Stitched Up Hearts (Alucard X Fem! reader)

It's All About Lowering Expectations

(six years prior)

"You seem to be bleeding quite a lot." Adrian informed me, appearing seemingly out of nowhere. I'd grown familiar with his face by now, the sharp features arranged perfectly symmetrical onto his pale skin. He was just as beautiful as his mother, but in a quieter, somehow more off putting way. He was looking at my hand, at the deep cut that ran the length of my palm.

I jumped back, startled by his sudden presence. I hated when he did that, it threw me off guard, and made me eternally uneasy. He reached forward to inspect my hand, but I took a quick step back, holding the injured hand behind me and the uninjured one in front of my body. "It's fine." I told him quickly, keeping distance between his own body and mine. I hid my hand from his view, as if his inability to see it would make it cease to bleed. "It will heal in a moment, it's only a minor cut." I insisted.

My actions caused his immaculate blond eyebrows to furrow, turning his face into a mask of confusion. He glanced at my hand, then at the distance between us that I'd been trying to make more of. "Are you typically so uncoordinated or does tonight happen to have special conditions?"

I simply looked back at him, refusing to take my eyes off him and go back to work until he was a sufficient enough distance away. I was suddenly aware of my messy appearance, the dress sleeves pushed up past my elbows, tangled hair and the dusting of flour that covered not only my hair but the rest of the clothes and face. "I'm not uncoordinated."

Adrian stepped back one pace, as if testing to see what would happen when he increased the distance. "I watched you kick that knife off the counter and try to catch the blade with your bare hand," he pointed out.

I carefully stepped back to the counter full of my baking mess. He was expecting an answer, but I stubbornly refused to give him one. Instead, I kept my senses on high alert, ears listening for any sound, eyes watching for any movements other than my own. Every few seconds I'd glance at him, straining my eyes to get the largest view of him possible without turning my head. He was still standing a few feet away from me.

"Do you mind?" I snapped at him, tired of his watchful, predatory eyes. They had always stuck out to me, I noticed them almost immediately when we first met. They freaked me out at first, how bright they were, like a snake's eyes.

I had only been at the castle for a week, and my contact with Dracula's son was kept to a bare minimum, through no small effort on my part. I saw him during meals, and occasionally when I'd slip into the library-the first place I learned how to get to in the palace- but other than that I spent a majority of my time in the room I'd been provided,or with Lisa. I was truthfully was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the trick to be revealed, for one of them to smother me in my sleep with a pillow, or try to poison my food or any number of ways they could have to torture or kill me.

"Do I mind what?" He teased me. His tone of voice pitched up slightly at the end when he was teasing.

"Do you make a habit to scare and stalk young girls or don't you have special conditions tonight?" I mock his words from earlier, turning around to face him with my arms folded across my chest. One thing I'd learned was to never look away when speaking to a person, as their voices might muffle the sound of their movements.

"I'm only observing you. You have been here a whole week and yet I feel as though you are merely some sort of ghost haunting the place, always floating around right in the corner of my eye, yet when I turn to look at you, you disappear. It takes skill to hide as effectively as you do, even in a place so large. I'm curious about my new housemate."

"You don't need to know anything more than what your mother and father have already told you." I shrug, still facing him, watching carefully.

"She hasn't told me anything." Adrian copies my body language, crossing his arms and leaning his back against the wooden table.

"Then, that's all you need to know." I told him, grabbing the long wooden paddle and beginning to stack the rolls onto it.

"You still have yet to inform me as to why you aren't sleeping this late in the night."

"I couldn't sleep. And believe it or not, sitting in bed doing nothing grows tiring very quickly."

"Is the bed uncomfortable?" He cocked his head slightly to the side, and I was unsure if his question was one of genuine concern or if he was mocking me.

"No." I told him shortly, opening the oven door and allowing the blistering heat to spread across my face. I wondered, briefly, if I burned as easily as a human with how cold my skin was. I was glad to live in a place that was cold most of the year. Heat was unbearable, smothering.

"Something else, then." Adrian pulled out one of the wooden chairs at the table, gesturing for me to sit.

I narrowed my eyes at him, examining the chair, then his face. Cautiously, I sat down on the hard chair, watching his movements as he went around to the other side of the table and took his seat. "I don't know how I feel about sleeping here just yet. I don't trust this place. And besides that, even if I did, I wouldn't be able to sleep. Too many thoughts, not enough room for dreams." I confessed, waving my hand around to accentuate my point. Why the hell could I be so honest with this boy? I barely knew him. Stop talking. I scolded myself, willing my hands to stay in my lap so I wouldn't slap them over my mouth to prevent more talking. "Does that answer your question? Will you leave me now?"

"It answers one of my questions, yes. Though, I have many more. There is so much I have to learn about you, yet it feels as though you're running away from me? Is it perhaps that I scare you?" He poked fun at me, but his tone was genuine.

"What is it that you so desperately want to know? There's really nothing to me, a grubby little peasant girl cannot possibly be of so much interest to you. So why, then? Do you get off from this sort of power trip? From making me feel like prey? Are you a sadist Adrian? Or are you just trying to make yourself feel better?" I challenged myself, finding it easier to lash back with words, than actually open up. If I could hurt him into leaving on his own I wouldn't have to risk vulnerability with this boy who I found it so easy to talk to.

I don't know why he wanted to be friends with me, but I certainly had no intentions of being friends or anything of the sort with him. I couldn't get close to him, he was far too pretty, too kind. I was much too susceptible to the charms of people like him.

"You are sincerely aggravating." Adrian furrowed his eyebrows.

"Then leave me be? You're the one badgering me, if i'm so aggravating them stop talking to me and leave."

Adrian went quiet for a moment, as if figuring out what he was going to say in his head. "It's just that... I've never met anyone who was like me." Adrian told me, softly.

"What, a sadist, or a half blooded monster?" I laughed darkly.

"Someone who was both vampire and human, another dhampir. I've really only ever been around my parents, and on rare occasions other vampires. But you are like me. That makes me curious." Adrian turned his head to the side, attempting to hide the pink that tinted the tips of his ears and back of his neck.

I don't know why, but I didn't want to disappoint him. I had never, in all my life, had an issue with disappointing those around me, not living up to their expectations. When you've been considered god's mistake your whole life you tend to get that kind of mindset. But this boy I hardly knew, I didn't want to let down. I wanted to live up to his expectations, and yet I faltered because I knew I never would. I can't let him have expectations of me, to build up a false idea in his head of who I am. I couldn't let him get his hopes up. "If I were you, Adrian, I wouldn't get too excited about it."

"And why is that?"

"I'm not the kind of person you want to be associated with. I won't live up to whatever expectations you have of who, or what I should be. How I should act. I'm telling you this now, so don't go crying when I'm not who you think I am. I won't be someone who makes you proud to be a dhampir, so be prepared for disappointment."