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Vlad’s ears twitch as a tiny, snuffling little sob makes itself known to his senses. A sound coming from upstairs, so quiet and soft that he would never have heard it, were his vampiric senses not especially attuned to sounds of distress from his son.
He immediately drops everything he is doing, transforming into a flock of bats in order to reach his son’s room at quite astonishing speeds.
He gently raps on the door with his knuckles. Little Adrian would have been able to hear him coming from downstairs, but he thinks it respectful to knock nonetheless. It’s something Lisa had insisted on.
When he gently pushes upon the door, there’s nothing but a small, shaking little bundle beneath the blankets. Soft sniffles sound from beneath the covers, and Vlad can see the tiny little bundle quivering.
Vlad grabs a chair that sits at the desk that he had lovingly hand-crafted for Adrian, and sets it by the bed so he can sit down. Then, he reaches out a hand, administering a gentle touch to the fragile little bundled. “Adrian, my boy. Are you quite alright?”
The blankets twitch, and his son’s tiny, pale little hands appear over the top, claws that he hasn’t quite learned how to retract peeking over the tips of his fingers. A nest of golden hair, and two huge, teary golden eyes, the very picture of his mother, appeared over the top of the blankets. “Father?” he asks, a tremble in his voice. His tiny little fangs worry his bottom lip.
“Did you have another nightmare, my dear?” Vlad asks gently, and receives a tiny nod in response.
It pains Vlad. He is the most powerful vampire on the planet, able to level human armies and teleport his castle to the most remote peaks, where none will be able to hurt his family, but he is unable to protect little Adrian from the terrors of his own mind.
“Come here. Tell me about it,” Vlad instructs.
As soon as he is prompted, Adrian eagerly scrambles out of the bed, practically throwing himself into his father’s lap with strength that would belie any human eight-year-old. He burrows his face into Vlad’s cape as his hands stroke his son’s hair and back, grounding her.
He doesn’t pressure Adrian to speak. He knows he will do so when he is ready.
Then, finally, with a tremble in his little voice, Adrian says, “I..I dreamed that you and Mother were gone.”
It’s such a normal dream for a small child to have. Their entire life revolves around their parents, so it is only natural for them to be frightened of that being taken for them. Adrian is especially incredibly clingy. Vlad thinks that it’s owed to his isolated upbringing, and sometimes he frets he’s made the wrong decision, but Vlad was too protective to expose his son to the dangers of the outside world. There are no children like him in the world. He would be an outcast. Vlad’s heart can’t take the idea of it.
“I-I cried for you but you wouldn’t respond,” Adrian sobs, and Vlad instinctively holds him tighter. “A-And there were monsters everywhere, but you weren’t…you weren’t…” There’s a tiny little muffled cry as Adrian buries his face into Dracula’s cloak, his little sides heaving with sobs.
“There, there, little one,” Vlad soothes. “It’s quite alright. Your mother and I aren’t going anywhere. Ever. Okay?”
There’s no response, so Vlad gently grabs Adrian’s chin, and he needs only two fingers to do so. He turns his little head so that Adrian’s huge, teary golden eyes are gazing up at him, and he nods.
Vlad knows it’s a lie. Lisa’s lifespan is only mortal. He can’t help but hate himself for bestowing the curse of immortality upon his son. Immortality is a terrible, terrible thing, dooming those who have it to watch their mortal friends die, over and over again. It is a stiflingly lonely existence. He had refused to turn Lisa for that reason. He would not curse the woman he loved with that. The idea of a lifetime with his beloved was not worth that.
As his mind wars with itself, a little snuffling snore makes itself known to Vlad’s ears. Adrian has fallen asleep, wrapped up in his cloak, tiny little claws biting into the fabric. Vlad smiles, and cannot find it within him to place him back into the bed. He holds him close, there on that chair.
--
A low, vampiric hiss turns to a snarl, then to a high cry of shock and pain.
The betrayal in those huge, golden eyes reminds Vlad of the days he’d spend calming his son down from his consistent nightmares. Adrian staggers backward, a hand going to the huge, ugly wound slashing through his chest.
Vlad doesn’t pay attention. He’s staring at his claws, which are now dripping with Adrian’s blood. He doesn’t react when his son’s limp body thumps to the floor, his blood staining the floor.
When he looks, Vlad regrets it. Curled up there so limply, so lifelessly, Vlad sees the frightened, clingy young boy, the boy who’d insist that Vlad sleep in the same room as him to scare away the monsters, not the handsome, intelligent young dhampir that his son had grown into.
“Oh, my boy.” Vlad doesn’t know if his eyes are capable of crying real tears anymore, but he certainly feels something warm and wet creeping down his cheek. He gently scoops up his son’s limp form in his arms. He’s entirely unresponsive, his long golden hair – Lisa’s hair – obscuring part of his face from view. His eyes are closed and lips slightly parted, and his hand still grips tightly at the mortal wound that Vlad had dealt him. Had dealt his own blood.
Adrian is still alive. Vlad can hear the faint thumping of his heart in his chest. But he also knows that he is lucky that he had not killed his son. Had Adrian had an ounce more human blood in his veins, he may have died.
“You won’t understand,” Vlad tells his son’s limp body as he lifts him, and brings him to his coffin in the little basement under Gresit. “It’s for your protection, too. You won’t be safe as long as humans are alive and well in this world.”
When he places Adrian in the coffin, he looks so tiny and small, as if he truly is a child again. Vlad breathes out a sigh as the lid seals him in there, encouraging a healing slumber, and then Vlad encourages his beasts not to let him out until this war is good and done.
-
Trevor feels like he’s been strangled, but he can’t quite find it in himself to voice his protests.
They had agreed on sharing body heat to keep warm during the frigid Romanian winters, yes, but Alucard truly seemed to take it to heart. When they got in the bed, he had demanded to be in the middle, in between Sypha and Trevor. Too tired to protest, they had both granted the dhampir his wish, and now Trevor was feeling the ramifications of that decision, because Alucard was the clingiest sleeper he’d ever known.
He’s quite a bit smaller than Trevor. Trevor is mostly bulk, whereas Alucard is almost entirely lean muscle. But his strength, owed to his vampiric heritage, is insurmountable. He’s quite literally wrapped around Trevor, arms squeezed tightly around Trevor’s neck so hard that he fears he might asphyxiate. The half-vampire’s face is nuzzled into the side of his neck, and Trevor knows that all of his ancestors were probably frowning on him for letting a vampire’s fangs that close to his throat, but the way Alucard sometimes teethed in his sleep was more endearing than scary.
Trevor knows he won’t get back to sleep, so he sees no harm in raising his hand, gently carding his fingers through long golden hair, which feels just as soft and thick as it looks. And there’s a soft trill, originating from Alucard’s chest.
A purr.
He supposes that even a Belmont can learn something new about vampires.