author's note: derp herp

warnings: none, unless you count angst. not yet beta'd.

3:
reap what you sow

"How dare you!?"

"Forgive me, love, but I couldn't live without you!"

"By turning me into a walking dead, Adrian!? …Just what did you do to me…?"

His father had been left a lonely man, but he seemed to keep hope. Gabriel kept hope too. His mother was alive, or perhaps walking in the living world would be a better fit for what she became. Neither living or dead, his mother was like both of his sires though changed little inwardly.

Save for her ability to forgive.

"Stay away from me! I do not want to see your face!"

"My love, plea—!"

THUD! goes the door right in his father's face.

There'd always be shallow claw marks into the wooden surface.

She couldn't forgive his father for reviving her, or perhaps that she was no longer human. Perhaps both, Gabriel wasn't sure. So upset was she that his mother up and left the castle on her own accord, for her desired isolation. Her mother heart though rendered her unable to leave her son motherless, so she often sends him letters.

"Gabriel, my dear son, please forgive me, but I cannot stay here and be reminded of your father's deeds."

"Mother…"

"Please don't cry. When I am ready, I will face your father, but until then I cannot stay."

"When will you be ready, mother?"

"…I don't know, little love, I don't know. Could be weeks, months, years. I am sorry, my little love, but I must go. I will send letters to you."

Sometimes with directions of where she currently was, provided Gabriel made strict promises not to tell his father and grandfather. Her new and old familiars had ensured he wouldn't tell a soul. Every other month he went with her for adventures and life lessons from outside the castle that had been his home for a year.

It was eye-opening journey…something he thought should be shared with his father also.

Being young as he was, with a kind, scholar heart, he never adventured with his mother for long. His mother would send him back to the castle, or wherever his father was, on the back of one of her familiars. Returning to his father was always his least favorite part.

The first time he returned, he saw his father's heart being crushed in his eyes.

"…She didn't come with you."

"I…I am sorry, father."

"…It's alright, son." Gabriel thought he heard his usually-cool father's voice cracking.

His father hoped for his mother to return with him.

And she never did.

His father was only aware of his journey through a short, quipped letter his mother send him, to provide assurance Gabriel would be safe in her hands…he'd received shortly after he left, to avoid being followed. His mother's avoidance never did stop his father from trying though.

"You blasted fae, let me see her!"

The fae giggled in response, before she vanished with Gabriel and left behind multiple illusions of herself.

His mother was clever, having instructed her familiars to know what and how to avoid his attempts. It was almost cruel on her part, but Gabriel knew it hurt her to do so too. He'd gain wise not to beg her to return him and not to mention his sires aside from some vague commentaries on recent events.

She'd shut down and becomes a poor company when he did.

"Father misses you, mother…"

"…"

"…Mother?" She never replied, her face glued on the dirt road ahead of them and tightened her grips on the rein of her fae-horse. Gabriel felt her body stiffened as a board.

He didn't say anything else after that.

It became some sort of strange routine they had, something Gabriel learned to live with. To accept.

Until his grandfather released Hell upon the earth.

His father was severely injured from his resistance, seeded from his mother's disgusts at his recent deeds, and had fled with Gabriel in tow. What spared them from being forced back into Dracula's castle was one of his mother's brave familiars, ferrying them away from Dracula's reaches.

(He hadn't a heart to keep calling Dracula his grandfather, for all that he did.)

Gabriel came to realize that that familiar was meant to be his, when it didn't take him back to his mother like he expected.

"Take us to Mother, please! I need to see if she's okay!"

The bat-creature eyed them, catching Gabriel's father's hopeful grimace. It grunted and turned itself around onto the wooden floor. It fell into a nap and ignored the boy's upset.

He hadn't seen his mother in few years since. He wasn't sure exactly why, but felt it was because their location was never fixed. Having vacated from Dracula's castle he and his father essentially became wanderers. They hardly stayed long, as hunters and demons populated from the result of Dracula's deeds against humanity.

