A/N:

(I wrote this introduction a while back)

I'd been struggling to write the second chapter for Not Quite Soulmates for clearly a while now (at this point I'm pretty sure it's around half a year). So instead of stressing over that, I decided to write a oneshot on how Vlad's life would have been if the Count didn't adopt him and Sally had kept him. If he grew up as Adam. Focusing mainly on the days before, during and after his sixteenth birthday.

However, the oneshot turned into a bit of a monster, especially considering what length I anticipated it to be. So, I split it up into different chapters so it isn't just one extremely lengthy page of writing. I basically turned it into a short fan fiction and completely ditched the oneshot label.

I've also (tried) including similar events or the same events that happened in 'Bad to the Bone' and 'Bad Vlad' since it would be around the same time. Then the fic trails off into a different direction completely, exploring a head canon I have. The original plot line from there is slightly altered. So if anyone notices that I messed up the timing of events or left certain events out, it was probably intentional. :))

Anyway, I'll stop rambling. Hope you'll enjoy reading!

———

Adam had always loved his grandmother's Sunday roast. She'd always fill his plate with an assortment of different vegetables, always covered in delicious in gravy. And he couldn't forget his two favourite things about it, roast potatoes and a Yorkshire pudding or two if he was lucky.

Usually he'd devour all the food on the plate in minutes. Yet here he was, poking the Yorkshire pudding on his plate as if it were an uncooked turnip.

He could tell his mother was concerned, along with his grandmother. Adam did his best to ignore their blatant staring, but he couldn't exactly ignore his mother asking him a direct question.

"You alright Adam?"

"Yeah, fine."

A lie. A complete and utter lie. He wasn't fine. The opposite of fine. He couldn't look at the food in front of him without having the urge to vomit. Not something that happened on a regular basis.

"Adam dear, you know you won't get any pudding if you don't eat your food. I mean you haven't touched your Yorkshire pudding! You never pass on Yorkshire pud!"

True, he'd never passed on a Yorkshire pudding before in his entire life. Yet again, there was a first time for everything. And to be honest, Adam didn't really fancy any of the puddings his grandmother was offering him.

"I'm fifteen gran, nearly sixteen actually, not five. The 'you can't have any pudding' trick doesn't work anymore. And besides.. I don't want any."

"Adam! Don't speak like that to your grandmother."

Adam glanced over at his mother who and widened his eyes as if to silently say 'what'.

Within seconds, Adam realised what he'd just done as he saw his mother tense. He didn't want to 'ruin' the family dinner as he always seemed to do, so he apologized as quickly as he could. But of course like most teenagers after they get told off, he didn't really mean it.

"I'm sorry mum for... Snapping? And I'm sorry gran, I'm just not hungry."

Again with the lies. He was hungry. Very hungry in fact. There was just one problem. The food on his plate didn't seem... Right. He just couldn't figure out what he was hungry for.

"Well alright, if you're certain. Clean off your plate and go get your coat. Well be leaving soon."

"Uh thanks, will do."

Just as Adam got up from his chair a little and rather annoying voice started to mock him.

"You haven't eaten anything. How could you NOT be hungry? Besides, you're always eating!"

"George.."

"Don't get cranky Adam! Just saying." His little sister said with mock sweetness as she pulled her puppy dog eyes on each person in the room.

Adam could swear George got more and more annoying every day, not that his mother or stepfather would notice. She was the golden child, the child prodigy with her oh so big brain. Whatever way you want to describe her, she was the favourite.

"I'm not cranky, I'm just.."

"Cranky."

"Shut it Georgina!"

Adam slammed his fist against the table, sending shock waves through the wood, making the plates and cutlery quake. He also managed to send George into an obvious fake cry. Obvious to him anyway. Besides, he couldn't control the fact that George hated her birth name.

"Adam, just go clean your plate, will you? Don't upset George."

"Fine."

"Oh and Adam," His stepfather called after him "take George's plate as well will you?"

"Fine dad. Whatever you say."

"Don't even start with the sarcasm young man!"

Adam just huffed and left the room. His dad, or what he'd prefer to refer to as his stepdad from hell.. Okay, he wasn't that bad, but it didn't mean Adam liked the man. To say the least, Adam and his stepfather shared an unspoken hatred of each other.

Anyway, his stepfather did always love to favor his own precious, beautiful and clever little daughter. Maybe occasionally he seemed to care about Adam, but it was a rarity.

One of the very few examples was the time when Adam was thirteen. He kept falling asleep and dreaming about random and weird things for no reason. Something along the lines of vampires and a 'special one', or was it 'chosen one'? He could never quite recall. Either way, he had to move schools after that incident. The bullying got out of hand.

By now Adam's plate was as clean as it could be. Not that he could say the same for George's. He slid both plates into the dishwasher and headed to get his coat from the coat stand.

It was a unique one made out of deer antlers. Wooden deer antlers mind you. It fit in with the house perfectly. His grandfather had been a very crafty man. Always working the hours away in his craft shed that still stood at the bottom of the garden. That was all before he disappeared a few years ago. Shortly after Adam had the lucid vampire dreams.

He used to love making things out of wood. Although Adam never got to see the majority of what he crafted. Adam missed him. He was the only male family member he'd ever looked up to. And after a year of searching and never finding any trace of him, the police had declared Adam's grandfather deceased.

But now wasn't the best time to get upset. The fact he had school tomorrow didn't help, but it took his mind off his grandfather. Garside Grange School. A real mouthful. It had been his school for a fair few years ever since they moved from Whitby. And being a school, it was bound to have a few odd people there. He was one of them, but there were others as well. The owner was quite odd, along with his daughter. Apparently their living space was as gothic as you could get! Pretty cool if you asked Adam.

