#I'd love it if they examined the closeness of these characters before Dracula smashes everything with a big gothic hammer

[see-arcane]

Lucy, Mina, and Jonathan: The Childhood Friend Trio We Don’t Get to See

Because I saw your tag @marghen (and because I need little to no prompting on this)—yes, everyone should absolutely keep in mind that Lucy, Mina, and Jonathan have been friends since childhood. I can’t be bothered to harvest all the scraps of text, but it’s mentioned more than once that Lucy and Mina have been close since they were little girls, and Mr. Hawkins will later mention the fact that he’s known Jonathan and Mina since they were small. They were all wee little kids together, all each others’ closest social circle up through adolescence and young adulthood. And, if the manner of their writing is any indication, they’re still each others’ closest friends.

Things to picture for maximum sweetness (and hindsight pain):

- Mina was the bridging friend between Jonathan and Lucy. As canon has established, both Jonathan and Lucy have the sweetheart gene, and likely took to each other like two golden retrievers meeting for the first time.

- Mina, while still being the mini mom friend, is also the scary friend. She’s the one who goes out of her way to read/stay up late to overhear the ghost stories too menacing for little children’s ears. She absolutely recites them to Jonathan and Lucy. They are both too smitten with her to mention they will have nightmares afterwards.

- Sometime around age 6, Lucy announces that she has already made plans for their home someday. Also their wedding—they will need an especially wide chapel to fit everybody across the aisle, she’s decided. She draws out the situation on a big piece of butcher paper, illustrating little crayon Lucy holding Mina’s hand who is holding Jon’s hand. Lucy is also holding the hand of a stick figure with a question mark for a head. There are several such figures squashed in with the three of them, as placeholders for future people.

Lucy: “In case we need to get more married,” she explains. “We’ll need a very big house.”

- Jonathan causes more than one heart attack when he reveals himself as being part spider monkey. He once climbed a tree that was three floors tall to retrieve Mina’s hat that had blown up into the branches. Another time he climbed the outside of a house to get a stuck cat off the roof. He was 8.

- All three have individually fought for the others’ honor on separate occasions as they grew up. Insults and rumors varied, but generally had themes of implying unmanly weakness on Jonathan’s part, salacious man-stealing on Lucy’s part, and blindness to how foolish it is to let her man be friends with other women on Mina’s part. Rebuttals were always swift, venomous, and often required the insulted party frantically holding back their companions, lest the defensive duo commit something newsworthy against the mudslingers.

- Mina, hiding her left hand: “Lucy. You know that trip to Bournemouth Jonathan and I went on last week?”

Lucy, has been conspiring with Jonathan for the perfect setup for weeks, has been slowly dying with the effort Not to Blab: “Mmhmm?”

Mina: “He proposed to me there. In a graveyard.”

Lucy: “Oh, my!” :o

Mina, glowing: “It was at Mary Shelley’s grave.”

Lucy, turning mental cartwheels: “You don’t say!” :O

Mina, revealing a wedding band with gemstones set like a skull: “And just look at the ring!”

Lucy, straining with every fiber of her being not to break decorum by jumping on the café table and cheering at the sky: “It’s gorgeous, congratulations!” :D

Later, out of Mina’s earshot, everyone in a post celebration-wine buzz:

Jonathan, beaming: …

Lucy, shit-eating grin: …

Jonathan, for the 100th time: …She said y-

Lucy, also for the 100th time: Fuck yeah, she said yes!

(They have been doing this for half an hour. At the full hour mark Lucy is giving a thorough monologue about why she should be both Maid of Honor and Best (Wo)man, it’s only fair, really, she’s known them both longest/best than any of his law school fellows…)

((Jonathan is still nodding at her when he falls asleep and off the chair.))

(((Mina herds them both to bed, silently promising herself never to mention she’d caught on to their plans from day one)))

I don’t know, I just really think it’s vital to recall that these characters are all just barely grazing young adulthood as of the novel’s time, and their entire lives have been spent growing up with each other. Even if the romantic context weren’t there, this is a certified found family trio—we just don’t get the chance to see and appreciate it within the novel due to certain vampiric prick circumstances. 

Which is yet another strike against the bloodsucking bastard man. If it weren’t for Dracula, Jonathan would have gotten home on time and we’d have gotten a whole beach episode in Whitby with the three of them. Sigh.

#yes I do love hurting myself with headcanons why do you ask? #really though if a good adaptation ever happens #I'd love it if they examined the closeness of these characters before Dracula smashes everything with a big gothic hammer #it adds an extra layer of Something Precious Lost to the whole ordeal #not just personal danger #but the threat to this specific group of people who have known and loved each other since they were children #anyway #lucy westenra #mina murray #mina harker #jonathan harker #dracula #dracula daily