One or two times a year a letter would successfully find it way into his grasp, letting him his mother was still alive. Gabriel didn't keep those letters—they gave his father hope and he hadn't any heart to refuse him of that hope. His father still longed for his mother, having refused any and all interested female's advances.

"Ohhh, you're so handsome…care to warm a bed with me tonight?"

"No, leave me be."

He ever only had eyes for his mother.

Gabriel prayed his mother hadn't moved on from his father either, but it was hard to say.

He still didn't know if she hated his father.

Slumping against the door frame of the entrance and kicked the dirt Gabriel sighed at his brooding thoughts. He missed his mother horribly.

He missed her cooking.

He missed the gentle scent of her perfume.

He missed her optimism.

He missed her twinkling eyes.

Most of all, he missed his father's half-smiles.

"Father," Gabriel straightened, folding his book and tucked it in his armpit, "I think I'll hunt tonight. Any particular meat you'd like?" He craned his head toward the darkest corner of the tiny, downtrodden cabin.

He didn't remember when was the last time his father had braved the sunshine since before his mother's initial death.

His father shifted, as if he had just been woken, and sighed, "If there's any local, bear. If not, a buck will sufficient." Small seams of light slipped through a covered window and hit his golden hair.

Gabriel grimaced. His father hadn't bother much with his appearance. Although he wasn't able to grow facial hair, his father looked rather haggard in the strangest way possible.

He thought his father was looking too much like Dracula, a blond version of him at least. He even had donned clothing like what Dracula had worn. His father didn't look as sleek and sharp he remembered him growing up with his mother at his side. He simply didn't look young.

Being old wasn't something vampires were capable of.

Even ugly no vampire Gabriel ever encountered ever looked old.

"Alright, father, I'll see what I can find." Gabriel slumped and shot his father one last look, "Afterward, we should find a lowlife for you to feed on. You are wasting away again, father."

His father didn't say a word.

With another sigh, Gabriel slipped away and thudded the flimsy door close to shield his father from the light. Quietly he heard paper crackling open and grimaced with heartache. At each departure Gabriel made from his side his father would read his mother's letters, over and over.

He hurried away, wanting to leave behind those depressing thoughts.

At the shade of the first tree he passed under, he briefly considered summoning his bat familiar. He shook his head, he didn't need extra protection. His father had trained him well.

So, he hunted.

Gabriel regretted not summoning his bat familiar, staring down a needle nose of the arrow perching on a crossbow. Although he could fight quite well, he struggled avoiding fast projections, his sudden reflex still lacking. The dead bear on his back gave it away that he wasn't a mere human and had distracted him from sensing prowling hunters.

And bear meat wasn't a common delicacy around in these parts.

"Pretty boy," the bald hunter slurred, a yellowed, gap-toothed grin making him uglier than it intended to be, "you a blood-sucker? Ye too pretty to be a human. Ya yellowed eyed too!" He crackled with his throng of a group at his back. He pressed the pointy edge of his arrow into his face, readied to be shoot right into his skull.

Gritting his teeth Gabriel cursed. He doubted he'd heal well with an arrow cutting through his brain. He wouldn't know, but he didn't dare to press his luck. Fashioning a glare he said nothing, frozen in his position.

There was no way he could survive this encounter, unless that dumb fool makes a mistake.

"Tch heh!" One hunter barked, "Let's turn him into ashes! Put him out of his suffering, ya?"

The crossbow user crackled with mad glee and pulled his trigger finger.

Gabriel clasped his eyes shut, apologies already being uttered in his mind to his father for leaving him alone.

There were screaming and it wasn't his own, with a strange sound.

He snapped his eyes open and saw the crossbow user was pinned to a tree, with an arrow through his head. His body was swaying, his feet several inches above the ground. Whose arrow…?

The smog of darkness took form at their feet, snapping the arrow meant for Gabriel into pieces.

Gabriel stumbled backward and fell onto the hard ground, his dinner thumping hard from his accidental release from his back. He could feel the smoke swirling from his hands, harmlessly. A blur hopped into the front of him, hissing like a snake, "You best stay away from my son, filth!"

