Chapter Text
Alucard picked up the two buckets he had just filled with fresh water from the river. As he stretched his legs, he gazed into the foliage of the woods. It was so quiet. The only sounds were that of the streaming water and birdsong coming from high up in the trees, and he was once again reminded of how isolated he was there.
How long had it been since Trevor and Sypha had left? It felt like forever, even though it couldn’t have been longer than two moon cycles.
Just as he was about to return back to his castle, he heard something. He frowned, his focus shifting to his ears as he tried to pick up on the noise. It was soft, but pained. A quiet string of groans and whimpers.
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I must have been drifting in and out of consciousness, since my vision switched between darkness and swimming images of my arm stretched away from my body, laying on the forest floor. My body felt so cold; I couldn't stop it from shivering. I was painfully aware of the blood seeping from the wounds on my chest, mixing with the dirt beneath my body into bloodied mud. The groans and whimpers leaving my lips didn’t sound like they belonged to me at all.
My breathing was also ragged, it hurt every time I drew a breath. My lungs were desperately trying to get oxygen to my head, but still it felt so empty and hazy. Was this how I was going to die? Was this what dying felt like? Would I get into heaven? The priests had assured me I would not. Devil’s spawn, they’d called me. Maybe I would see Lisa in hell. I would like to see her again.
…
Footsteps.
Who is it? My vision’s spinning… the ankles look weird. A hand… Will it grip my throat and cut my suffering short? What must I look like to them…? I hope it grips my throat… no… wait, I didn’t mean it…
It pulled away. Did it check my pulse? I wonder… What do I wonder? I don’t know anymore… I’m so cold.
I’m being picked up… Ugh… I feel so nauseous. Stop… Stop moving me around. They hold me so firmly… I… I…
…
A fire… it’s so bright… Bring me closer, please. I am so cold.
They’re here. What are you holding? Who are you? Are you God? The Devil?
Agh… my chest… my throat… is that scream mine? It hurts… stop… What are you doing? Ahh! Stop!! Too hot! I-I… I…
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I slowly opened my eyes. I was in a strange room, one I had never seen before. My body hurt, so did my throat. Swallowing felt like eating sandpaper. Not that I had ever tried it, but I imagined it would feel like that.
I felt really weak, I don’t believe I could’ve sat up even if my life depended on it. I closed my eyes again. Everything hurt so badly, but my chest felt strangely numb. Too numb.
I glanced down. There were bandages wrapped around my torso. I stared at it. It… It looked so flat? Though, no matter how long I stared at it, I couldn’t make sense of what had happened. It felt like my brain had turned to goop.
Then, I heard a door open and I glanced up. There, in the doorway, stood a man. He was holding a tray with something on it, long, blond hair cascading down his shoulders. As he stepped closer, I could see his eyes. Golden, like he had small pieces of the sun in his eyes.
He sat down next to the bed in which I laid and put the tray on the bedside table. He put a cold hand on my forehead, before smiling faintly, “Good. Your fever has gone down.”
His voice was so beautiful… so soft and smooth…
He then took a glass of water and used his other hand to support my head. He held the glass to my lips, urging me to drink. The first swallow hurt, so did the second, but the third and fourth soothed my sore throat so pleasantly. I had downed the whole glass before I knew it.
He gently lowered my head back onto the pillow and put the glass aside. He looked at me, concern obvious in his eyes, “How do you feel?”
I sighed and looked at the ceiling. “I…I,” I scraped my throat, “I feel better. Thank you.”
He nodded, “Good.” He stared at me for a moment, his eyes taking in my face, before he said, “I found you in the forest two days ago. You were bleeding from… your chest.”
“I was?” I replied after a few seconds. I still felt so hazy.
“Yes, you were.” The man confirmed. “What is your name? Do you remember?”
I thought for a second, before whispering my name. Not my name, but my name . He nodded, “I see. I am Alucard. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice…” I glanced at him, “to meet you too.”
We looked at each other for another moment, before Alucard asked, “Are you hungry? I brought some food.”
I glanced at the tray he had brought. Bread with butter and various fruits. Damn… those fruits looked good. I nodded. I suddenly felt really hungry.
He put a pillow behind my back so I could sit up, before helping me eat a few berries and pieces of a fruit – for which I did not have a name – since I still failed to raise my limbs more than a centimetre. As I ate, I couldn’t help but notice his slender hands and his smooth, pale skin. But most of all, my eyes kept being drawn to his. They had such a pure, golden colour that I began to question if he wasn’t an angel in disguise.
