Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Waking up in the body of a sarcophagus-bound male vampire, in the Age of No Plumbing, was not what I wanted to do with my life. Thankfully, it would only happen when I went to sleep, so I could happily continue my life in the modern day with all the best things in life. Like plumbing, electricity and chocolate.

Still, it wasn’t overly pleasant to find oneself in a small, dark space. I will admit that I freaked out a little before I accidentally knocked the lid off.

Also, thankfully, the mausoleum the sarcophagus was in was derelict so I was able to see and get out fine.

One of the first things I noticed, before even the male ‘parts’, were the teeth. Contrary to popular literature, it wasn’t the canines that were sharp, it was the eye teeth. Think about it; the eye teeth are actually better situated to bite with the human mouth, especially considering what body parts are usually bitten by vampires. They were usually retracted up so they looked like normal, albeit sharp, teeth, but protracted to about two centimetres with a subconscious flex of sinew in the roof and jaw of my mouth.

The second thing I noticed was the soft, fluffy, uber-non-tangle-able silvery-white hair with the odd creamy-blonde sheen that fell past my waist, nearly to my knees, in smooth, loose waves. It was, I later found out, the kind of hair that curls into elegant ringlets when wet, rather than frizzing.

Third was the long, voluptuous, vampire-worthy cloak with the heavy leather-ish outer side and the soft, warm, inner side of silver-grey flannel-like material that was awesome to cuddle into when the wind cut right through the clothing the vampire, and so I, wore.

Next, was said clothing the vampire wore. There were the long, black leather pants that appeared to be lined with a flannel-like material inside, the totally awesome pirate boots and almost-as-awesome pirate gloves. Then there were the white cotton undershirt, the black silk waistcoat, the reinforced black and embossed steel leather vest and a large, black and orange-y gold pirate esqué overcoat.

And there was also a silvery silk neckcloth in a bow (a cravat?) that matched the cloak. Weirdly classy.

It was only after making sure I didn’t have a trashy (but still awesome) hat, that I realised that the clothing was both masculine and weirdly well-fitted. Then I noted the lack of breasts and the fact that I was, in fact, wearing a protective cod piece.

Awkward.

I ignored it as best I could, and tried to figure out walking.

Men and women walk differently due to different centres of gravity and due to differently shaped hips. I initially tried walking around the mausoleum like I normally did, and not only was it slightly uncomfortably, I probably looked like a male escort on the prowl. Eventually, I settled into a mix of my usual short-curvy-female walk and a graceful stalking stride that was probably the vampire’s usual mode of movement.

I was only after I left the weathered stone building into a derelict cemetery outside a crumbling fortress that I realised that everything had been muted in the small room.

I will admit that I sat down ungracefully on an overturned statue as the sights, sounds, smells and even tastes overwhelmed me.

I could hear the wind rustling the grass and both see and hear the owl tearing apart a vole in a tree a hundred metres away. There was the smell of rabbits (an oddly gamey scent) and mice (kind-of mushroom-y) living in the cemetery, their little hearts beating rapidly as they either hid from me or went about their business, unaware. There was also the taste of stone and grass and something identified in my brain as ‘old death’.

It was all overwhelming, but my senses told me that only I and various woodland creatures were around, and it had been that way since the last time it rained heavily the month before.

Looking around and enjoying the scenery now that I had adapted, I noted that the moon was waning, though still large and bright in the summer sky. To me, the sky was similar to something you only see in pictures from the satellite-mounted telescopes, it was so clear.

So I wandered down to the grassy slope and lay down to peacefully watch the stars and clouds pass as the moon wandered across the sky.

When false dawn began, hours or minutes later, I yawned and made my way back up the slope and into the mausoleum and the sarcophagus and lay down, pulling the lid half-shut to watch the advance of the dawn light spread across the stone wall.

As I became even drowsier, I pulled the lid shut and fell asleep, only to wake up, refreshed, in my own bed.

The next night, when I went to sleep and woke in that body again, there was that feeling at the back of the throat that said ‘thirsty’. Given that my fangs kept re- and protracting, and my attention was listless and flighty, I can only assume I was supposed to hunt.

I left the mausoleum and lifted my nose slightly to sniff the air. The stiff breeze from moon-rise (that’s east, right?) said there were a few deer and a bovine of some kind that way, within my hunting range, and a slight tang of warm fur and fresh blood that said there was a large canine consuming a kill.

Beginning to drift through the cemetery on light feet, I nearly stepped on a rabbit. Weird thing about rabbits, when they think they’re hidden, they will often not move even if the predator is right over them. My uncle and mum used to go shooting as teenagers with Pop, and mum had told me of the time my uncle had gone over to grab a shot rabbit and picked up the wrong one. It just lay limp and terrified in his grip, made no attempt to struggle.

I had no idea about how to ‘feed from’ a rabbit, and I knew from hunting with my own dad that rabbit blood has a pretty strong smell, so I almost stepped over it and kept going.

Then instincts kicked in and there was a squeal, a bite and I was then crouching with a limp, bloodless bunny in my hands with the heavy, copper-ish taste in my mouth.

Apparently, vampires have taste-orientated synaesthesia. It brought an odd mix of images and sound along with non-blood tastes.

This rabbit, particularly, tasted like running and winds-over-moonlit-grass and like an earthy burrow.

Feeling a bit guilty about killing the young rabbit (they’re called ‘conneys’ or something, traditionally), I looked around and noted the owl hovering above, so I left it on top of one of the tomb stones that hadn’t toppled yet.

As I wandered off, there was the soft sound of air and the click of talons on stone, followed by a soft, muffled bark and the tearing of skin.

