I'm mad at myself for neglecting this, because I'm kind of excited for where it will lead!

I toyed, briefly, with making this an mpreg fic, which is practically non-existent in YD (I mean I've written it before but not really seen others) fandom... but decided against it.

-YD-

"What is this place?"

"Welcome to Garside Grange School. In..." Ingrid checked a piece of glossy paper from her pocket "Lancashire. Dads idea. Nobody is going to look for us here."

Adam remembered what Ingrid had said before they left - it was because of Mr Van Helsing that the Slayers Guild knew about the Draculas at all. His boy- no, ex boyfriends father had effectively chased people that now were all he really had out of their home. All in all, Adam couldn't see why they were bothering with him at all. He didn't bring any of that up - just in case. He still needed to get his head around this complete overhaul his life - his identity - had taken.

"What should I do?"

"Help Renfield with the hard work. We have to get indoors before daybreak."

"Let me guess. We live in the attic?"

Ingrid smirked, delicately lifting what he thought might be a make-up bag of some sort - except it was enormous.

"Naturally."

"Well, time to put this natural speed, strength, stamina thing to good use."

"Coffins go in the basement Renfield, you snot weasel!"

"Yes Master!"

Ingrid rolled her eyes in her- no, their fathers direction, then 'whooshed' away at speed with what he could only assume was her stuff. There was a very confused moving man to help them, the one who had driven the big van. Glazed expression, occasional yawning and vacant, flat tone of voice. Signs of hypnosis. That explained why he wasn't horrified by the coffins at least.

There were only two of them - not including the new Adam-addition - so why did the man need a dozen coffins? Did he collect them? Shaking his head, Adam hefted up a couple of suitcases and moved to pile them by the front door. At least it was now technically a weekend, because if he wasn't done by daybreak there may be confused students stepping over coffins and cases galore.

Renfield desperately needed a bath or twelve, but at least he left Adam to move things in silence. When the van man began flagging, the hypnosis half-assed and wearing thin, Adam eventually sent him off when he balked at a dead rat falling out of a box marked 'larder'. By midday, everything was eventually done. Coffins in three rooms - Adam guessed he was sleeping in a coffin now - and the elegant dining room furniture the attic already came with now dressed with skulls, cobwebs.

And there was a talking, but dead, stuffed with sawdust hell hound (that he originally thought was some kind of winking dog) wheeling about the place. Adam picked the room with an adjacent bathroom - because vampires didn't need it but he wasn't one. Not yet. Not technically. Though in all the ways that mattered... The Slayers Guild would still put him down like a rabid animal if they knew.

That was enough to make Adam wretch, heaving over the porcelain to expel everything he had consumed at Georges birthday. Which wasn't much, but his rebelling stomach kept trying. That had been less than twenty four hours ago. How had he always thought abandoning his whole life to go slaying would be easy?

Dropping to his knees, Adam forced an arm up to flush the toilet before laying on the creaky, cold floor and his sweat mingled with his tears. His brand new big sister found him there, unmoved and still overwhelmed by it all.

"You're a wreck. Get up."

His immediate urge was to tell her to go away and let him grieve and stew in relative peace, but he forced himself to sit up instead. He at least owed his new life a bit of a trial before he decided death by garlic bread after his sixteenth birthday was the way to go. His limbs were achey from the hard floor, clothes and muscles stiff from what must have been hours - it was dark out - and dried sweat and tears sticking to his face.

Ingrid handed him a glass of water that soothed his sore throat, but did little for the something-died-in-there taste in his mouth. Apparently psychic, she then handed him his bathroom-kit-bag that had been one of the few things he had managed to unpack. The mirror was a little cracked and dirty, but served a purpose of seeing the utter state he was in and the vague improvement made by washing his face. He brushed his teeth twice, which did wonders for the state of his breath but little else.

"What now?"

"Now you unpack. Then we start teaching you about this side of your life, because I am prepared to bet slayer training is at least biased, possibly completely incorrect and certainly little use to your pending transformation. If you're going to have another breather-feeling-fest, get it over with quickly. We don't have much time."

He could only nod, ambling out to his room behind Ingrid and unpacking mechanically. He piled clean clothes and a towel ready to take a quick shower, which would hopefully alleviate some of the dust under his clothes or the tight, uncomfortable feeling of his skin right now.

Thankfully, she left him in peace to undress. Towel wrapped around his waist, Adam perused his body critically. Pale, and the stress of everything had taken a toll on his usual musculature so he looked sort of skinny now. There were thick scars down his wrists from stakes, various little scars and marks from childhood and slayer-training injuries. He had a burn scar on his leg where George had knocked a lit candle over and set fire to the blanket he was under. Suddenly feeling sick with himself and the reminders littered over his body, he hastened to put clean clothes on.

