little miss BANANNA HEAD - thank you! I hope you didn't hate it after chapter one because that would suck, I don't like disappointing my readers.

If you read my Adam!Vlad stuff alot, I apologise for the likely repetitive scene but there is only so many different ways to write it.

Also slightly OOC Ingrid, but canonically speaking a lot of Vlad and Ingrid's issues were from being raised together by the Count, so the simple fact is she would be at least a little different without being compared to Vlad constantly?

-YD-

"Blood and garlic, why does this hurt so much?"

"Vamp up, you're a Dracula! Act like it!"

Adam scowled, rubbing a thumb across his aching teeth though it didn't help at all. He wanted to go make Slayers serum to try and alleviate it but there were two problems with his plan - the serum was aimed at turned half fangs, not about-to-turn halflings, and according to Ingrid it didn't actually work. Just gave them infections.

"Nobody warned me it would feel like I was getting a root canal without Novacaine. You just said my teeth would hurt."

"A what without what?"

"Dental work without pain relief. The root of teeth is incredibly sensitive, and sometimes need treatment but it's excruciating, so you get it numbed. That would be great right about now."

"No such luck little bro, you're changing. Human stuff won't help you now."

"Spectacular. Vampirism keeps getting better and better... was that sarcastic enough?"

Ingrid had started referring to him as 'little bro', which was strange to Adam who had always been 'big brother' before. It was practice - they would be enrolling at the school the coming September, needed to pass as a convincing set of siblings who had known each other properly for more than a matter of weeks.

Adam didn't need practice, he already knew how to be a brother. Granted, not a younger one... they were starting to get along to an extent. Well, they bantered and antagonised each other a lot but they could laugh at it. The Count... their father, on the other hand, was obviously still at a loss how to deal with his half human, trained slayer prodigal son.

"Distract me. Please."

Ingrid smirked, threw a piece of leftover dinner at him and cast a glance around the room for inspiration.

"Grab a study book, I'll quiz you."

"You mean you'll humiliate me for every wrong answer."

"Same thing."

It worked, to an extent, and Adam found he could apply most of his zeal for learning as a trainee slayer to learning how he would survive in the vampire world.

"Here. Vampire lore. Something you should read up on if you don't want to look stupid at a vampire party."

"Because I go to tons of them now."

"Ad-" Ingrid stopped, then corrected herself "Vlad, you're about to be immortal. Don't assume something won't happen because you're about to have time for anything to happen."

"That's still... I don't know how I feel about this. What do you do with your time at five hundred?"

"Mindless violence and slaughter."

"Pass."

Ingrid smirked again, reaching for a pot of crimson nail polish to paint the already flawless peaks of her fingers.

"You might not live that long anyway. We don't die of old age, but we can absolutely still be killed. You trained as a slayer... you don't know how to be a vampire yet. Study."

Adam complied, if only to try and take his mind of his constant pain in his jaw. Vampires had some truly bizarre myths and legends they told each other. Old country blood tales, as it was referred to in the book Ingrid had put in front of him.

He found a whole chapter dedicated to something even the Slayers Guild had spoken of, making him keenly aware of the slim pickings when it came to his old life being transferable to his new one. He was basically learning to be himself again... because not much of who Adam Giles used to be was applicable to being 'Vladimir Dracula'.

"The Chosen One... do you guys really think this vampire exists?"

"I don't. Do the slayers?"

"They've always been wary. A vampire with never before seen levels of super power? We... they know how to deal with your average vamp. Some super biter who is going to lead vampires out of the shadows... that scares the Guild."

He had to start seeing them as separate. Adam wasn't a slayer anymore... he was the enemy. If he didn't learn to separate those things, he would go a little... strange. Especially with the Blood Mirror waiting soon... it was almost his birthday.

"This is weird. I've never had a birthday without mum and George."

"You never had a birthday that would have put them at risk before either. You didn't leave them for kicks, you left to protect them."

"I know."

Adam had known there was more to Ingrid than he expected that night they first actually spoke, but was still adjusting to this vampire older sister who actually made small efforts to be something resembling comforting. He had to accept vampires weren't emotionless, mindless parasites - if he had any hopes of still being himself after the 'transformation'.

"But I still miss them."

Ingrid tossed a cracker pack at him - currently Adam's favourite food, as it was about the only thing not near-raw meat that didn't taste sickly, didn't make his stomach rebel. They also didn't hurt his teeth too much.

"Eat. Cheer up. Finish reading."

Grumbling, he chewed gratefully on the crackers while trying not to get crumbs in the ancient book. A lot of the stuff he read on the 'Chosen One' matched up to what the slayers had thought too, but there was much more information here before him.

"I still don't get this. How would anyone lead vampires out of the shadows? They gonna cure your sun allergies?"

"I think it's more... symbolic. We have lived in secret for centuries, millennia even. Secluded, separate and trying to avoid the slayers. This old folklore is meant to fix that."

"Is that something vampires want?"