The moment that thought entered my head, I couldn’t help but ask, “Am I dead?”
Alucard’s hand that had reached for another berry stilled in mid air and he glanced at me, before chuckling, “Sorry?”
“Did I die? Am I in heaven?” I asked, needing to know.
Alucard shook his head, an amused smile on his lips, “No, you’re not. You’re still on Earth. Why would you think you were in heaven?”
“I… I don’t know,” I mumbled embarrassedly and averted my gaze.
“You did almost die, though,” Alucard said softly, “Like I said, I found you bleeding severely in the forest. You were drifting in and out of consciousness. I took you here and cauterized the wounds on your chest to stop the bleeding. It was in the nick of time, though I do apologize. I couldn’t afford to be thorough with the burning, so the wound isn’t pretty.”
As he said that, I looked down at my chest wrapped in bandages. I didn’t feel particularly affected by his warning. It’s not like I had liked the way it looked before.
He put a hand on my arm, making me look back up at him. His eyes searched mine as he asked, “Do you remember what happened?”
I stayed quiet for a moment. I did, though the memories were a bit blurry. However… What would he do once I told him? As if sensing my hesitance, he added, “Do not worry. Whatever it is, I will not harm you.”
“Okay.” I said softly, “So, I… How to start? There was this doctor in our town. Her name was Lisa. She died a year ago… no, got murdered a year ago. They–”
“Lisa?” Alucard interrupted me. “A doctor called Lisa?”
I looked up to see his eyes widened. “I… Yes. Her last name was Tepes, I believe.”
“You knew my mother?” He whispered, his voice suddenly quiet.
Now my eyes widened, “Y-Your mother?”
Alucard stood up and retrieved a small painting from the desk. He held it up for me to see. “Did she look like this?”
I nodded, “Yes! That’s her! Wow… I can’t believe you’re her son… I didn’t know she had a son. I… I am so sorry for your loss.” I added somberly.
Alucard sighed and gave me a sad smile, “It’s alright. Continue with your story, tell me what happened.”
I nodded once again and swallowed. He was Lisa’s son… he would understand, wouldn’t he? Lisa would have raised him to be accepting. Once I had convinced myself he would be safe enough to talk to, I turned my gaze back to the ceiling, “So… Lisa helped me a lot with, well… myself. As I had gotten older, I felt strangely jealous of the boys in my village, you see. Whilst I had to wear dresses and embroider or clean, they could just run around, hunt, play… I wanted what they had.”
I glanced at him, trying to read his expression, but he just looked at me with quiet interest. I continued, “I realised that I… would much rather be a boy.” I swallowed, trying to keep my voice from shaking, “I went to the church to ask God for guidance. One of the priests came to sit next to me and asked me if he could help me with my prayer. He… He seemed so n-nice and I-I…”
“Take your time,” He muttered and put a comforting hand on my knee. I nodded and took a shaky breath, “W-When I told him why I had come to pray, he… he slapped me in the face, saying that the Devil was trying to take hold of me. I-I ran out of the church, crying, and that’s when I met Lisa. She took me to her cottage and gave me some tea. She asked why I was crying and for some reason I just… I felt so safe to tell her. It was like her eyes didn’t know disdain, like her hands knew no violence.”
“Yes… That does sound like the Lisa I know.” Alucard smiled gently, his gaze distant.
“Yeah, she was amazing.” I whispered quietly, my own mind going back to the few evenings I had spent talking with her. She was an incredible woman and an astounding doctor. “She told me that I wasn’t the Devil’s spawn and asked me: ‘Why do you think God gave us grain instead of bread?’ She said it’s because as God’s creation, we have the ability to create and think, to use the things He gave us to make something even more wonderful. If He had not wanted us to have knowledge, He would not have made the Tree of Knowledge. The snake was just as much God’s creation as paradise itself. He wanted to test Adam and Eve, so He gave them an ultimatum: live a sheltered and lazy life in Eden, settle with what had been given them and never strive to be better, or, daring to take a risk to shape their own destiny, to strive to be better and use the knowledge given them to bring God’s creation to an even higher level.”
