Title: Forever
Author: Kat Lee
Fandom: Hotel Transylvania
Characters/Pairing: Jonathan/Mavis, Dracula
Rating: PG-13/T
Challenge/Prompt: #80: Shinies: Joyful days with the monsters
Word Count: 1,106
Warnings: Future Fic
Summary:
Disclaimer: All characters belong to their rightful owners, not the author.




He can't climb as easily as he once did, but he still comes at sunset for he knows just where to find her. She's sitting in the little alcove on the roof he built for her almost fifty years ago, hidden safely away from the sun while enjoying its golden beauty. Her father is there, as well, but he changes into a bat and slips back into the castle that doubly serves still as the hotel and their home when he sees him coming.

Dracula has been his friend since the day he accepted him into their lives, and he knows the real reason why he's departing before he reaches him. He knows why they're up here, away from the others. He knows why Mavis' smiles haven't been as quick and bright as they were when they were younger since his last birthday. He knows what bothers them, and it bothers him, as well, but he's determined not to let it show as he tries his best to outshine the sun with his own smile aimed at his wife.

He'd thought it would be different. He'd thought, by now, he would be fully one of them, an Immortal destined to live forever at her side. But life sometimes can be cruel.

"Enjoying the sunset, honey?" he asks, slipping in to sit beside her.

She smiles up at him, but her grin doesn't quite reach her dark, dark eyes. "Always." She hasn't missed a sunset since the first time they shared one together.

He sits beside her, wondering where to begin and holding her hand in his as though her touch alone is a treasure. It is, although he doesn't know how to make her see that. He looks down at their hands, watching her fingers flex against his instead of the sunset. There will be many more sunsets, although he doesn't know how many he himself will see. Besides, his Gothic beauty has always been far more interesting and beautiful than the sun.

Her hand in his is still small, but where her flesh is smooth and pale, his is gnarled. Time hasn't been kind to his body, but it has been wonderful to his heart. "Mavis," he speaks quietly long after the sun has slipped down beyond the distant Transylvania hills, "we need to talk."

"Yes." She gives him a slight nod and turns closer to him. Her eyes don't quite reach his, however. "We do."

Silence falls between them again, and when he goes to break it, so does she. "Mavis . . . "

"Jonathan, I need . . . "

Even after all their time together, she still manages to blush. The world sees his wife as a deadly monster, and yet to him, she's the kindest, gentlest soul he's ever known. "Go ahead," he urges, and at last, she looks at him.

She peeks up at him from underneath the veils of her midnight black eyelashes. "Do you regret your life?" she asks, and for a moment, he is stunned. "Any of it, I mean? I don't think you regret it all, of course. It's just . . . You're growing old, and I know it's hard on you, and I knew we thought I would've been able to change you by now, and . . . and . . . "

She's scared. He's known it for a while now, and her sudden blabbering is just another sign that makes her fear clearly evident to him. He leans over, presses his lips to hers, and silences her in a gentle kiss. He no longer has the strength to often follow their kiss with something more romantic, but their passion is still there. He knows it always will be for never has a love been truer than theirs.

"No," he whispers gently but firmly against her mouth when he finally pulls away. Her eyelashes flutter. Her small mouth is still agape in wonder, and her lips are flushed from his touch. For a moment, she looks at him in confusion, but then he continues. "I will never regret my life with you, Mavis Dracula. Even if I never become one of you, if we never make the transformation work, I will never regret my life with you or our love. You've given me so much," he says, "even if you never manage to give me eternal life." His smile twists. "You gave me life already." His fingers brush her jet black hair.

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't really know it before I came here, but I was lonely. My life was one party after another, but nothing in it had any meaning until I met you."

"You . . . You don't see missed opportunities?" she asks, and he wonders, fleetingly, to whom she's been talking to pick up such terms. "You could have been with a woman all this time, Jonathan, who could have given you a family, who could have grown old with you."

His hand cups her face; his thumb gently strokes her skin. "I didn't want any other woman," he vows, "and I still don't. I want you, Mavis. I love you! And maybe we don't have a normal family, but we still have a family." He grins as he thinks of the joyful days, and mostly nights, he's spent with her, her father, her uncles, aunts, and cousins. "I wouldn't have anything be any other way. I love my life the way it is, and I love you just as you are."

She rushes forward, tackling his lips with her own again. Her tongue meets his and carefully slides over and around it. Then, suddenly and without warning, she lifts her lips from his and sinks her fangs into his neck. Jonathan smiles and sighs as pleasure washes over him. Somehow, he knows, this time, they'll make it work, and he will be with his Mavis forever.

In the shadows, other eyes watch them, as they always have since the day they first met. "Is it ready?"

"Yesss. Yesss, Massster, it's ready."

"Good, and it had better work this time."

"Oh, it will. It will, Master. The Witch Doctor ssstakesss hisss reputation on it."

Dracula fingers the small vial as he lets his children have their moment. Like the boy he can no longer call a boy, he senses, too, that their time has at last come. True love's bite and a single bottle of this potion, and Jonathan will be young again to stay that way, and with them, forever. He smiles in the night as he thinks, Who said monsters can't have happily ever after endings? His family will.

The End