A/N: This oneshot is set in the Revelations AU, post-story. It doesn't require any knowledge of Revelations to follow along, but may contain some minor spoilers for Revelations.
Lily sat on her stool at an odd angle, a pair of tweezers pinched between her thumb and forefinger. Before her, a water-stained tome of alchemical recipes lay open, the dog-eared pages yellowed in the light of her workbench's lamp. She was bent over a set of glassware, adding gossamer fragments of Baltic Sea nymph wings to a vial of clear liquid mixed with a bit of Breaker's Blue powder — the start of a basic healing salve.
A simple vignette. It'd been a while since Alucard had seen her like this. Head bowed, brow knit, her rosy lips pursed thoughtfully as she leafed through her book, searching for the perfect recipe. She didn't know he was here yet. A mission he'd said would only take eight weeks stretched into twelve, and he hadn't been able to send word on when he'd return with any certainty. He'd snuck in the side door, quiet as the grave, to watch her unawares, admire her artless beauty unpolished and unposed.
He could content himself with watching forever, but it would be sweeter still to have her in his arms.
"Who's hurt this time?" he asked, stepping out of the shadows at last.
The sound of his voice surprised her, but as soon as she recognized it, she lit up with joy. "You're home," she said, setting down her tweezers with a bright clack. She rose from her workbench to greet him, hurrying to tug her apron strings open. The fabric fell to a heap on the ground, a white canvas painted dingy brown with all manner of stains. Without a dirty garment between them, she threw her arms around him with all the unrestrained affection of a woman who knew better than to worry about him and where he was, yet stubbornly insisted on doing so all the same.
He nodded to the materials on her workbench. "What's all this?"
"It's nothing serious. Not for the kids, if that's what you're worried about."
He looked around, left and right, and found the household unusually, unbearably still. "Where are they, anyway?"
"Sasha's with Seras. He wanted to go see the dragon tournaments, and she was kind enough to take him."
"And Rina?" The girl should be in bed — it was nearly sunrise — but he had hoped to see them both on his return, if only for a moment.
"Yeah, funny story…" Lily rubbed her forehead at the memory of whatever headache had transpired. "I brought her a peryton."
"A pet?" He shook his head. "She's not old enough."
Lily crossed her arms, nodding toward the closed door of their bedroom. "Well, it's all for nothing, anyway. She took one look at the size of his antlers and got spooked. I tried to put her on his back, but he made a weird screeching noise and she jumped off. Gave him a nasty scratch on the way down. I figured I might try to heal him before giving him back to the breeder."
"I'm sensing this non sequitur has something to do with where our daughter is, but I'm struggling to figure out how. I take it she's not in bed?"
Lily huffed and began to pick at her nails, the telltale sign that whatever she'd done, she knew she'd made a mistake and didn't want any guff about it from him. "I may or may not have made a joke about a peryton eating her alive while I was getting her ready for bed."
"You do love to make more work for yourself."
"Tch, shut up," she said, but she didn't mean it. Her weary head rested on his chest, the welcome weight of her physical presence infinitely more comforting than he imagined, and he'd imagined it often in the last few weeks. "Anyway, she's been hiding in my wardrobe for the last hour."
"So, get her out."
"I tried, but she screams bloody murder and runs right back in there every time. Won't come out for anything."
"Even for-?"
"Yes, even for the shiniest sticker on Earth," she sighed. "I tried. Trust me. She's been acting out a lot lately. I figured a furry friend might help."
"If she's misbehaving, she needs discipline, not gifts."
"I think what she needs is her dad."
Alucard fell silent. Lily had said it gently enough, and she wasn't wrong. Still, she knew he had little choice. It felt cruel to point it out, though probably no crueler than leaving a child that young behind with only a vague notion of where her father was.
"I'm not criticizing," Lily added, noting his strained silence. She gave him a sidelong glance, lightening the mood with a coy smile. "She'll come out for you. I know she will."
