author's note: so here's where weird pacing comes in-time skips that is. still i hope ya'll like alukag baby, Gabriel, even if his appearances are largely short. anyway, excuse heavily borrowed stuffs from the cv show. enjoy!

also, i'm seeing to get the previous chapter and this one to be edited soon. i know i have shitton issues in my grammars, in spite of my efforts. please be patient with me, thank you. in the meantime, please review if you can!

warnings: character deaths, implied deaths

1:
until death do us part

"Go! Do what your father was teaching you!"

"Mother! Grandmother!"

"Go!"

A little white flash barely illuminated the cramped cabin they took up in. With his now small size, he slipped through a tiny opening of the opened window, cries drying his lungs. Dusty dirt floated from his far landing on all fours. Losing battles with his sobbing in form of little heart-curling whining he glanced back for his mother and grandmother, and saw glow of fire beyond the cabin.

He heard them long before he saw their lights. These voices sounded like something straight from the hell itself, riddled with unneeded rage. The very moment he saw his mother's white face, it was the beginning of his nightmare.

"Witches, come out!" They roared.

"Gabriel, go!" hissed his mother through the wooden wall.

A small paw kicked at a pebble, as he crawled backward, "No…no, mother!"

"Please, child…go find your father and grandfather." Pleaded his grandmother.

His ears pinned down. Of course, his father and grandfather are strong and mighty—They can save his mother and grandmother and punish the evil! "I'll be back!" Gabriel cried in midst of the villagers' roars, kicking up his white legs.

Dashing into the forest he knew nothing of the fate that would befall on his mother and grandmother. It took all of his little strength to run as fast as he could, before he bellowed the loudest howl he could muster.

He was calling for his father.

His father hadn't gone that long, intending to bring back some hunts to their shared home in the forest. Preys had been dwindling, perhaps because of Gabriel's growing appetite. His father hadn't care though—it was just the part of growing up and coming in his fangs, as his grandfather put it, and simply tracked deeper in nature.

It was a set routine the family had for over 20 years, ever since his father was born to his grandparents. They never expected that the townspeople would have turned against his grandmother for all the services she did for them, pulling his innocent mother into the frays.

Gabriel always did wonder why his mother was wary of visiting that town.

He understood now—he saw what his mother saw. Evil in these men's eyes. Such evilness that struck his core cold and his heart afraid. Prior, his grandmother remained optimistic, waving away her daughter-in-law's concerns. After all, they have two powerful men to protect them and their wits to keep them out of troubles.

His mother knew better, Gabriel realized, as she had been a traveling foreigner for a good decade (since youth, even!). She knew humankind better than anyone. A whimper strangled from his battered throat, when his howl hadn't been returned.

He wished he hadn't doubted his mother's concerns, borrowing arrogant pride from his grandsire. Perhaps then they would never face these ugly men. He would never have to see such a sight in these eyes at all. His mother wouldn't have to sacrifice herself for her child.

There was no way his mother, as powerful as she was, could stand against a large horde of corrupted men.

His body weakening from his transformation Gabriel collapsed against the dry patch of grass and did the only thing he could think to do. He cried. He cried for the fates of his mother and grandmother. He had no idea how long he had been screaming for his father.

When blackness began to spot his vision he heard his own name. He found himself being rolled into a familiar pair of strong arms, "Gabriel!? How, how long had you been in this form? Where is your mother?"

Gabriel whimpered, his voice nearly empty, but he mustered enough strength to meet his father's golden eyes—the exact shade of his own, "Mo-mother…townpeople. Fire." He shivered, at the realization of his own failure, "Told me to find you."

He missed his father's face—his pale skin whiter than it ever had been. Gabriel remembered nothing else.

Warmness stung his skin—his mother's magic gifted him more degrees of protection against the sun his sires were most sensitive to. Gabriel didn't bother waking to it, his now-humanoid body curling in tighter. He noted the soft fragrances of wildflowers being too close for comfort, but even that he ignored. Dewed blades of grass was a dream on his creaky body.

He wasn't sure how long he had been in the same spot, but he hadn't wanted to move. That nightmare he had was real, he knew this, and he didn't want to wake up to it. His heart hurts.

Distinctly he thought he heard something heavy thudding. Gravels being crunched under hurrying steps. Large hands developed his small shoulders—cold hands he was familiar with, and shook his body awake. Awake into the world he didn't want. "Gabriel!?"

He peeled open his eyes and saw his grandfather's worried expression. It wasn't an expression he saw before, in his proud and noble grandsire. Gabriel broke out into trembles under his grandfather's gazes.

His grandfather glanced at the spot he was previously in, a random spot just out of sight from the dirt road lined with bushes and rickety fences. As if Gabriel wasn't meant to be seen, but sensed. And sensed his grandfather did. "Why are you in there, boy?"

Gabriel shook hard, his face scrunching. He knew his grandfather found tears to be quite slightly, but Gabriel couldn't keep them all in. He sobbed, "Mother…! Grandmother…" Gabriel hastily rubbed away his tears, but he couldn't fight to keep his practiced composure.

Just like his father, he paled paler than even his own skin. Gabriel didn't see his face—hadn't wanted to. Without prompting he slammed his little body against his grandfather's stomach and clung to his shirt. To blind himself from the beautiful world that promised a life without his dear mother.

His grandfather couldn't produce any word, not even that of any comfort. He did wonder about the strange suppressing smell of burning charcoal, but passed it off as his wife's cooking. Now fear started to set in.

Swinging Gabriel's slacked body into his arms his grandfather bolted into a blur, toward their family home he and his grandmother built together.