———

"Keep an eye on him will you Sally? He's never usually like this. He's always been so kind. I don't understand why he'd be so cold and secretive all of a sudden."

"Mum he's been like this for a couple weeks now. Must be something to do with him turning sixteen in a few days. Hormones or something. Honestly I don't know. All I know is that I won't let him speak to you like that."

"To be honest, I think it's something he must've inherited from his dad."

"Love we talked about this. You know that upsets Adam when you talk about his biological father like that."

———

Adam clutched his coat as he stood in the hallway, confused. He'd gone to get his coat and then wouldn't you know it? Somehow he'd gone from thinking about school to eavesdropping on his family's conversation. He didn't think it would have been possible, even if he tried. The walls were thick and the door was shut, but he stood there, listening. They sounded as if they were right beside him. Why did unexplainable and weird things keep happening to him lately?

But his mother was right. Throughout the last month Adam had been different. Moodier, difficult, snapped easily. A downright pain in the arse in his stepfather's words. Adam couldn't control whatever was happening to him. Random periods of being famished yet couldn't look a potato in the eye (not that potatoes have eyes). Now he was hearing things he shouldn't hear. God knows what else. But everything felt as if it were connected.

Everyone came into the hall where Adam stood but Sally had to go to get George who was refusing to move from the living room, and complaining that she'd miss the last half of the show. Adam could hear them squabbling as he stood in the small hallway. Sally was having a quite hard time convincing George that she could watch it when they got home.

Sally walked out of the living room, George huddled in her arms grumpily. Adam's grandmother hugged George goodbye, spotted Adam and insisted on giving him a hug as well

"Come here won't you Adam?"

Putting on a fake smile, Adam went to hug his grandmother rather reluctantly, resting his head on her shoulder as he bent down.

This must've been the ten thousandth hug he'd received from his grandmother today, but to be truthful he didn't really mind. Although it was annoying, he only saw her occasionally. After all they did live three hours away from each other.

But Adam had to pull away. He was still hungry and found himself even hungrier as he hugged his grandmother. The feeling was almost physical. Actually it was. It was rising from a deep pit in his stomach and it made him feel sick. He couldn't help it. The feeling of hunger was becoming too much. He knew he could get hungry sometimes, but he didn't usually feel like he was starving to death.

"Uh, Gran? Is it okay if i get an apple or something like that quickly? Y'know before we leave."

"Oh so now you're hungry." His grandmother chuckled. "Of course you can Adam. There're some potatoes left if you fancy them instead."

"Okay, thanks Gran."

Adam rushed off into the kitchen, and ripped off the foil that had been covering the roast potatoes. But as soon as he lay his eyes on them, the hunger vanished as quickly as it had arrived, disgust taking its place.

Thoroughly weirded out, Adam put the foil back on the potatoes and rushed back out to the hallway that his family was in.

Once he reached the kitchen doorway however, Adam was hungry again. And on top of that, his eyes felt funny. Dust must've gotten into them.

"Adam, dear? Did you eat the potatoes or should I help you find them?" His grandmother asked, obviously concerned for her grandchild's peculiar behaviour.

"Oh ugh no I found them, I'm just not hungry anymore."

His family was clearly confused with the on and off hunger Adam was experiencing, but didn't really want to question it. If he wasn't hungry, he wasn't hungry.

But Adam was hungry. The longer he looked at his family, the hungrier he got as his vision got more blurry and dark.

His teeth also hurt the slightest bit, but Adam didn't take any notice of it. It wasn't like it was the end of the world if he had a little tooth ache.

Everything only stopped when he looked at the fruit bowl in the kitchen.

As everyone was saying their farewells, Adam rushed back into the kitchen, grabbed an apple, shoved it in his pocket and joined in with the farewells like nothing ever happened.

But he was desperate to forget about what had just happened, because something had happened, so Adam hurried his mother, sister and stepfather out of the house and into the car. Adam's gran called after him wishing him a happy early birthday and told him a present was on its way in the post. Sally made her way to the car with a very unhappy George in tow. That unhappy George sat unhappily beside Adam, still in a mood because she hadn't got to finish watching some silly show about wolves on CBBC.

"Fart face!" George whispered to Adam.

Slightly offended, not by the insult, but how it came out of nowhere, Adam retaliated to her insult with: "Hah! Fart face to you too."

"ADAM!" Chorused his mother and stepfather as he shrunk back into his seat with shock.

"What?! She said it first!"

"That doesn't mean you have to say anything back now does it?"

"But.."

"No! No buts young man!"

"UGHHHHHH!" Adam close to growled as he ran his fingers through his hair and fell backwards, slouched in the car seat.

Adam slouched even lower as George pulled faces at him, using the unfair advantage of being the favourite, so she wasn't told off. Only half an hour had passed, but it felt like an eternity. The next two and a half hours were going to be infuriating. For more than one reason.

Adam propped up the apple he'd stolen in the large pocket on the car seat in front of him. The hunger hadn't gone away completely, but looking at the apple made it go away. Granted, he felt sick looking at it, but he'd rather feel sick looking at an apple than looking at his family and feeling a weird hunger.

———

"Ughhh thank god! Mum can you pass the keys?"

"Shh! George is sleeping!"

"Fine.. D- Dad?

"I'll open the door, it's fine Adam."

"Mph,"

"What did you just say?"

"Nothing!"

"Better have been nothing! And don't talk to me with that attitude."

Leaning against the porch, Adam watched as his family walked up the gradual incline up to their house. It wasn't the massive, vampiric mansion that Adam would like to live in, but it was home. Even with all the bright colours inside that was getting on his nerves recently for being 'too bright'.

The door was finally opened and everyone went inside, George being carried inside in their mother's arms. Adam just wanted to go to sleep and forget about everything that had happened that day.