He hesitated. After so much time away from his wife, the laborious ritual of putting an unruly child to bed was not exactly the way he'd planned to spend what remained of the evening. Then again, it wasn't as though they'd be able to make good use of their bedroom with Rina awake and still in it. Sensing the direction of his thoughts, Lily planted a warm kiss on his jaw, her nails clawing lightly at his back.
Truly, there was no rest for the wicked.
Inside their room, it was immediately obvious where his daughter was hiding; in her haste, she'd left one of the wardrobe doors slightly ajar. A mischievous thought hatched in his mind. Careful to keep the hinges from squeaking, he nudged the door open wide and slipped inside unannounced.
Between the coats and dresses, two shining black eyes peered out from the dark. If he listened, he could hear her heart beating in her chest, her bated breaths as she froze, waiting to see who could've possibly found her in her most clever of hiding spots. Alucard leaned further in and spotted a quivering form in the back of the wardrobe. A few wispy black curls stuck to the sweat on her high round forehead, her hands balled around the fraying edges of an old jumper. In one smooth motion, he parted the racks of clothing wearing his widest jagged smile. "Boo."
Ear-splitting shrieking filled the wardrobe, and she lunged at him, claws out. Fast, but not fast enough to avoid the shadow limbs closing around her wrists and ankles. He dragged her out into the open, where she hissed and spat like a feral kitten, making a valiant effort to bite him for his utter disregard of her matchless ferocity.
"Aren't you the most fearsome vampire?" he chuckled, waiting for her flailing to stop before he set her down gently at the edge of the bed. Lily had done up the girl's hair into two buns, which had come partway undone and sat lopsided on her head. She looked away, chewing her pinky nail in embarrassed silence.
"Come, now. Is this the welcome I get?" he said.
"Uhm, I thought you were the monster," she said sheepishly. This was not true, and she knew well she'd misbehaved, just as well as she knew could wriggle out of the consequences if she put on a sufficiently darling act. To her luck, he wasn't in the mood to punish, especially after what Lily had confided in him.
"I am," he replied, knowing she would not understand what he meant. "Young lady, it's well past your bedtime. Enough of these games."
"It's not a game! It's real, I saw it. It's in my room." She leaned in to whisper conspiratorially in his ear. "Mama told me it eats people who don't take baths."
"Ah. Well your mother does know a lot about monsters. I would listen to her if I were you." He knelt down to meet her eye. "What does this monster look like?"
"It's got big…big horns." She held her splayed hands above her head, mimicking antlers. "Like a moose. But with wings! Really big wings. Like an airplane."
"Intimidating. Tell me, Rinny. Where is a monster that size going to hide?"
"Under the bed," she said, with all the certainty of a child who could not possibly be mistaken about what could fit under furniture. "It's real. I'm not lying."
"Mhm." He shifted his stance, covering his mouth in a thoughtful manner, when really he was attempting to hide his smirk. "And what are you going to do about it?"
She pointed to the bed he shared with Lily. "I can sleep there."
"Forever?"
She shrugged. "Mama said I could."
He cocked an eyebrow. "Now that is a lie, isn't it?"
This time, Rina had no smart answers.
"No, that won't do," he sighed, rising to collect her into his arms. "I'm certain I did not raise any child of mine to run and hide in a musty closet at the first sight of trouble. Come along, we'll deal with the matter directly."
"Wait, no!" The girl burst into fresh tears, her tiny fist thumping against his chest. "What if he gets mad and bites you?"
A touching concern. Misplaced, but touching.
"I bite back." He flashed her his long canines. "You can, too."
She mirrored him, the humble beginnings of fangs peeking out past her milk teeth. "They're itchy."
"Then scratch them. Like this." He tickled her stomach, and she dissolved into a squirming bundle of giggles, abandoning her earlier theatrics.
With her fears stayed, he carried her to her bedroom. The room was cool and pitch-dark, the covers on her trundle bed kicked half-way onto the floor. A curling fan hummed quietly overhead, but otherwise the room was still and empty. One step in, he heard a squeak as his foot landed on a fluffy toy griffin. Rina started in his arms at the noise.