Adam tied up his boots, wondering if the vampires would disapprove of his crimson chinos before deciding they had no room to judge in all that bloody leather. Meandering through the narrow hallways, Adam found... well, his new family, really, in the new 'throne'/dining room.

"Is it true any old injuries heal during the transformation?"

"Wow, something the Slayers got right. Yes, those scars on your wrists will go away. Same applies to a half fang too, except the turning bite fang marks of course."

Nodding to show he understood what she said, Adam sat awkwardly at the dining table opposite Ingrid and watching her- no, their - he was going to have to learn that - father sit silently on his throne staring intently into a goblet of blood. He was surprised how fast he realised it, as though his mind automatically recognised the life fluid swirling slowly around a transparent glass.

"So..."

"You'll have to register at this school. It will arouse suspicions if you aren't attending, and attention is the thing we moved here to avoid."

Adam nodded mutely, watching what was clearly a often-occuring nature of bickering between Ingrid and the Count, which somehow ended in her also apparent future enrollment at Garside Grange school despite the fact she was about to turn eighteen and should technically therefore age out.

"What now then?"

"You need to prepare for your transformation. And we have to do something about your name, or else one search for Adam Giles and recently enrolled students will have the Guild at our door."

"Alright. Not sure how a Dracula knows the ins and outs of things like that, but good to know. You go by Count, yes?"

Ingrid nodded, sipping from a goblet of something salty-sweet smelling.

"Adam Count... doesn't work. What would you have called him if you had known dust-breath?"

Jerking out of his intense staring reverie, the Count looked up as though surprised to be involved in conversation again.

"Genghis!"

"Pass."

"Suit yourself. Atilla?"

"Nope."

Rolling his eyes, the Count obviously racked his brains.

"Barry?"

"That's... better than Genghis, but no."

"Right, right. Ah, I have it! Vladimir!"

It sort of fit, he mused - it was basically a vampirisation of Adam - that was the middle syllable.

"Fine, but it's being shortened to Vlad. I can't adjust to both a new and long name too. Still, the Guild aren't stupid. If they have any inkling I left with you, they'll easily know to look for Ingrid Count."

Ingrid rolled her eyes, drained her goblet and stood up.

"Not if I use my mother's name. Don't worry your little half-breed head, vampires have made an art of disappearing for centuries. Why do you think the Slayers have never managed to actually wipe us out?"

Shrugging, Adam stood up too and stretched a little, then padded over to peer out of the window. The ground didn't look a huge way down - for an enormous building, it was surprisingly only three stories in most places, and he could pick out details of students faces as they began to mill about the schoolyard. Right then, he would have killed for that sense of normality, no monsters or slayers... just his mum and George and before he knew Michael wasn't his real father.

"It's not for lack of trying, I know that much. I was a month away from trawling the planet looking for vampires to slay. Now look at me. A month away from becoming one..." Adam turned, finding Ingrid watching him closely "is it going to hurt?"

"Probably. Mostly when your fangs are coming through. The rest isn't too bad."

"How bad are the cravings? I've always assumed vampires were mindless parasites at best... until I met you."

"Varies. I'm pretty in control, but I've met plenty who aren't. You're different though, half breed. I have no idea what effect it's going to have on you, especially when you've been raised a slayer, with years of discipline training."

That was fair, he mused. Adam was an anomaly within a rarity. How many people could have such a crossover? Half vampire, his step-father killed by vampires... the slayers guild deciding to tell them the truth was a strange occurrence in itself.

"How do vampires feel about homosexuality? Am I every kind of wrong I can be?"

Ingrid shook her head, a small smirk playing across her lips. She very rarely actually smiled, he knew.

"Could not care less. If you're head of a clan you need to spawn an heir somehow, but since you're ineligible for that as a halfling anyway? Vampires on the whole would be far more pissed that your lover was a slayer than a man."

Turning back to the window, Adam watched the teenagers milling around. Some were stood apart, moody and 'gothic'. He was reminded of Robin Branagh. Some were excitable girls, running around and making a lot of noise. Adam was acutely reminded of his sister... the little one, not the vampire one staring at him. Some were holding hands, smiling happily at their paramours and Adam had to turn away by then, chest aching.

"Except he's not. Not now. Poetic really, I spent months making Jonno believe in vampires. It brought us so much closer. Now that's the reason I can never go near him again."

-YD-

I'm aware this is short and wayyyy away from the previous update, but it's been laying around half done so I knuckled down for a couple hours and finished it. I make no promises as to future updates... but this story will be finished one day.

If I didn't only write on a smartphone I would probably finish most of my unsatisfied fics, but it's too much energy to expend on half a dozen fics when it usually takes me most of a week to keep on top of my two main active stories.