Alucard nodded, “She was never one to believe in the common interpretation of the Bible. The church… has spread much hate in its time. She never believed that God, if He were to exist, would cast humans into eternal flames just for the reason of thinking and being differently. And neither do I.”
I smiled, my chest feeling warm and fuzzy, “I… Thank you.”
He gave me a small smile, “So, how did you end up in the forest?”
My expression fell. I looked at my hands folded in my lap, “I-I, uh… I had talked with Lisa a lot, and… even after her death, I didn’t forget what she had told me. Because of her, I started to believe that God had given me this body to shape it into something that would truly be me. Two days ago, I had gathered the courage to steal my brother’s clothes. I bound my chest and put my hair under a hat and went outside. I… I got called ‘young lad’,” I was unable to suppress a smile, “and for a moment I just… I felt like myself.”
I glanced at Alucard. His eyes were on me, silent and intense. I immediately averted my gaze again, “However… I ran into a priest at the town’s square. He grabbed my arm and asked me who I was, since he had never seen me before. I-I didn’t know what to do. My voice would give me away, but I couldn’t ignore him either. I ended up giving him my chosen name, and like I had feared, he realised I was a… a…” I swallowed. I didn’t want to say it.
“I understand. Continue,” Alucard muttered.
I took a shaky breath, “He dragged me to the church and pulled me into a chamber. He told me to redress into one of those church gowns. I could return it after I had gone home to get dressed in my own dress. He… He saw the bandages I had put around my chest to make it appear flat… Lisa had shown me how to do it without damaging my ribs.
“His eyes just… changed,” I whispered, “It turned from irritation to disgust so quickly. He started yelling at me and grabbed my arm painfully tight. Two other priests came into the room; they must have heard him yell and came to see what was happening. Their faces also twisted into anger and disgust. They… dragged me outside and across the plaza, all the way into the forest.
“One of them took out a k-knife a-and the other two… they restrained me. ‘Since you don’t want your breasts, I’ll do you a favour’ he spat in my face. ‘We won’t burn you like we do with the witches, but we’ll mutilate you, so no one will ever love you again and you can never deny your sin’.”
My hands were actively trembling by now and I was close to tears. I took another shaky breath, trying so hard not to start bawling my eyes out. “I-I’m s-sorry–”
“Shh…” He put a hand on mine, “Don’t apologise. Not for crying, and not for who you are.”
I closed my eyes and forced my breathing to steady. After a moment, I looked up at him, “You… You’re a vampire, aren’t you? Half, at least.”
He looked at me, his expression unreadable, before he nodded. “I am,” He confirmed, “Half, like you said.”
“Mhm.” I nodded quietly. “Lisa had told me she had a husband, but she had never mentioned he was a vampire. Thinking back on it, it makes sense. In a way, at least. You would need someone immortal to know long-forgotten medicine of the past. It was only after he released those night creatures because ‘we had burned his wife’ that I had put two and two together.”
“I killed him,” Alucard muttered, “I killed my own father.”
I looked at him silently. He looked so sad. I whispered, “To save humankind?”
“Hardly,” He said and glanced at the window overlooking the forest, “Mainly because my mother would not have wanted it.”
“Hm. She wasn’t a violent person.” I agreed with him. “Was it difficult?”
He sighed, “Of course it was. He was my father before anything else. But it was clear he had lost his mind… his spark. He died when my mother did.” He turned back to look at me, “We’re both outcasts, in a way.”
“Yeah.” I whispered.
We were both outcasts.
He stood up, “You should rest some more. I’ll leave the food here and I’ll come to check up on you in a bit.”
“Wait.” I quickly said and tried to reach for him, which only caused a terrible, fierce pain around my chest, making me curse inwardly. He glanced back at me, “What is it?”
“I…” I looked up at him, “Where am I? What is this place?”
He stayed quiet for a moment and glanced around the room, before looking back at me, “You’re in my castle, Dracula’s castle. This is my childhood room.”
“Dracula’s castle…?” I looked around again, taking everything in with this new revelation. I had only ever heard of it in hushed whispers. “I’ll show you around when you can stand. For now, rest. Your body needs it.” He murmured and left the room, leaving me alone to think.
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I had eaten the rest of the food he had brought and had taken another nap, but the eerie feeling the castle had started to give me did not subside. It had only gotten worse as the sky outside started to darken and the light of the candles created flickering shadows across the walls. This deeply rooted anxiousness formed in my stomach as I thought of the possibilities of a night creature coming into my room and eating me alive. The castle was so big, so dark… Would Alucard even notice? Would he hear my screams?
