biofreak659

I made a silly randomized castlevania prompt generator. Give it a whirl!

I also wrote some broody fanfic about Alucard and Drac and inherited monstrosity and all that. Read on AO3 or find it under the cut.

He knew his son was back by the smell of him.

Dracula sat in his throne, one leg carelessness tossed over the other. He held his wineglass settled in his palm, the stem slotted between his middle and ring finger. He was, of course, not concerned that his tepid skin might heat the wine.

And it was wine, this time. Perhaps it was regret that made him not want to be entirely sober. There was a difference between personal and professional cruelty.

He felt, rather than heard, the castle doors slam open, and felt his gut curl as the castle made an easy path to his throne room obvious. There were so many hidden corridors and passages, that sometimes they tended to fade from view, into the background of solid stone and expensive tapestry. He could make them noticeable, if he was inclined, but more often it was fun to entrap his guests in the maze of monsters and trick walls. Perhaps it was something else he'd inherited from Bernhardt.

The door to the throne room opened.

"Father."

Oh dear.

Dracula looked up. Adrian was flushed from feeding, where he wasn't covered in blood. It was spilled down his shirt, brown where it had dried and red where it was thick enough to still be wet. Caked all around his mouth and smudged up his cheek where he'd wiped his lips.

"Father?" He said again, very frail. Like glass, just hitting the floor. At the point of shattering but still in one piece.

"What have you done, Adrian?" Dracula kept his voice very neutral. Of course he knew what his son had done. Lyudmil had cut himself shaving often enough that the stink of his blood was familiar.

Adrian staggered into the room.

Dracula's jaw twitched. He looked too much like Lisa. The blood down Adrian's chest—in another lifetime, when he was a different man, it had been Lisa stumbling in, the seat of her gown soaked in blood: 'Vlad, I think something's wrong with the baby.', in that same frail way. At the point of shattering.

She'd lived, then. Adrian lived, then—was born alive, as much as he could ever be alive, undying as he was.

"Why was he in the village?" Adrian asked faintly. He knew.

Dracula watched him.

"Why was he in the village?" He repeated himself, louder.

"What did you do to him, you demon !?" Adrian bellowed, standing at the end of the silk carpet, like he was waiting to be invited to his own rage.

"What did you do, Adrian?" Dracula set his wine on the floor next to his throne.

"I—"

"Did you kill him?" It was possible. There was enough blood for it.

"He—" Adrian cut himself off, but Dracula could see the truth of it in his eyes.

"You left him? Like some stillbirth in the woods? How unfatherly, Adrian."

"He—I did something wrong." Adrian admitted. His voice was unsteady, his eyes darting madly. "He's not like he was."

"Of course not. Dying changes a man. He leaves something behind. Only blood can give it back to him. You gave him yours?"

Adrian was silent.

"Ah. You forced him?" Dracula lounged back in his throne. "Sometimes they say they want to die, but every single one of them will beg to be saved from their own mortality before the end. Sometimes the pride doesn't go before the voice does." He tapped his ear. "You have to listen closely, son."

"Don't call me that."

"Afraid of the truth, Adrian?" This was more familiar, this mutual animosity. Two people who hated each other but were bound eternally by blood. He'd felt this way about Leon, once, although the man was more brother than he was a son. Strange, how he hardly loved his own child any more than he'd loved a man he tried to kill.

"I renounce you. You're not my father." Adrian spat.

"And yet, here you are. Wearing my son's skin." Dracula cocked his head. "Underneath all that blood, of course."

Adrian flinched, a full body reminder of what had happened.

"You made him leave."

"No." Dracula said, truthfully. That had been the incubus' role in this sordid tale. What dreams had he fed the boy? A simple moonlit tryst with his beloved master ? Or was it a nightmare to drive him from the castle in his terror, with dark hounds and dark thoughts snapping at his heels? Perhaps it was simply a dream displaced by time: he was going into town to buy bread, to speak with Lisa about the rumors he was hearing about her. It didn't matter, in the end. Lyudmil had gone, and he had died, and Adrian had done what he was meant to do as a vampire and brought him back.

"You made me kill him." Adrian said it like it was a revelation. Trumpets from God and silver bells. Fool.

"Oh, I think you did that on your own." Dracula flicked his fingertips at him. "You wanted to save him, didn't you? He still walks and speaks. Breath doesn't dictate esprit . You made someone who cannot die; aren't you happy? No mortal weakness can touch him, no plague or wound."

He saw the dawning realization in Adrian's eyes.

"Would you have turned her?" Adrian asked, his eyes wide and unseeing. No use in playing pretend—there are thousands of women in this world, Adrian, which 'her'? There was only one that mattered. None, now. Mary was slattern in comparison. Panagia whore.

"No." Dracula lied. "Tell me what she said."

Adrian was silent. He always was. He was still healing from the last time Dracula had tried to beat it out of him. It was the sight of his eyes, pale and blue, through a ragged curtain of bloodstained blond hair, that had stayed his hand. He could have been Lisa's twin, two decades ago, if not for a little lilt to his face, a certain something about his nose. It was Mircea's nose. A shame the boy had never met his uncle. Lisa's eyes looked at him from under Adrian's heavy brows, swollen and bruised.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

Adrian gestured helplessly in the direction of the village.

"Why?" He said again, his voice breaking. "Why make me…"

"I didn't make you do anything." Dracula said. "Such an ego you have. I suppose the thought that this wasn't about you never crossed your mind?"

"…What?"

Dracula danced his fingers through the air, tracing dust motes. "You assume I scheme to make you suffer—"

"You do—"

"But," Dracula continued, ignoring him, "you didn't once consider that this was about the boy."

"Lyudmil—"

"Was a very good servant, wasn't he? I haven't forgotten what he tried to do for Lisa, nor have I forgotten how vital he was in her revenge. I am the Master of this Castle. Is it not my prerogative to decide how to reward my servants?"

"And you chose me as your instrument?" Adrian spat.

"Ah, don't downplay your own role in this. Disobedience begets punishment, Adrian."

" Alucard ."

" Adrian ."

"You call it a reward but he begged me not to change him! He wanted to die as a human! And I," Adrian looked at his shaking hands, "some beast inside me took hold of my teeth. What monstrosity have I inherited?"

"Nothing so loathsome as that. You're a predator, living your nature. We both are. Nothing wrong with that."

"You're a murderer !" Adrian jabbed a bloodied finger at Dracula, and spat, mocking: " We both are ."

"Do you call it murder when a human kills a cow?"

"It's not the same and you know it! Keep that wicked tongue behind your teeth!"

"You can pretend as much as you like, but you aren't human, Adrian. You aren't one of them. They aren't teeth; they're fangs."

"Shut your—"

The cock's crow silenced him. Adrian's eyes grew wide.

"Ah," Dracula hid a smirk behind his hand, "have you forgotten something? I'm sure he knows what you've turned him into, but I doubt he's thinking too clearly. Perhaps he's hidden himself away in some forsaken grave, but only the dead stay in the ground, and they aren't hiding. Think on it, son, before you rush to play savior—it would solve your moral dilemma to let him die, wouldn't it? Let the sun make the decision for you. You can pretend that you were too late to save him, if it will soothe your morals."

" Bastard ." Adrian spared time to hiss before he leapt out of the window, shifting into a bat as he fell and fluttering out over the sinking moonlight.

Dracula found his glass and finished his wine.

Adrian did not return.