Still ‘hungry’, I wandered down the slope, into the forest, wandering along on oddly silent feet, absently noticing that I was moving in the male vampire’s stalking manner again, but with an queerly low swing in the hip area.

There’s a trick to moving quietly over leaf litter that I knew about, but never quite managed to put into practice while hunting with dad, but it’s mostly walking on the outer edge of the foot and gentle placement from a slightly high step.

It was natural to walk softly in this body, drifting through the still, moonlit woods, following the scents and sounds of deer.

I ended up pouncing on a doe grazing in a small ditch, leaping down from above.

It was admittedly an even odder sensation of taste than the rabbit. It was snow and bark-stripping-off-a-maple-tree and fawns-in-the-grass and green and sweet-spring-shoots and stag-mounting-

I pulled away as that last one began coming through and left the dazed deer to eventually stagger to her feet as I wandered back to the ruined fortress.

The weatherworn fortress, I found, had been abandoned so long ago that even the treated wooden fixtures had wasted to dust and blown away. Most roofs had fallen in and the tower was thoroughly gutted unto a glorified chimney, but the walls still stood as a barrier against the winds, protecting the cemetery for all that I could read not a single name, word or date.

The owl had a nest in a niche in what might have once been either a smithy or pottery, crowded by three fluffy chicks. Field mice abounded and rabbits had thoroughly entrenched themselves in burrows dug into the steep slopes around the fort’s hill.

The overgrown cart-track winding around the hill showed no sign of use in decades, having rounded off to a grassy, tree-dotted spiral.

It was peaceful, and my night-time wanderings continued for weeks, with the occasional hunting for blood, as I lived my modern-day life by day. I never caught sound or scent of humans aside from the existence of the fortress and cemetery in all my wanderings during that time.

It was on the full moon months later, on the edge of winter with frost glittering on the grass, that I heard a wolf’s howl much closer than the far-distant symphony of the pack a few mountains over.

There was something familiar in the sound that caused the body I was using to go stiff, my sluggishly slow heartbeat to speed up, and a desire to go to ground rose.

I was away from the fortress and my resting place, a mile or so into the forest while hunting, and I generally didn’t bother with the sword, shield and talismans the vampire had and left them in the mausoleum, so I began running.

Chapter Text

I can’t say that I’d ever run long distances in this body, but if I survived the night, I just might begin running for entertainment. I didn’t tire and I was not only fast, but the body knew how to take some seriously sharp turns on a dime.

Half a mile from the fortress, I noted movement to my left and threw myself into an awkward twirl on the ball of my foot, cape and hair swirling as a large brown werewolf hurtled past where I would have been if not for my movement. Still, a long lock of my hair was cut off about collarbone level and fell to the ground like a pale ribbon.

This cued erratic, rabbit-like movements as more werewolves started trying to flank me and making the odd lunge. Only one connected, and I was only saved by a knee to the gut and the fact that it accidentally tackled me down a river bank I was deliberately running alongside.

I got a little winded and what was probably a bruise, but was rolling onto my feet and moving again in time to miss the second wolf landing where I had just been.

Noticing movement ahead, instead of jumping over the half-fallen tree in my path, I leapt at it, using the leverage and resulting ricochet to abruptly reverse my direction, and took off back the way I’d came at an angle.

The werewolves, about eight of them, let out strangely squeal-like yips of excitement and took off after me again.

Annoyed and still afraid, I made for the small cliff face where a brook had worn away the side of a hill, having scouted that area for emergency hideaways weeks earlier, and so I knew there was a small crevice that opened into a small, sandy, partially-flooded cave I could squeeze into with effort, so the wolves would definitely be too big.

It was just a matter of gaining enough distance to give me enough time to make the squeeze without being shredded.

Pulling on reserves I didn’t know the body had, I flattened out at a dead sprint, occasionally using my hands to pull myself forward over rises.

It was only because I stumbled on a loose rock that the huge beast that launched itself from behind a tree missed my head as I literally went underneath its belly so close I felt the snap of my hair flick against it.

This new beast was at least twice the size of the others, and covered in thick, sleek black fur, liberally smattered with scars, and bright grey eyes, from what I glimpsed before shooting off like a startled cat.

There was a surprised yip, then bark from the big wolf behind me. The smaller werewolves pacing me fell back in confusion as the bigger wolf began following at a careful distance.

I didn’t slow down and made it to the cliff face less than thirty seconds later, throwing myself into the crevice, unmindful of the bruises on my body and scrapes on my face, bits of underbrush tangled in my hair.

And I found the small hideaway occupied by a pale blond teenage girl in a ragged dress, staring at me with big, terrified, bright blue eyes.

Ignoring her for now, I placed myself as far from the entrance as I could without stepping on her, in a cave eight foot long and four feet wide. Thankfully, the crevice was another three feet long and between three large granite boulders, so we couldn’t be dug out, and the water only extended a foot into the actual cave.

Positioning myself to see out the crevice, I found the big, black werewolf scrutinizing me with his pale eyes, crouched like a gargoyle some twelve feet away from the entrance, just before the water’s edge.

We stared at one another for a time, him seeking something, me blankly.

Obviously finding what it wanted, the beast huffed and turned away, moving out of sight, though I could still hear and smell the other pack-members moving around outside, occasionally yipping.

I just sighed and dropped down onto the slightly damp sand beside the girl, breath having slowed quickly and my body cooling. Glancing at her, I found the frightened thing staring at me, pale and shivering, so I shrugged off my cloak and silently offered it to her. After a few moments, it was taken with a trembling, fine-boned hand slightly rough with callouses.

We remained in silence through the night hours, mindful of the wolves prowling outside, until the sun began to rise and I began drifting into sleep.