Not being able to stand the spiralling of my own thoughts, I pushed myself up into a sitting position and got up from the bed. I felt a little light headed as I stood for the first time in three days, but I used the wall for support as I slowly made my way out of his childhood room.
The corridors of the castle were tall and winding, an odd painting decorating the cool stone. I wasn’t sure where to go, so I just followed the feeling in my gut. I passed a library, a room with all kinds of trinkets I did not understand, and a hall full of cogs. I stopped for a moment at each one, taking it all in. The castle really was magnificent.
When I opened the door after going up a flight of twisting stairs, I saw Alucard sitting in an armchair, reading a book. He looked up as he heard the door open, his expression turning surprised as he saw me standing in the doorway.
Suddenly, I wasn’t sure how to explain myself. It was weird to show up to the bedroom at nightfall of the person who had saved you but didn’t know you, wasn’t it? However, Alucard’s eyes softened and he got up, putting the book aside before coming up to support me, “You shouldn’t be up yet. Come, sit down.”
He helped me to the couch at the opposite end of the room and carefully sat me down. I looked up at him, “Sorry for barging into your room unannounced.”
He smiled softly, “Don’t worry about it. Is there something you need?”
I lowered my gaze, feeling a little ashamed of my anxiousness, “I… I wondered if I could sleep on your couch.”
He raised a confused eyebrow, “Why? Is the bed not to your liking? The couch is most likely less comfortable.”
“That’s… not why.” I muttered and clenched my fist around the fabric of my shirt, “Your castle is so big… I am scared somebody will go into my room, and… do scary monster things.”
When he didn’t answer, I glanced up, only to see him burst out laughing, “Do scary monster things?” He chuckled and pinked away a tear, “Sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t laugh. It’s okay, I understand. You can stay here, if that makes you feel at ease.”
Before I could utter a thank you, he already pulled my arm around his shoulders and helped me up, “But a patient shouldn’t be sleeping on a couch. You can sleep in my bed. I’ll take the couch.”
“Wait, no. I couldn’t…” I protested as he helped me sit down on the edge of his bed, “You shouldn’t have to sleep on the couch because I’m a scaredy cat.”
“Then what do you propose?” Alucard put a hand on his hip, his expression curious.
“You could… also sleep on the bed.” I muttered hesitantly, “I’ll stay respectfully on my side, but I can’t promise I won’t hog the blankets.”
He chuckled, the sound a soft, smooth rumble in his throat, “That’s okay. Alright, I’ll also stay respectfully on my side, if you really don’t mind.”
I carefully made myself comfortable on his bed and watched as he went to store his book away in the tall bookcase filling up the wall next to the door, and disappeared behind a screen. I heard the rustling of clothes, the unbuckling of a belt and the thud of boots being dropped. He reappeared wearing a white nightgown, revealing a big scar on his chest. Heh, we were twins in that regard.
He blew out the candles, enveloping the room in darkness before he stepped into bed. Like promised, he kept a respectful distance and turned to look at me, “Good night. Wake me up if something is wrong.”
I nodded quietly and watched as he closed his eyes. I averted my gaze to the ceiling, a question bubbling up which I could not resist asking, “Aren’t you scared? Living alone in such a big castle?”
He slowly reopened his eyes and also looked at the ceiling as he mulled over the question, “No. I am not scared.”
“How?” I asked quietly and glanced at him, his eyes meeting mine.
“I know how to defend myself. I am not scared monsters will enter my room and do scary monster things.” A hint of playfulness twinkled in his eyes, and I chuckled, “Oh God, you’re not gonna drop that, are you?”
“No, I don’t think so,” His lips pulled into a small smile.
A few seconds passed, before I muttered, “Is knowing how to defend yourself really that easing? Aren’t you constantly on edge?”
He sighed as he thought again, before answering, “It really does help. Knowing you can deal with it, that you won’t have to fear for your life, that puts you at ease. It gives you confidence, and confidence is the cure to an anxious mind.”
“I suppose so, yeah…” I did lack confidence, didn’t I?
Alucard turned onto his side, drawing my attention back to him, “When your wounds have healed, I’ll teach you how to defend yourself, if you want.”
My eyes widened slightly, before I smiled, “If you wouldn’t mind, I would like that.”