He thought he heard an old woman, but so deep in his fear, Gabriel hadn't wanted to listen to what she told his grandfather.

The overwhelming smell of burning woods stung even his lungs inside.

Gabriel cried when his grandfather bellowed his utter rage.

His utter denial.

"Come, boy!" His grandfather snarled, his breaking heart was loud in his voice, "We must see to your father!"

There was deafening crackles of fire roaring and whipping around his frame, its heat nearly bruising his skin. Gabriel curled into his grandfather's arms tighter, shuddering at his wrath.

Immediately he clawed into his grandfather's body, screeching when the smell of blood burned his nose, his brain burned with disgusts and hunger. Gabriel felt his grandfather's hand clawing into his little shoulder, in turn, to keep him contained. To keep his bloodlust under control.

Gabriel's breaths were short.

His eyes started to water though, when he caught the sweet scent of his mother, "Mo—!?"He turned, to look, his heart sighing with hope.

It was dashed when his grandfather slammed his large hand onto his head, burying his face into his grandfather's jacket, "Don't, boy, you do not want to look."

There was the smell of burning flesh too.

Gabriel shook, sobbing all the once more, "No-o…mother."

With a chaste kiss on his forehead, his grandfather pressed into a sensitive spot in the back of his neck, "You should sleep, boy."

Everything went black, and with it vanished the foul smell of absolutely everything.

Of all the centuries he lived, he never imagined the absolute grief he'd experienced.

Lisa. Oh, Lisa.

His cold, dead heart turned, and fire of anger followed.

But, nothing ignited inferno like the sight of his grieving son in the middle of bloody calamity, his head buried into the half-burnt body of his most beloved. His son's wife, who was once the traveler searching for a way to end the curse of a pink bauble borne from hatred; the very one even the most fearsome Dracula considered as his most dearest daughter, Kagome, was dead.

Unlike his soft-hearted grandson, Dracula had never once seen his son's bloodtears. Not even when he was still a bae suckling on his mother's breasts. The sight unnerved him.

There were no sounds from Adrian, but his shaking shoulders, naked of any fabric but blood from murderous mortals, gave away his broken heart. Dracula wasn't sure what to do—he only knew how to comfort his wife, his daughter-in-law, and his grandson, all different in their needs, Adrian never needed any emotional attention from him. Sometimes from his mother, in childhood, but even then he never reveals his entire heart and worries.

It was always his wife he turned to, his heart completely exposed to no one else but her.

Just like his father, who opened his heart to very few.

So, Dracula gave him more time, and surveyed the punishments his son surely gave out to these horrible creatures. The town, as a crude one would say, was literally painted red, with blood and organs. There was not a single sound of gasping life in miles.

Indeed, his son did a very thorough job that Dracula felt slight disappointment he didn't get to gain his vengeance.

Where was his Lisa? Dracula dimly realized. Without thinking he stepped past his son, nuzzling into his grandson's hair, a color inherited from Kagome's night-dark hair, to search for something he could bury in a coffin.

His wife and his daughter-in-law deserved nothing less than most honorable remembrance.

Perhaps, a lonely thought came, they could find a way to return them to life and be a family again.

It wasn't impossible after all, Dracula knew this—Lisa made him realize he could reach for stars if he so much wanted to. His heart numbed with shock still, Dracula registered his son's call just at the last beat of his words.

"She was still alive when I arrived, Father." Adrian shuddered, but hadn't risen his head to meet his father's eyes burning with rims of tears he refused to let spill, "She was rasping still in my arms." He buried himself deeper into Kagome's neck and nuzzled against her so-perfect skin, "These…creatures insulted her in my presence. The devil's whore!" He hissed at the memory still so bright in his mind from that beak-nosed bastard's hollering.

Adrian quietened, just for several seconds, before he rose his head at lasts and met his sire's eyes, dried blood tears stark against his white skin, "I remembered not even taking pleasures into taking lives for their penances." He flushed Kagome's body closer and closed his eyes, "She was begging me…but I did not hear her pleas."

Slumping onto the ground uncaring of puddles of blood steeping into his trousers Adrian, with such cares, his formerly absent jacket was tugged over the slender frame to hide all of her from this cruel world. He took his time, caressing Kagome's peaceful face with a bloodied hand, before he folded his wife's body into his arms. With impressive grace, he rose to his feet and glided to his father, " What should we do? …What should I do?"

Dracula hadn't any idea, but he wanted his vengeance just the same, "Who was responsible for our loves' death, son?"

Thinning his lips Adrian tilted his head at the once-standing proud church. "That." He hadn't dared to foul his tongue with the name of such a terrible sect of rotting souls.

"…We grieve." Dracula decided, resuming his search for whatever that remained of his wife, "When we are ready, we seek vengeance." He petted Gabriel's head, when he heard of the boy's whimpers in his sleep.

Adrian shook his head, his golden hair matted with red, "…I cannot say I want the same, Father," he pressed a kiss on Kagome's frayed forehead, "the only thing I wanted is to have the mother of my child back, to feel the warmth of my beloved again."

"With wills, as Kagome would say, there are ways." Dracula closed into the firepit and grimaced at what looked like a log of charcoal—his wife's burnt form, still with bones. His son must have wiped out the blazes just in time before Lisa's body would have completely dissolved. Dracula slid close his eyes, remembering more of his dear daughter, "We should consider Shikon no Tama."

Jaws clinking close Adrian apologized to Kagome in his mind.

He'd pay all prices just to hold her again, in his arms.

"Very well," Adrian sighed, "it is a start."

He'd be damned to submit to the death itself, to let it keep his Kagome away from him.

edited as of 12.20.17, to the best of my ability