I vaguely remember seeing a large, powerfully-built man with wild black hair and pale, wolf-like eyes peering in from the entrance before I went limp against the girl who had curled up against me at some point in the night.

*****

The day time was odd for me as I occasionally felt hands fluttering against my face and heard, at turns, a frightened girl and a rumble-voiced man talking just outside my audible hearing. At one point there was the feeling of someone digging their nails into my arm, and remained so for nearly an hour.

When I went to sleep, it was difficult to drift off through all the possible ways I could escape the cave in the dream, with the girl or without her.

*****

I lay still as my vampire body woke, eyes closed and unmoving, on the edge of sleeping and waking.

I had been moved onto my side from my seated position at some point and the small weight of the girl shuddered next to me, my cloak spread over and around us like a blanket. There was still the feel of sand beneath me, and my neck ached slightly from the awkward position it was in as my cheek and forehead pressed into the floor.

It was colder than the night before, and I could hear sounds outside, like the snap of wood and groans and growls. Under the scent of wood smoke was the smell of males, almost man-scent but not quite, and the strong scent of fear from the chilled, terrified girl huddled in a ball against my chest.

Absently, I curled an arm around the girl and began rubbing her back, the friction warming the cloth and skin. Her hands clenched even tighter into my coat as she began sobbing silently.

I finally shifted just enough to put an arm under my head to make myself more comfortable, and blearily opened an eye to look around.

It was dark, as expected, and the moon had likely already risen if the earlier sounds were any indication. It also was apparent that the werewolves had hung around all day, though none, oddly enough, had actually come into the cave with us, if what my nose was telling me was true.

I was so bored that I almost drifted off until I heard the sound of my phone’s ringtone as if through water, and began following the song in my head, not too worried since it was the message ringtone.

"Merrily we sailed along/ Though the waves were plenty strong/ Down the twisted river Rhine, following this song./ Legend’s faded storyline/ Tried to warn us all/ Oh, they call her Lorelai/ Careful or you’ll fall." It took me a few moments and the girl shifting to realise that the pleasant male voice singing along very softly was me. "Oh, the stories we were told/ Quite a vision to behold/ Mysteries of the seas/ In her eyes of gold."

The wolves outside quieted down and appeared to be listening, while the girl was relaxing a little and uncurling, so I continued.

"Laying on the silver stone/ Such a lonely sight/ Barnacles become a throne/ My poor Lorelai." Under my lowered eyelids, the flashing of bright eyes were numerous in the dimness of the outside. "And the wind would cry/ And many men would die/ And all the waves would bow down/ To the Lorelai." My fingers tapped the beat of the song against the girl’s back as I followed the instrumental.

"You would not believe your eyes/ How a voice could hypnotise/ Promises are only lies/ From the Lorelai./ In a shade of mossy green/ Seashell in her hand/ She was born the River Queen/ Ne’re to grace the land./ And the wind would cry/ And many men would die/ And all the waves would bow down/ To the Lorelai." I noted that the girl’s breath was evening out into sleep, the stench of fear fading away as she relaxed, almost pliant, in my arms.

"Oh, the song of Lorelai/ Charms the moon right from the sky/ She will get inside your mind/ Lovely Lorelai/ When she cries ‘Be with me/ Until the end of time!’/ You know you’ll never be/ With your Lorelai./ And the wind would cry/ And many men would die/ And all the waves would bow down/ To the Lorelai." Drifting off at the end, I nosed into the now sleeping girl’s hair, eyes drooping, and continued watching the wolves outside as they either drifted into sleep, themselves, or wandered off, absently running a my tongue mindlessly over my flexing fangs, the strong desire to drink urging me to leave the cave and snatch one of the drowsing creatures.

It took me a few embarrassingly long hours of drowsily wolf-watching to realise that the girl was not registering as a prey item, and so was not triggering any kind of bloodlust or prey-drive.

Opening my eyes, I began discreetly sniffing. She had the basic smell that said she was human, as well as the personal scent markers that said she was a young female of early breeding age with possible conception problems, of a slightly frail constitution and was likely sick as a child, was very stressed, had previously used high-quality lavender and vervain soap until the last four days, and had the faintest whiff of jasmine and myrrh in her base scent.

And, though I could smell the hot blood coursing through her, she still wasn’t registering as ‘food/prey’ like even the werewolves were.

Weird, possibly dangerous, and triggering an innate predatory curiosity, but at least I wasn’t being driven to go for her throat. At this point, having not fed for nearly a week, I’d probably kill my next meal unless it was a cow or bigger.

I sighed and settled down again into a drowse, occasionally opening an eye to glance out to see if the wolves had left yet. There was always at least four guards.

I just couldn’t figure out why the wolves hadn’t lost interest in favour of better game. There were about twelve to fifteen of them, but while I might have missed three or four, a pack this size would have registered to my senses weeks ago if they were in the area. I could only assume they were either nomadic, had a vast territory or they had chased someone or something here, possibly the girl.

But if they had chased the girl, why hadn’t they been guarding the cave before I arrived? They had certainly been there before I dashed in, but had moved off when the prey appeared too difficult for them to get at.

Were they after me? Or rather the vampire I was possessing?

At any rate, unless they left soon, we would find out since I would probably be driven to attack sometime tomorrow, regardless of whether I have a weapon or not.

I might have actually drifted off to sleep then, teeth flexing at metronome frequency as I stared fixedly at the throat of a werewolf that had settled some four metres from the cave, at the top of the river bank, eyelids drooping.

Chapter Text

In my Dream-Within-Dream, I stood in a sitting room, brightly lit by torches and candles, the room in tasteful cream and blue, while a man and a woman sat facing away from me towards the fire, a child’s tune-less humming from the floor before them.

