Gotta love when you get prompts for Young Dracula at last! Well. I do.

Vlad's sick; Bertrand is stuck taking care of him. He's not a great nursemaid and Vlad's not a good patient.

-YD-

Bertrand grit his fangs as he heard Vlad start up again; the vomiting seemed to have passed but he was coughing up a storm. How he had gotten stuck taking care of a sick Chosen One whilst everyone was conveniently absent wasn't a mystery - he was still being punished for the Sethius incident.

"M'fine."

Vlad pushed away the bottle Bertrand held out as best he could between fits of dry, hacking coughs.

"This will help cleanse your system."

"It's blood!"

"You're a vampire!"

Bertrand rubbed the bridge of his nose, remembering that staking his boss would get him dusted.

"I drink soy blood."

Rolling his eyes, Bertrand gestured to the sweaty, sickly state of being Vlad found himself in.

"It was that filth that did this to you."

"Renfield's bad mixture does not" Vlad had to stop to throw up a little, slumping back into his coffin with a groan "make soy bad."

Bertrand rolled his eyes again, opting to just occasionally check his atoms stayed joined and otherwise leaving the pain in the neck to suffer. Placing the blood bottle on the coffinside, Bertrand left to get back to his book and decided the shakes Vlad was experiencing were completely his own fault. Substitute blood... what absolute nonsense.

He was no more than two pages in to the 'History of Clans 253AD to 672AD - The Last True Blood Feuds' when Bertrand heard a loud thudding sound. With an irate growl, Bertrand put his book down and got up again. As expected, Vlad was face down on the floor attempting to push himself up on weakened limbs. Bertrand lifted him by the back of his shirt, grimacing at the sweaty fabric and dumped him back in his coffin.

"Stay. Rest. Or must you be forcibly restrained?"

After a few spluttering coughs, Vlad fixed him with a bloodshot glare.

"I'm still your superior."

"You couldn't be superior to a swamp rat right now. Either drink the blood or stay there and wait for your system to recover."

"I'm hungry!"

Bertrand crossed his arms and gestured to the bottle of blood on the side. Vlad growled.

"Not happening."

"Then horizontal you shall remain."

He would have closed the coffin, but Vlad would just petulantly throw it open again with what little strength he had. Renfield hadn't just made a bad batch of soy blood; he had almost killed Vlad by contaminating the 'blood' with argentalium powder. Had Vlad finished that bottle, he would have been finished himself. There was little to do but give him Transylvanian Bat Vomit every four hours and wait for it to help his system rebalance.

Bertrand managed another three pages before Vlad started moving again, attempting to speed himself through the sickness and making it to the door.

"You must have known it was time for your medicine again."

A few colourful curse words were uttered under someones breath before Bertrand held out the jar and spoon pointedly to Vlad - spoonfeeding the future Grand High Vampire was not in his job description.

"I don't need this."

"Hold your bat transformation for more than a second and we'll see."

Bertrand didn't get paid enough vintage blood for this nonsense. Vlad managed to transform, but landed in an ungainly heap of humanoid limbs not two seconds later as his energy evaporated. He glared as he took the mouthful of bat regurgitation, swallowing painfully before he slumped back into his coffin with a frown.

"Disgusting."

"So is your present physical state. Rest. Sleep. It's almost dawn."

With what looked like the last of his energy, Vlad bared his fangs and rolled onto his side to face away from Bertrand. There was no way for him to sleep that way at all; it was purely for show. Bertrand allowed him his delusions - he wouldn't be awake much longer to care. Someone else could put up with Vlad's petulance while Bertrand got some sleep himself.

The alarm that went off four hours later genuinely made Bertrand consider staking himself. Convincing bat sick into an irritable teenager was getting progressively harder.

"It's O neg or bat vomit."

"It's go sit on a stake! I'm fine! In fact I could go for a fly right now."

"You would be fried to a crisp. Now take this."

Vlad turned away again, skin unhealthily flushed with sickness still. Bertrand grit his fangs, scooped the bat vomit onto the spoon and physically forced it between resistant lips until Vlad swallowed it with venom in his eyes.

"There. That wasn't so hard."

"Take a walk in the sunshine would you? Lovely day for it."

Vlad must be feeling a little better if he was changing his insults. Still, Bertrand knew he wasn't free of the duty to take care of him yet. After the next argument to get the accursed mush into his superior, Bertrand noticed night falling and heard someone land inside the school. Any hope that someone else could put up with Vlad's immature behaviour was quashed when he saw who it was.

"Having fun playing nursemaid are we?"

Ingrid licked the blood from the side of her smirking lips - he could smell it was sheeps blood but it had to have been better than jamming metal coated in vomit down a sick teen vampires throat.

"I take my duties to the Chosen One very seriously."

"When you aren't plotting against him. Bats, even his girlfriend isn't tending to his coffinside. Face it Bertrand, you're just a glorified babysitter."

Vlad would tear his head off if Bertrand tried to slay his sister. Feeling his cheek muscles twitch, Bertrand left Ingrid still smirking.

It was time to check Vlad's temperature again.

-YD-

Not sure I did this prompt any real justice but then I've never written this before.