"Not really. Nobody is looking to avoid getting bitten if they don't know we exist. Of course, there are those that want humans kept in factories to produce blood, some who would probably relish the challenge... even some who almost exclusively hunt slayers. So depends on your angle I suppose."

Adam cringed, already having decided if he needed blood, there had to be alternatives to murdering innocent people.

"Gross. I can live off animal blood right?"

"You can. Whether you will want to is another matter."

"Why?"

Ingrid rolled her eyes, turning to rest her heeled boots up on the next chair like she was getting comfortable for a long, dull conversation.

"The fact is no matter how strong your conscience is or isn't when you come out of the Mirror, you are going to be a vampire. You are going to crave blood, and animal isn't going to be the first thing that you think of when you're thirsty."

"You managed it. Back in Stokely. You told me, no humans because of the slayer guild so close."

"True. I can't wait to change that."

"Yes you can."

Ingrid stopped mid stroke with her nail brush, eyeing him closely.

"Excuse me?"

"You don't want to hurt people for the sake of hurting them. Or you would have turned Will. Hell, you would have hurt Jonno rather than hypnotise him."

Saying his name hurt, made the protesting organs in his chest tighten involuntarily but Adam pressed on. He and Ingrid would get along much better if she didn't turn into a serial killer. She too looked hurt at the mention of her ex, and Adam realised he still didn't know what happened there.

"Are you seriously suggesting I never hunt breathers? Do you know how ridiculous you sound?"

"Don't deflect, I'm a master of it. Doesn't work on me. But you haven't done it yet, and you could easily have gone to a neighbouring village to hunt and cover your tracks. You didn't. Maybe you don't want to see it, but on some level, you have to care."

"You know... I really don't. All this talk of breathers is making me hungry."

Heart beating out a staccato of anxiety, Adam watched in horrified fascination as Ingrid swung her legs down, stood up and headed over to the window. It was night, she could go if she pleased. Waiting with bated breath, he expected to see her 'flit' through the walls and windows outside, to come back decorated in the blood of innocent humans. Instead, she stopped dead for a whole minute, then turned back scowling.

"Damn you. Renfield!"

Some sense of victory filled him, though he didn't expect it was a cast iron guarantee Ingrid was never going to kill... at least humans were safe tonight. Renfield stumbled into the room, seeing Adam and Ingrid sat at the dinner table together still and shuffling awkwardly.

"Yes Miss Ingrid?"

"Bring me a glass of someone mature, flavoursome. And fetch some painkillers for the teething half breed."

"Yes mistress."

Adam watched him leave, then turned back to Ingrid.

"I thought you said painkillers wouldn't work."

"I said human pain relief wouldn't help you. Do you really think someone as overdramatic as dad would suffer a headache? Vampires have their own medicine coffin brain."

"And you couldn't have told me about this three days ago when the pain started to get worse?"

He was achy and irritated, but Ingrid kept calmly smirking.

"You didn't ask. Any other vampire would laugh at your suffering... actually so will I, but I'm feeling kind. Don't get used to it."

Unable to fight the slight amusement at her cavalier attitude, Adam took the strange purple liquid in a vial from Renfield. He eyed it with trepidation, then decided that spending the rest of the time until his birthday in this amount of pain was worth the risk. He swallowed the liquid down, almost vomiting at the rancid taste but within seconds, his pain had reduced to a mild ache. He had had worse pain from a papercut.

Ingrid laughed at him gagging though, which he thought was a bit rude.

"That was disgusting. But hey, it worked! Thank you Renfield."

"Ahem."

"And Ingrid."

She nodded, taking the goblet of blood from Renfield herself and sipping at it.

"Mmm. Vintage."

Adam grimaced, hating the way his senses picked up the scent and his stomach made a sound of interest.

"Don't worry. I don't share and you wouldn't keep it down easy anyway."

The craving for that rich, vintage scent grew stronger, as did his distress over missing Jonno, George and his mother. Meanwhile, his tolerance for irritation and annoyance was in a rapid decline and he saw why they didn't join the tail end of the school year - Adam was not fit or safe to be around people right now. Renfield was safe - he reeked.

"Wake up zombie snot!"

Ingrid woke him on his sixteenth birthday by throwing something at him in his open coffin. Adam woke feeling cold, short of breath and very aware his heart rate was all but stopped. It was hit and miss whether they woke up actually dead or mostly dead apparently. He felt awful.

"M'awake. M'dead, but awake."

Mumbling as he stumbled out of his coffin in a rather ungainly fashion, Adam went to look in his bathroom mirror only to be greeted by a flickering blur of a reflection. This time tomorrow, he wouldn't even have that. He brushed his teeth out of habit, feeling the ever-present ache where fangs waited to descend.

Now he really couldn't deny what was about to happen to him. Adam Giles was about to become a vampire.

-YD-

Transformation next chapter! Whenever I get to that... but you were warned if you read my Adam!Vlad work it'll maybe seem repetitive.