The woman had tumbling red-gold curls and was embroidering, clad in a sky-blue and white dress, leaning against the pale-haired man who held her to him with one arm, and read a tome with the other.

I took a few steps to the side of the lounge chair and noted the little boy, around eight, laying in front of the fire with his legs kicking, calm, girlishly pretty face surrounded by almost white hair and hands fiddling with a cat’s cradle.

"It has been quite some time, my son."

I started slightly at the deep voice, turning to the man beside the woman. He was watching me with calm red eyes from a hard, chalk-white face with high cheekbones and a goatee.

I nodded to him in greeting and turned back to watching the child, whom I suspect was the vampire whose body I was inhabiting and whose shape I was borrowing.

I moved to the single chair and sat down, leg dangling over my knee and leaning against a propped-up arm. After a while I spoke, well aware that the other vampire was still watching me. "I have forgotten how to do that."

"Hmm?" He looked at the child playing with shapes in the string. "A pity. You were quite good at it."

I hummed in agreement. "I suppose I have no further use for such a skill. I wouldn’t even know where to get string, these days."

We lapsed into silence again, me watching the boy’s hands fiddling with the string in a looped memory and him seemingly content to just watch me watch the boy.

It might not have been hours later, but it was a significant amount of time, that he spoke again.

"You seem calmer than when I last saw you. More at peace."

I opened an eye I didn’t realise I had closed, and looked at him drowsily, absently noting that the woman, presumably the vampire’s mother, was getting hazy around the edges, her face blurring.

"I haven’t the energy to be anything but hungry and tired for more than a few moments. And it is peaceful in my territory." I sighed and closed my eye again. "At least, it was, until the werewolves came yesterday evening."

The childish humming stopped and a cool hand with long sharp nails suddenly rested against the cheek not resting on my palm, prompting me to open my eyes.

The vampire was kneeling in front of me, a stern, concerned expression on his face, the room dark and worn away around us.

"A few werewolves should not have been an issue for you. What has gone array?"

I glanced away, more than a little ashamed because I knew what I had done wrong. "I was careless. Nothing more dangerous than a solitary wolf has entered my territory for years. I left my weapons in my resting place and have not even a knife to assist me."

The vampire let out a sound between a sigh and a hiss, resting his forehead against my knee in what might have been distress and hand beginning to dig into the hair on the side of my head, combing in subconscious calming gesture. "Adrian…" So that was the vampire’s name! "You know better than that! You should always have a weapon with you! I cannot protect you when you are so far away!"

"I know." I grumbled, contrite. "Though if I had even a knife, I could have probably driven the wolves away."

He growled, a low sound more guttural than a dog’s, and pulled his head away from my knee to look at me, face fierce and almost manic. "This would not have occurred had you not left the Castle in the first place!" He bit out, teeth bared in frustration. "And in the company of that Belmont no less!"

Blond, pirate-y vampire.

Vampire father and human mother.

Pale vampire father with goatee.

Adrian.

Belmont.

Betrayal of the father.

Fuck.

I was in fucking Castlevania. As Alucard.

Wait…

I frowned and stared over Dracula’s head, whose hand slipped down to the side of my neck in a cool weight. I absently tilted by head to give him better access to that area.

It niggled at the back of my mind before I remembered reading an article about Alucard having an affair with the protagonist of a non-canon game, Sonia Belmont. And at the end, she was shown to have a child named Trevor. Was it the same Trevor Alucard had followed against his father? Was Trevor his, my, son?

From the surge in my chest and the feeling of grief that echoed in my mind, the answer was, Yes.

The first impression to rise was a strong scent of metal and oil and leather and a static-y smell my brain identified as Power. Underneath these surface scents was the smell of warm skin and clean hair and life and a healthy, powerful adult male.

And, even further down, the faded scent of vampire and kin.

Then there was the flash of a wide, happy smile with straight white teeth and slightly too big and sharp eye teeth. The smile was then compared to a smile that I was able to identify as Dracula’s. Aside from the first smile being in a tanned face and the second in a pale one, they were the same smile.

Next was the eye shape and colour. The eye shape and thick lashes were all Lisa and Alucard (apparently), but the rich blue was a shade Alucard had only ever seen in an old portrait of Mathias Cronqvist. Even Leon Belmont’s eyes were more a colourless, snow-hued blue than the brightly coloured gem blue that was Mathias’ eyes.

The hands and jaw shape, the narrow, long-toed feet and even the long legs were something Trevor shared with Alucard and Dracula. The throaty laugh was something Alucard had from Lisa’s father, as well as the way he sat with leg over knee and resting his chin on a loosely clenched fist. He had Sonia’s childish, even slapstick, sense of humour, and her rather extreme hostile aversion to spiders and rats.

The broad shoulders, the nose and chin, the straight brown hair, were from Sonia’s grandfather, Lance Belmont, who had been killed when the girl had been only a teenager, not long after Trevor had been conceived. In the stables no less.

Alucard had gone so far as to personally escort Sonia out of Wallachia, neither knowing she was pregnant.

One of Alucard’s strongest sensory memories of Trevor was when Grant was on watch duty and Sypha was huddled away from them, still pretending to be a man, to the vampire’s amusement. Alucard had been drowsing by the fire, the campsite enclosed by an abandoned stone room, when Trevor had settled down beside him, since Alucard had been intelligent enough to choose the best place out of the cutting wind. Then Trevor went to sleep, exhausted from their efforts of the day, and the vampire followed. Alucard was surprised to wake sometime later in the early dawn hours, completely entangled by the surprisingly cuddly Belmont, the man’s face nuzzled deep into the crook of his neck.

