Stitched Up Hearts (Alucard X Fem! reader)

You Drool In Your Sleep

(six years prior)

The side of my neck wasn't very happy with my decision to turn my head. I groaned, trying to shift my body to comply with the aches. The thing I was sleeping on wasn't my bed. I shifted more, still half asleep, trying to figure out what I was sleeping on. There was a smothering warmth on my right side.

"You've been sleeping on that lounge for three hours." comes Adrian's voice. My eyes opened to meet his black leather boots on the floor. I tried to move them up to look at the rest of him, but my positioning did not allow for it. I moved upright, despite my body's call not to. He was sitting in the chair right next to the chaise lounge. He didn't even bother looking up from his book. "It's nearly time for supper by now."

I didn't like the idea that I'd fallen asleep with him in the room, without my knowledge. Before moving here, I never allowed myself to sleep until I knew that nothing and nobody could get to me. Being here did not allow for that, and being around these people was causing me to get too comfortable. It had been two months, and I'd accepted the fact they weren't trying to kill me, at least not for a while. Still, I didn't trust Adrian enough to sleep while he was in the same room. "Why didn't you wake me?" the warmth on my right side had been a fire. Adrian must have made one, because it certainly wasn't there when I fell asleep.

"You looked like you could use some sleep. The bags under your eyes were getting quite obvious. you still don't trust us enough to sleep here?" he flipped a page in his book, apparently able to talk and read at the same time. I could sense an edge of annoyance, or perhaps sadness in his tone. He wanted me to trust his mother, to trust him. But I couldn't.

" That's not really the problem anymore. I've gotten past the idea you'll all try to kill me in my sleep." I stretched, spine crackling like twigs in the underbrush. 

He looked up from his book for the first time since the start of the conversation. He raised an eyebrow, waiting for an elaboration of that statement. Waiting for an explanation that wouldn't come. "I hope sleep comes to you soon, you look rather sorry wandering around as if you're half dead."

"I am half dead." I reminded him, smirking lazily. We talked more often now, banter rolling back and forth between us easily.

Adrian smiled at my joke, revealing his fangs. "So you are."

"And so are you." I remind him, leaning back into the chaise lounge. I look down, then peer back over the edge at the floor. "Where did you put my book?"

"As much as I applaud your intuition of putting the book on the floor and heading with your head hanging off the chair, I didn't think your drool dripping into the pages would be a good step in keeping these books preserved." Adrian pointed over to a far bookshelf. "I put it away."

"I don't drool in my sleep." I roll my eyes, folding my arms across my stomach and enjoying the heat pressing against my side still. 

"Must have been my imagination."

"Do you believe in mermaids? Do you think they could exist somewhere in the ocean?" I asked him, still staring at the wooden ceiling over my head. I was awake now, well rested from my apparently three hour long nap. The book I'd been reading was about the ocean, and how the man writing it had seen what he thought were mermaids.

Adrian laughed softly through his nose. "Oh yes, of course." His tone was joking, which caused me to furrow my eyebrows.

"Don't mock my question Adrian, I wanted a serious answer."

"Do you think they are?" he asked, almost in disbelief that I would even consider such a thing. "Their existence makes no rational sense. Half fish, half human creatures that live in the sea. What do they eat? How would they breathe? It isn't plausible. Gills do not tie into the human half of the anatomy system, and the human body isn't made to live under water, it would be highly inefficient. They'd have to be more fish than human, meaning they would never live up to the old sailor tales of beautiful women who lure seamen to their deaths."

"But vampires make complete sense." I snorted. "Undead humans who live forever, and feed on human blood with fangs. They heal themselves incredibly fast, and are practically invincible. But if you stab them in the heart with a wooden stake or shine sunlight on them they disintegrate to dust. Oh and don't forget the ability to shapeshift. Of course, that makes total sense, but the notion of mermaids is utterly ridiculous."

"I suppose everything sounds a little far fetched if you describe it like that." Adrian hummed. I loved the sound of his voice, even when he spoke the simplest things it made me smile just to hear it. it was rich and smooth, a deliberate thoughtfulness behind it. Over the couple of months I'd been at Dracula's castle, I'd Found myself wanting to be around his son more and more. Everything about him interested me. Maybe I was curious for the same reason he was; because I'd never met anyone who was like me before. I'd never really had friends either, other than one person. But I didn't want to think about her. I especially didn't want to think about her in relation to Adrian, because I didn't want them to blur together in my mind. They weren't the same.

After supper Lisa said she was taking another trip into Targoviste, and would be gone a few days. She asked if I'd like to come with her, to visit. I thought she was joking so I laughed at the offer. A quirk of her eyebrow made me realize she was being genuine. I declined the offer but thanked her for the thought. "I think I'll go to bed soon, I haven't slept very well the last few days."

"Would you like me to walk you to your room?" Adrian asked, lips spread into a playful smile.

"You think yourself a jester don't you?" I rolled my eyes. I still got lost nearly once a week even after being here so long. Adrian excused himself from the table, extending his arm for me to take. Hesitantly I wrapped my hand on his bicep, somewhat surprised at the amount of muscle I could feel. I hadn't ever been around boys very much, only grown men. Being around someone my own age felt foreign, I was unsure of where the line was, and when I would cross it. 

"Remember the time I found you wandering around the east wing, nearly crying because you were afraid the castle was so large nobody would ever find you, and you might die of starvation?" Adrian chuckled.

"I'm never going to live that down am I?" I sighed, putting my face in my hands. "It was a valid fear at the time, starvation would be a painful way to die."

"Very true." He hummed, letting go of my arm when we reached my door. He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, then closed it. I kept my eyes trained on him, waiting for the words to come from his lips. "If you ever need me, you know where to find me."

That night, I had dreams of mermaids.