"You see, you see!" she said, throwing up her arms for dramatic effect.
"I see a little girl who doesn't pick up her toys." He kicked the stuffed animal aside and set her down. He did not deign to get on all fours and check under the bed, but instead took one leg of the bed and lifted the whole lot clean off the ground, so she could get a good look at the space beneath. A lone plastic pickup truck lay there upended, missing one of its wheels.
Somehow, Rina found this more upsetting than if she'd come face to face with the peryton himself. She stomped her foot, her voice pitched up into a frustrated whine. "He was real, I saw him! He'll come back!"
"Doubtful. Look, he's left his ride behind." Alucard set the bed back down and dusted his hands. "It's time for bed then, miss."
"But the monsters-"
"-aren't there." He gestured to the empty room.
She stood there, obstinate, chewing her lower lip as she schemed some new diversion. An idea popped into her head, and she grabbed a book off her nightstand, pushing it into his hands before she hopped onto the bed and under the covers. "Story first?"
"Alright. One story."
"Two stories."
"Are you bargaining with me?"
"Three stories!" she cheered.
"These negotiations are brutal," he said as he pulled the armchair in the corner to her bedside. "Two stories, then it's bedtime."
Two nonsensical tales about a manticore and some very stupid wood sprites later, Rina's eyelids were drooping. Alucard shut the book and set it aside. He pulled the covers over her, turned off the light, and quietly took his leave.
Or rather, he tried.
Just as his hand closed around the doorknob, he heard a rustle behind him. He turned back around to see his daughter fully out of bed, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.
"Why are you out of bed?" he asked, exasperated.
"Uhm, I can't sleep. I'm hungry."
"It's daytime. We'll hunt tomorrow night."
"But-"
"Sleep," he ordered, his patience wearing thin as his own daytime fatigue set in. He turned the doorknob and opened the door, turning his back to her once more. "I won't ask again. Get in bed."
A wild panic filled her eyes. She threw herself to the ground and began to wail at a different pitch than her usual tantrum, softer, more heart-wrenching, her thin shoulders shivering with each pitiful sob as she looked up at him and pleaded: "Papa, don't go."
Rina likely didn't realize it, but in that moment she'd succeeded in doing what few others ever could, all without lifting a finger: she pierced right through his cold, black heart. Alucard stared at her, curled up into a ball, weeping into the carpet, and felt the acute and dreadful agony of his mistake.
Lily was right. He'd been away for far, far too long.
"Shh, I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here." He swept her up in his arms and onto his lap, repeating those words, rocking her as she cried and cried, the bleeding wound in his heart growing and growing until they might both dry up from their misery.
She was so small, so helpless, fitting neatly into the crook of his arm. His little girl. It struck him then that one day she would not be. One day she would be bigger, stronger, she wouldn't need him anymore, not in the way she did now. The hours between then and now were not endless, and he could stand to spend fewer of them so far away from home.
He held her tight, burying his face in her soft, fine hair. It was all he could do to control his own emotions. Eventually, hiccups broke up her sobs, and when they died down to little more than tired whimpers against his chest, he began to hum her a song he knew from his own childhood, something his mother once sang to him, though the words had long since escaped him.
Only when she'd gone limp against him, her breathing shallow and even, did he find the will to speak again.
"You're right, Rinny," he whispered, so as to not disturb her. "There are monsters in this world. I've seen them myself. Not here, not now, but they exist. And if I ever thought, even for a second, that they would hurt you, no chains on this earth could hold me back from saving you."
She yawned and shifted to lie on her other side, her cheeks squished against the mattress. He tucked a pillow under her head, pulled the covers over her, and stroked her tear-damp curls back to kiss her on the forehead. She murmured something in return — an 'I love you', perhaps — and by some secret spell, he found he was now the one struggling to part ways with her.
"I'll come back to you, no matter what."