Alucard had drowsed peacefully, happy to be close to his son, breathing in the warm scent of his boy’s oddly clean hair, until Sypha had woken towards dawn and let out an almighty shriek. As a devotee of the Church, she had been taught that homosexuality was a sin worthy of stoning to death. The cuddling had been purely platonic, but she didn’t see it that way and ever after made sure that Trevor and Alucard never slept anywhere near one another. The pariah-raised Trevor hadn’t seen anything wrong with the cuddling, and, while he could understand where Sypha was coming from, Grant also saw no problem with conserving body heat on a cold night.

That was the beginning of Sypha’s personal dislike of Alucard, rather than the badly hidden disgust and revulsion she felt for his lineage. Alucard wasn’t that happy with the hypocritical witch, himself, and, while he never said anything, he felt Trevor could have done better.

He was perversely pleased when their marriage fell apart eight years later and Sypha ran off with a regretful but committed Grant, leaving behind their three young children to be raised by Trevor and, to an extent, Alucard and the lingering Hector.

And if he found Trevor and Hector cuddling, naked, in the barn a few times thereafter while he was babysitting, he never said anything.

He never determined as to whether or not Trevor knew he was the Belmont’s father, though that Sonya, his only daughter, looked like Alucard’s female doppelganger as she grew up drew a number of speculative looks he pretended not to see.

Alucard stayed until Trevor died of old age at one hundred and twelve, having outlived all three of his children and most of his grandchildren, standing at the funeral with the similarly un-aging Hector, lingering in their grief until Hector secluded himself as a hermit weaponsmith and Alucard went into longer and longer torpors, until he stopped waking up.

When I refocused on the Dream rather than the memories, Dracula was running his thumb with its sharp nail suspiciously close to the jugular, and had managed to control his expression into a dispassionate mask, eyelids heavy over the crimson irises.

"It surprised me." I said abruptly. The only tell that said I had startled the vampire being that his rubbing thumb had paused. "I knew as soon as I caught his scent, even before I had actually seen him, but you didn’t even give the slightest hint that you found it odd that he was so much stronger and faster than any human has a right to be." There was a slight frown tugging his lips, eyes sliding to the side in memory. "And his eyes… I have only ever seen eyes that blue in a portrait you keep hidden in the back of the treasury."

I looked down at him as his eyes flickered, trying to understand what I was saying. "Leon’s eyes were indeed a fascinating shade, but-"

"No." I interrupted gently. "Not Leon’s. They were not nearly blue enough. Those blue eyes, I have only ever seen in the portrait of Mathias Cronqvist."

Dracula went rigid, nails suddenly digging into my neck, only to retreat when I made a pained sound, throwing himself back across the room, away from me.

"That Belmont was not my child!" He roared at me, pacing like a caged tiger and obviously incensed by what he thought I was implying.

I sat still, watching him tiredly. "No. He was not." I agreed.

Then I pulled up a memory of a time when Alucard and Trevor were sitting in a loud tavern room, both sitting sideways on the chairs to face the room, knees crossed and elbows resting on the table and back of their chairs, chatting indistinctly and laughing, very obviously related. And, following instinct, pushed it into the Dream, making the memory ‘real’.

Dracula froze in his pacing, back to the two figures, when Trevor’s throaty laugh rang through the room, slightly deeper than Alucard’s rare expression, but the cadence was the same, especially when Alucard then joined him in laughter.

Dracula clenched his fists at his sides, teeth grinding, face contorted in a kind of distress. "No." He hissed in denial, not turning around.

I looked at him blankly. "I would not have joined against you for anything less."

And, sadly, it was true. Alucard would not have raised arms against his father if not to protect his own very mortal son.

Seeking another memory, the Dream shifted to the meadow beside the Belmont’s large cottage and barn, the sun bright and wildflowers blooming, as Trevor tossed his eldest son, Adrian, up into the air, the boy’s long black hair flying and blue eyes glinting, a miniature Mathias, while Sonya, long blond braid falling apart into curls, and Lance, his youngest and second son, brown-haired and golden-eyed, threw themselves against the backs of Trevor’s knees to bring the four of them down into a laughing pile, Alucard and Hector catcalling from the table in the shade of the house.

"LEAVE!" The Prince of Darkness roared-

-And I jerked awake, grip tightening around the girl, causing her to mumble in her sleep.

I released a breath and relaxed.

Then I smelt blood.

Taking a moment to locate the source, I lifted a hand and wiped the side of my neck where Dracula’s nails had dug in, coming away bloody.

I sighed and took to staring blankly out at the false dawn light.

At least now I knew why the girl didn’t trigger the prey drive. It was unnatural for a vampire to feed from its own fledglings, especially if they were their biological child as well. The vague scent of myrrh was actually the mostly-gone smell of vampire, and jasmine was actually the scent of Dracula’s bloodline.

The girl was most definitely a descendant of Trevor.

I sighed again and regarded the water’s edge. Was it getting higher?

The air smelt like water, so it was possible it was raining further up the valley.

Listening to the sounds of early morning birdsong, and the groans and crunches of the werewolves turning back, I pondered if Hector was still in the hermit cave further up in the mountains, and whether or not I would be able to get there with the girl before the wolves got us.

My last thought as I drifted into torpor for the day, was that I really needed to find out the girl’s name.

Chapter Text

During the day, at around noon, I became oddly cold along my left side, but as soon as that chill faded, the feeling of cold water began creeping up my feet and then legs.

Worried and a little freaked out that my dreams may be affecting my reality, I went to bed early, my legs up to my groin almost numb with cold.

When I ‘woke’, the girl was struggling to hold me up, mostly out of the rising water lapping around my waist.

I grunted and stood up on numb feet, taking my weight off her.