He lost his breath then, at the long mane colored like night sky floated down on her back with her heavy mantle. He'd recognize that silky hair anywhere for he never saw any other hair so well-groomed and gleamed like a raven's feathers like his mother. Gabriel sputtered, "M-mother…?"

As soon as he said it one hunter swung a sword at her, spitting out poor insults. A mistake he wouldn't live to remedy. He turned into bones, from the darkness draining his lifeblood and collapsed into ashes. Just like he promised Gabriel he'd become, only to have it thrown back into his face.

The rest lost their heads and fell into heaps over each other.

His mother relaxed her defensive position and with a flick of her wrist, the darkness vanished. She sighed and bowed somewhat into herself, muttering, "Well, I don't need to worry about feeding myself tonight." Without much prompting she swirled to the wide-eyed Gabriel, her face bright, "My son! It is so good to see you!"

She jerked onto his wrist and jerked him upward onto his feet. Stumbling from her sudden force Gabriel sputtered when he found his face being cupped and turned to his mother's sad expression, "Oh…" She caressed his cool skin, "you've grown so tall, so handsome, my dear Gabriel. I've missed much, haven't I?"

Gabriel did the only thing he could think to do.

He grabbed her small body and drew her into a tight hug, "Mother…!" Gabriel started to sob, "Mother!" He dimly realized just how much taller he became, towering over his tiny mother.

With a wet laugh, she hugged him back, minding not his blood tears, "Oh, you sweet hearted boy of mine." Her voice was as sad as her expression, "I haven't stopped looking for you. Naes and my other familiars couldn't find you." Choking a laugh she couldn't stop her own blood tears from shedding, "I must've written so many letters, hoping against hope they'd find their ways to you."

She couldn't find him.

That was why.

Gabriel slumped against her small shoulders, remembering his father, "…do you still hate my father still?"

Will she go silent again?

She sighed—a difference from last he saw his mother, "No, I could never hate your father." She pushed him back, so she could see his tear-stained face, "I was so angry with him. How was I supposed to live without breathing? Feeding on living beings?" Her voice was so soft he could hardly hear her. "I needed time to gather myself, to be myself again, in this…skin." There was a slight contempt in her tone, that sounded like it was at herself.

His mother reached up and smeared away his incoming tears, "…I've been ready for several years now, but since then I couldn't find you. Neither could I your father."

Gabriel strangled a whimper, "So Grandfather…" he spat like poison.

"Shush, shush, let us not speak of a dead man, little love." His mother interrupted. She seemed heavier at the thought of Dracula meeting his end at the hands of a Belmont, a sorceress, and his father. Rumors spread and they spread far. So, she knew.

It was obvious to Gabriel.

Nodding Gabriel glanced into the direction where his father awaited, and frowned, "So what will you do, mother?"

She glanced at the bear at his feet and gave a tiny laugh, "I'll wait here for your father. As much as I love to speak with my dear son again, I know my little love would like it if I try with his father again."

Gabriel found his throat drying with hope and nodded, "…I'll send father your way."

He tugged the heavy bear (it felt so much lighter now) onto his back. With a gentle prodding Gabriel found his mother pressing a kiss onto his forehead, like she used to do with him as a wee child, "Please do be safe. Do go ahead and make a meal out of your prey. I don't think your father and I will be back for a while yet."

At his dubious expression his mother shook her head, "No, no, it's much too soon for that, little love." With a warm look she crossed her arms and gave away a long sigh, "We have much to discuss."

Gabriel couldn't help but to nod eagerly, "Yes, of course, I'll send him your way. Do forgive him for his," he furrowed his brows, "…forwardness." He almost wanted to say to take heeds of his appearance, but perhaps that was better left for his mother to discover.

And to hopefully righted.

His mother gave him one last kiss, on his cheek, and smiled that smile he longed to see again, "Be off with you. I'll see you soon."

With lighter heart Gabriel kissed her crown, and vanished from where he stood.