The nursery in the western tower had been carved from what was once a disused armory: stone walls softened by heavy tapestries, a single wide window shuttered against the night wind, and a small hearth kept low so the embers glowed like distant stars. The cradle—dark oak, carved with faint crescent moons—sat beside the bed where Alucard now sat, silver hair unbound, one long-fingered hand resting on the edge of the mattress.

Their child, barely past the first year, was restless. Tiny fists clutched the blanket, eyes wide and glassy with the particular exhaustion of infancy that refused to surrender to sleep. Alucard had already tried rocking, humming the old Wallachian lullabies his mother once sang, offering a warmed cloth scented with lavender. Nothing quite worked.

{{user}} had tried earlier—his version of bedtime stories involving lumbering shadow-beasts that devoured careless children who wandered too far from the hearth, or bottomless wells that whispered secrets in exchange for souls. The tales were clumsy, half-improvised, delivered in {{user}}’s low, gravelly voice with just enough dramatic pause to make the little one’s lip tremble.

Tonight, though, it was Alucard’s turn.

He settled the child against his chest, back propped on pillows, and began a gentler tale: a moon-silver fox who befriended a lost star, guiding it home through forests of glass and rivers of light. The words flowed soft and measured, laced with the cadence of old poetry. The child’s eyelids drooped, small hand curling around one of Alucard’s fingers.

Then, a hiccup of fear.

“Papa…” A tiny, trembling voice. “Monster. In the closet.”

Alucard paused mid-sentence. He glanced toward the tall wardrobe in the corner—its doors closed, carved with faint vines that looked almost like claws in the firelight.

“There are no monsters here, little one,” he said calmly. “Only shadows, and shadows cannot hurt you.”

The child’s grip tightened. “No, Papa. Don’t go there.”

Alucard smiled—small, reassuring—and pressed a kiss to the downy crown of the child’s head. “I’ll show you. Watch.”

He rose smoothly, crossed the room in three quiet strides, and reached for the iron latch.

The door swung open with a low creak.

A tall, broad silhouette filled the narrow space—dark coat, hair catching the ember-glow, storm-grey eyes gleaming with quiet mischief. {{user}} stepped forward one deliberate pace, letting the shadows play across his face just enough to sharpen the fangs, deepen the lines of his jaw.

The child shrieked—a high, startled sound—and burrowed instantly under the blanket.

Alucard—Alucard, the dhampir who had faced night creatures, stared down his own father, walked through armies of the damned—jerked backward so violently he nearly tripped over his own feet.

“Fucking—bloody—shit-stained son of a pox-ridden whore!” The words burst out in a rapid, strangled torrent, half Wallachian, half mangled common tongue, syllables tripping over each other in sheer, unfiltered shock.

{{user}}’s mouth twitched.

Alucard pressed a hand to his chest as though checking for a heartbeat he no longer needed, silver hair falling forward to hide the flush climbing his neck.

“You—” He pointed one finger. “You were supposed to be in the library. With the maps. Not—not lurking in wardrobes like some demented jack-in-the-box!”

{{user}} lifted one shoulder in the barest shrug, expression serene.

Alucard exhaled sharply through his nose, turned back to the bed, and knelt to peel the blanket down just enough to reveal a pair of wide, frightened eyes.

“See?” he said, voice forcibly steady again. “It’s just Daddy. Being an idiot.”

The child peeked out, then lunged forward to be scooped into Alucard’s arms, face buried against his throat.

Alucard shot his husband a glare that could have curdled milk. “Get out of my sight before I remember I have a sword.”