Looking around the dark, flooded cave, I was surprised by how loud the roar of the rain, wind and rushing water was.

Standing, the water lapped around the tops of my thighs.

Turning to the girl, my eyes widened and she was suddenly in my arms, being lifted right out of the water and swung around my shoulders so her belly was wrapped around my neck.

I ripped off my gloves and held them in my teeth while I rapidly rubbed her icy pale hands until the friction began warming them up, fitted my too-large gloves onto her hands, then reach into the water to pull off my sodden but lukewarm boots to do the same to her pale blue feet in her leather slippers.

It took some doing, but I eventually got my overcoat off and wrapped around her, then my cloak, without dropping her in the water, but eventually, I had the girl cuddled into my arms and starting to shiver violently again.

I huffed out a breath of misting air and began shivering a little myself as I came out of the adrenaline rush.

Still, I was clearly not feeling the cold as much as the girl was.

Glancing out past the waterfall at the cave’s entrance, I was able to make out that the rain was almost a solid sheet of wetness that obscured almost all sight, and the stream had become a turbulent river that would likely reach my shoulders.

Mindful that a werewolf could still be outside and possibly able to hear us, I buried my face into her hair just above the ear. "Can you swim?" I breathed.

She tilted her face deeper into my damp shirt. "A little." She breathed back.

I sighed. "We’ll have to go out underwater. I will go first and hold on to the cave entrance for you to come out, then I will take us downstream underwater as far as I am able. We will need to go a mile or so before this side of the river gives way enough to get out and the wolves will be unable to cross. There is a hermit Forgemaster a few mountains over last I was aware. If he is gone, there should still be some weaponry around. Are you amendable to this plan?"

She nodded. "It has been too long. They will have stopped looking for me by now, so there is little point in staying here until we starve to death." She paused, giving me a curious, slightly wary, look. "Or un-death, as it may be."

I huffed in tired amusement. "No time like the present. Are you ready?"

She nodded. "As I’ll ever be."

I can’t say I was a particularly strong swimmer, but I could float underwater no problem. My tendency to move about underwater in an almost passive manner was probably a good thing since, apparently, Alucard shared most European monsters’ weakness towards running water.

Having tied my hair into a braid and tied it off with my cravat, we were off.

I’ll spare the details, just let it be known that I nearly drowned and we both had a number of scrapes and bruises, but thankfully no broken bones.

I still had to carry her though, seeing as how she was shivering too much to move while I was a bit stiff, but mobile.

It was, presumably, around false-dawn that my feet, having walked across three mountains and up a shale scree to avoid what registered in my mind as ‘troll’, stumbled to a stop in front of a well-camouflaged house built into the side of the mountain.

I kicked it three times as loudly as I could, seeing as my arms had stiffened around my burden, who had been dropping in and out of consciousness since the half-way point, and I was afraid I would drop her and be unable to pick her back up.

I could feel the heat from the other side of the door, smell the faint scent of smoke, hot metal and familiar man, hear the crackling of flames and the breath of the person inside as they sat up in bed. There was a faint hiss of a blade being drawn then waiting.

I knock-kicked again.

"Hector? It is Alucard. I appear to be in need of assistance."

So I sounded a little cranky, but my crankiness was very similar to Trevor’s crankiness, which Hector had had intimate familiarity with.

There was a soft curse and the sound of quick footsteps before a small rectangular peephole opened to show the Devil Forgemaster’s blue eyes. He glanced at my face, then at my burden, then slammed the peephole shut, followed by the drawing of deadbolts and bars before the door was ripped open in a blast of warmth that staggered me.

An almost burning hot hand gripped my shoulder and drew me in, pressing me down into a chair while the girl was lifted from my arms.

I closed my eyes and relaxed into the warm air while Hector removed my clothing, then her own, from the girl’s chilled body until she was in only her bindings and loincloth, rapidly towelling her hair and skin to rub warmth into her body as he lay her on the warm stone of the hearth.

I must have drowsed off, because the world was a ripple of darkness and firelight for a while, with Dracula calling to Adrian once or twice as if from a distance, before I roused to Hector sitting me up and removing my clothing and rubbing me with a towel.

A warm shirt was pressed over my head and I was stumblingly led into a storeroom and pallet, where I settled down and began drifting off, only to struggle back up when Hector reached the door.

"Hector?" He paused and I worried about the plaintive, slurred note in my voice. "When I wake, I’ll be vvvery hungry. ‘Nd there are ‘ere’olves about. ‘Nd a troll the n’xt mounti’n ov’r…"

I fell back and was asleep before my head hit the pillow, so I don’t know how he responded.

But I did feel sharp-nailed fingers running though my hair and oddly smooth fabric against my cheek as a deep voice grumbled above me.

*****

I slept late that day and had to call in to work sick. It was no surprised when I went to bed early, as I had been lethargic all day. It was worrying that my dreams were affecting my reality, but I wasn’t about to go talk to a shrink about it.

Even if they somehow believed me, it’s not like they could do anything about it.

When my vampire body woke, it was stiff and lethargic, but I was on the bound deer before I could really get a thought in edgewise.

Even as the young stag died, I was still slightly hungry and knew I would still need to actually hunt that night. Hopefully it was no longer raining.

I lay back on the pallet and huddled into the thick fur blanket for warmth and went back to drowsing.

Distantly, the long-nailed fingers were running through my hair again.

After a while, where the sense of the stroking fingers became closer and distant with the consistency of an ebbing tide, I heard the door to the small room open.

"Alucard?"

I hummed, warm and snug in my fur cocoon.

The fingers stopped, pausing as if their owner could hear through me.

"Are you rising?"

"Is it still raining?"

Hector paused at my non-sequir. "I believe so. Why?"

