."

"It would have shut down the entire grid of whatever country he chose to deploy it in. All the surveillance and communication devices- like turning the clock back to the days when we could do anything without discovery. I don't actually know what he wanted with it; I chose not to inquire. Hobbs and his ilk thought I wanted to sell it for billions on the black market, but no amount of money could ever outweigh the life of my Mirena."

Deckard sucked in a sharp breath. He'd heard the story before- many times- of Vlad Țepeș' beautiful bride, both his casus belli in the long-ago war that had driven him to the Spider's doorstep and also, through a tragic sequence of events, his first victim. They'd exchanged 'eternal' vows; he'd been hoping to find her again in every lifetime since. Deckard always called him a lunatic when he brought it up, but he had to admit, their very existence proved the supernatural was real. Why not reincarnation, as well?

"How d'you know he's got her? Have you seen her yourself?"

Owen had finished donning the black, practical duds Deckard had brought as he talked; he knelt to tie his boots with a sardonic smile. "I know you've always found my belief that I would find her again fanciful. But yes, I saw her. In London, actually. She didn't know me, but she remembered our vows; said they were her favorite poem. But he was there, too- though I only discovered that weeks later, when I went to pick her up for dinner one evening and found her dazed, with a pair of puncture wounds in her neck. She disappeared that night while I was hunting for the one who'd harmed her. And then he contacted me. What else was I to do?"

Deckard growled at him. "You should have called me, instead of fucking around on your own. You know what we've always said about offering hostages to fortune; you should've seen this coming."

"Too late for that now," Owen shook his head, ruefully. "I'll have to find some other way to settle the score... and do what's necessary to prevent it from ever happening again."

"You'd better," he replied. You either protected your weak spots, or removed them to prevent an enemy making use of them. "And on that note- I've a lead on where your friend Hobbs was sent after the NATO commander he held at gunpoint complained to his superiors. Happen it might be the same city where Toretto and his family decided to hang up their coats."

A hungry glint lit in Owen's eyes, and his teeth sharpened into fangs in reaction. Then he visibly re-exerted control, retracting them and taking a deep breath. "If I've been in hospital- I must be as good dead to them; and to most of the intelligence community as well. If I'm to surprise the old monster, I have to vanish now, and not leave a trail they can follow; he's too well informed."

"Thought that might be the case," Deckard replied, giving his 'little brother' an equally toothy grin. "Happen it's also been a while since I last got the chance to wreak some well-earned havoc."

Owen arched an eyebrow. "You've been a ghost since Britain tried to have you retired; the sort of spectacle that follows Toretto around could drive you back out of the shadows."

"You think wrecking this place won't do that just as well?" Deckard shrugged. "Besides, you're blood. What other excuse do I need?"

"All right, then." Owen picked up the Heckler & Koch MP5A3 Deckard had stolen off one of the guards for him and quickly familiarized himself with it, then nodded toward the door. "Shall we?"

"One more thing," Deckard held up a hand. "One of Toretto's people took a flying fall before you did. She was still breathing when they scraped her off the pavement, but not by much; she flat-lined more than once when they were transporting her. Might have taken awhile to get to you in person, but I've still got contacts in most of the local bases; I took a leaf out of your book and had someone declare her dead a few days later, then 'lose' the body."

"Not that it did me much good in the end, though Letty's skills were useful in the time that I had her. I don't suppose she was the one who fell?" Owen snarled again; he never had appreciated betrayal, even when it was inevitable.

"No; more poetic than that. Braga's former lieutenant." Deckard smirked. "She's in a vegetative coma, now. But it occurred to me that she was always a very pragmatic woman. You do your thing, I'll make sure she's got no distractions, and you'll have someone to watch your back while you set off on this mental quest of yours."

"Provided she survives the reawakening sane," Owen reminded him.

"No loss either way," Deckard shrugged. "She's just up the hall- take one of the soldiers along, you'll need blood again after you dose her. And for God's sake, be more careful, would you? I don't like that I had to come at all; you've been pushing yourself too hard."

"There's always a price to be paid," Owen said, grimly. "But I think I can say with certainty that the days of my skulking about like a common criminal are over."

"Good. All right then. I'll see you when it's done," Deckard nodded to him. Then he turned to stalk back the way he'd come.

He didn't look back. He didn't need to.

-x-