I stretched a little and absently nudged the hand with my mind. There was a soft, dark chuckle as the petting returned. "Then, no. I want nothing to do with rain for the foreseeable future, and if I get up, I will have to go hunting in it." I shifted a little and turned my face deeper into the bundle that served as a pillow, feeling the oddly disconnected sensation of the texture shifting from coarse cloth bundle to soft-leather-clad leg and back again under my cheek.

"…The girl’s awake and asking for you."

"That’s nice." I replied, not moving so much as an inch.

Dracula chuckled, fingers swirling in the hair beside my ear.

"Alucard..." Hector sighed, exasperated.

"Hector..." I mocked back, absently noting that the cold, clawed fingers had paused again. "My hunt was interrupted before I caught anything, I was chased into a cave by werewolves and was trapped in there for nearly three nights, got the everloving shit beaten out of me escaping down a flooded river, then walked over three mountains, in the pouring autumn rain, carrying a girl and in my underclothes. Barring attack by overwhelming numbers, I will get up when I damned well feel like it."

There was silence for a few moments from both Hector and the halfdream Dracula (which I was becoming more worried about the more aware I became), before Hector sighed.

"Fair enough."

The door closed softly behind him, leaving me vaguely guilty for snapping at him.

I heaved a sigh of my own, rolled over, and went back to sleep, mentally playing music so I wouldn't have to talk to 'my' father.

I later thanked my subconscious for choosing Heather Dale and Mercedes Lackey rather than modern music, because that would have been difficult to explain to Dracula given that it was the mid to late sixteen hundreds at the time.

The only exception was 'Memories', by Within Temptations, (I was feeling maudlin, so sue me) which was towards the time when I was waking up, and since Dracula was lurking in my surface REM sleep, he probably heard the song and music as I drifted out towards the surface of wakefulness.

I briefly got the impression of a snarl and a feminine squeal of fright as I woke, but continued onto wakefulness, absently noting that the dead deer was gone as I rolled onto my back and threw back the covers.

Blearily blinking up at the stone and wooden pailing ceiling, I stretched again and sat up.

There were wooden shelves stocked with sealed clay jars, blacksmithing tools, heshan sacks with what smelt like coal and peat, and piles of metal ore in barrels. And, for all that the room was just a storeroom, it was warmer that I thought it would be.

Stumbling to my feet, I took note that I was still only wearing the shirt Hector had put me in the night before and that my (meaning Alucard's) clothing was on a stool beside the door.

A few things gave me pause as to how I would go about putting them on, but I ended up fully dressed and folded the long shirt, placing it on the bedding, before opening the door as quietly as possible.

The girl was curled up on a low bed in an adjoining room that lay through an open door.

Hector, the Devil Forgemaster himself, reclined, dozing, before the fire, legs stretched out and barefoot. An Innocent Devil that looked a bit like a mangled bird perched unpon the back of the chair and cawed softly when it noted my presence.

Bright blue eyes fluttered upon and glanced around before settling on my still form.

Flexing muscles, he pulled himself upright, then stood and crossed the floor between us.

There wasn't even a moment's pause before he was pulling me into an embrace, burying his face into the side of my neck and breathing deeply.

It did, admittedly, take me a moment before I was embracing back, instinctively sniffing him politely (which you'd think was more a beast thing, but apparently not) just behind the ear.

He still smelt like 'my' memory said he had since a few months after he came to live with the Belmont family; like burning metal and ash and alchemy and power and the distinct scent that said he was Trevor's the same way Lisa (Mother) had smelt like Dracula's (Father's). And there was that same scent of screaming grief and wailing sorrow that had appeared after Trevor (Mother) had died.

He smelt like kin. Just as the girl smelt like kin. Distant but still mine...

And, wow, was I really falling into this shtick. It was worrying that I was getting attached and involved with the life of someone who either wasn't real, or wasn't ever likely to meet me.

Nuzzling just under the ear and huffing, I pulled back.

"I apologise for snapping earlier." I said softly as I pulled back, mindful of the sleeping girl. "It was rude of me to do so."

I absently noticed that Hector was half a head shorter than me, though Trevor had towered over us both, having inherited the Belmont height.

The smile he gave as he stepped back was rueful and a bit embarressed. "It's fine. If what Erika has told me is true, you have had a rough few evenings."

I hummed, my gaze flickered to the girl through the doorway. "She's a Belmont." I murmured neutrally.

There was a moment of stillness from the man, before he let out a dull, "Ah..."

I glanced at the door that led outside where the wind was still howling, but it didn't sound like rain.

"I need to hunt, else I'll be deeply hungry again tomorrow evening."

Hector nodded and stepped back. "I noticed that you didn't have any weaponry on you." I blushed and wouldn't meet his searching gaze. "Would you like to borrow something until you retreive your own affects?"

I shifted, my face warming slightly. "That would be appriciated."

Chapter Text

Five minutes later, I was out the door with five knives and a longsword (none of which I consciously knew how to use), and directions towards where deer tended to congregate to sleep.

The night was cold and windy, and it was easy to find a young stag with a limp huddled in a grassy dip.

Which is to say, I all but tripped over him.

I didn't need to kill this one, so I felt sorry enough for the thing to prick a finger on a fang and let a few drops fall onto the wicked injury almost mangling his hind leg, since, apparently, the fanon belief (in some circles) of vampire blood having healing properties was true.

Ish.

It only worked on flesh wounds, really.

It was as I was wandering back to Hector's an hour later that I noted the strong smell of humans (who were definitely not kin) and the oddly sickly sweet smell of dark magic.

Hmmm...

Swaying indecisively, I eventually wandered down the slope, following the erratic scent in the updraft to a small mine Hector probably used erratically for forging material.

Quietly padding in out of the wind, I sniffed the significantly warmer air and frowned to find the scent of vampire (weakened bloodline, barely related, probably an older lesser vampire that had managed to avoid being killed by hunters yet), several dark magic users, bones and grave dirt, and the smell of an older woman who was probably a Belmont (and close kin to the girl, Erika) if the underscent was any indication.

Distantly was the murmur of voices rising in a crescendo, a shriek and the smell of kin's blood, as power abruptly built, peaked and dropped in the three seconds it took for me to dart quietly down the mine shaft to a large chamber.

A group of robed humans stood in a circle around an elaborate coffin covered in sigils, inside a circle that was glowing purple and smoking.

The vampire (I didn't recognise him. Alucard didn't recognise him (I checked). He wasn't important in the timeline (presumably)) stood to the side by a man tied to a wall (presumably the woman's husband, since he was crying and screaming), and the woman was bleeding out on top of the coffin lid.

There was a moment as I took everything in.

The room was quietly anticipatory, everyone holding their breathe as the woman gasped, skin ashen, blood bright, and pale hair so similar to my own spread in a halo around her head.

Then there was a sound from within the coffin.

It was a high chirring, whistle sound that echoed around the chamber and drew a deeper chatter from me.

The vampire's head snapped around as his manic grin dropped.

There was that odd sensation of being tumbled under a wave in the surf-

-Then I woke up.

*****

I pottered around my house for about ten minutes, had some warm milk, and went back to bed.

*****

I re-awakened into Alucard's body, slumped with my back against the coffin, the chamber dark and liberally painted with red and shades of pink, with spots of dark cloth or scalp here and there.

Trying to ignore the flip-flop in my chest, I avoided looking down to the thing in my lap, instead tilting my head to look back at the woman who had somehow healed and staggered over to her husband and was trying to untie him with shaking hands, sobbing under her breath.

I sighed and cleared my throat.

Two pairs of wide, terrified eyes turned in my direction. I ignored the uncomfortable feeling it gave me.

"There is a hermit up the mountain. A blond girl made it up there last night, escaping the werewolves in the rain."

There was a loud, choked-off sob from the woman as she managed to get one of the man's arms free.

The man proved to be better at untying knots and quickly got loose. Giving me a wide berth, they ran out of the mine.

Sighing again, I laid my head back, attention turning to the slight pulling sensation from my right inner elbow, and used my left to run fingers through the chestnut mane of the fledgling vampire in my lap.

How I had managed to lose the overcoat and gloves, was beyond me, but the bracers were still on, even if my sleeve was a tattered mess.

I suspected the tacky sensation on my face was drying blood, and was not looking forward to trying to wash the blood from my clothing and hair.

I sighed again and wondered at how badly broken the timeline was now that Trevor had been resurrected as a vampire of the Dracule Bloodline.

And how I could hide it so the timeline continuity went according to canon.

*****

Trevor had long since stopped drinking from me and was cuddled up to my side, naked as the day he was born, young as he'd been when he'd been in his prime (with the scars he'd gain long after it), drowsily peering around the chamber with red eyes that made a part of me mourn their former blue, even though I had never seen them personally.

And he was cold to the touch.

The verbal silence and lack of personality was common for newly turned vampires not turned directly by the head of their bloodline. In this instance, Dracula.

With my blood, he would start regaining personality early tomorrow evening, and be almost normal by dawn, but for now, it would be best to gather him and my possessions (both borrowed and not) and retreat deeper into the mine, since I wasn't game enough to take a newborn into close quarters with two humans (kin or no kin), as well as the two who had left an hour before possibly going that way.

Heaving a sigh and standing, pulling the clinging vampire up with me, I began moving around and collecting the knives that were imbedded in the stone floor and walls, the pieces of the shattered sword glinting from the pile of ashes that had been the vampire, my gloves (abandoned near the coffin) and my coat and cloak from near the entrance to the chamber.

Wrapping the passive, doll-like man in my cloak, I led him down deeper into the mine, seeking through the absolute darkness via sound and air-movement, until I found a low recess in the wall that was pretty much a smaller, shallower mine shaft that began at about waist height down the wall and dropped into a five foot hole.

Then I cuddled up to the cold body and hummed and crooned softly to it until we both dropped off with the rising of the unseen dawn.

*****

I pondered, that day, as I sat in a warm patch of sunlight, watching the play of dust in the warm rays, as the heat countered the bone-deep chill from the dark stone mine and frigid body pressed against my 'other' form.

I certainly hadn't killed that vampire and those human mages, but something in that body certainly had.

It was a distant, indistinct thing during my daylight hours, but there was occasionally that odd sensation of having a cat sleeping on your chest, a comfortable, comforting weight, but on my mind. And, like a cat, there was the impression that, while it liked me, it wasn't adverse to using claws to get it's way.

That feeling had been on my mind when I entered the mine.

I remember the vaguest stirrings of anger when I saw the woman, but the chatter in response to Trevor's fledgling-to-sire call was followed by an instant of seething 'No they fucking didn't.'

Perhaps it was Alucard, even though he always struck me as a rather cold, controlled individual.

Or perhaps it was the inherent demonic aspects that he probably rejected in favour of his more 'human' aspects.

Either way, it was an ally and probably something I should be aware of, but not dig too deeply into.

So I continued on with my day and, since I was still off 'sick' from work, I cozied up onto my couch with my dog, Jazz, casting me adoring looks from her own chair where she was gnawing of a rawhide bone.

And I normally wouldn't bring up my dog, but I was occasionally getting a strong whiff of wet dog and something like raw meat.

And, God above, did I hope it wasn't another bloody werewolf having found the 'us'.