Chapter Text
It’s a little past sundown when Anton gets to the vampire’s flat.
He’d packed a bag - as Viago had requested - with some of the things he might need for a sleepover; his few toys, a spare change of clothes and his special blanket - scented by each member of the pack so that he won’t have to struggle to sleep in an unfamiliar environment.
A surprise to him is the few tupperware containers carefully stacked on top of his blanket, carefully packed by Declan. He’d insisted, seeing as Anton had already been feeling small for a while, that he needed a proper meal before his big sleepover. The copious leftovers had been packed into little containers, and while he’d planned to just wait out anny hunger pains, he was very grateful to Declan for helping him out - especially since typically he’s the only person who ever steps foot in the kitchen.
He lets himself into the flat because Viago said he could, left the door unlocked specially for him, and tries not to appear too desperately excited to be in Viago’s pretty house. The wallpaper slowly peeling off the walls is littered with old drawings of miniscule flowers, each bestowed with incredible detail even in their minute size. The carpets lining the hallways and staircases were various shades of red, fraying at the edges but nonetheless gorgeous as they sit limply across unsealed wooden floorboards.
He stands awkwardly in the doorway for what feels like forever, sweaty heads gripping tight on the straps of his worn backpack. He’d chosen a backpack for tonight because of how small it made him feel, rather than his other satchels and shoulder bags, but now he just feels stupid .
It’s the first time actually being small outside of his tiny little section of the packhouse, so can you really blame him for being a bit anxious?
He’s pulled out of his fidgeting anxious trance by a voice snapping at him.
“Anton?”
He glances to the doorway at the other end of the open room, heartpace jumping up to almost double what it should be.
Vladislav is looking at him, eyebrow quirked up and eyeing him up and down.
He snaps back into himself after he clues into that Vlad’s expression is vaguely expectant, and nods stupidly, his cheeks dusting pink.
“You’re here for Viago right?” He asks, stepping into the room. “For your mummy?”
Anton flushes, face falling slack.
“Your mummy?” Vlad repeats, face curling into confusion. “Viago?”
Anton’s tummy swirls slightly. He feels more than a little embarrassed that Viago had divulged that information to anyone at all, but tries to swallow it down when he remembers that Vlad is essentially Nick and Stu’s full time carer and probably doesn’t think he’s weird at all. Probably.
“He’s busy right now,” Vlad says, and Anton can practically feel his face fall like a little schoolboy. “Surprise council work,” He drawls in his thick Romanian accent, “You know how it is.”
He doesn’t , but he doesn’t tell Vlad that. He just nods sheepishly, backing towards the door. He’d been excited to sleepover, even taking his banked up holidays at work so he’d have time to spend a few nights here and then get back into his usual sleeping pattern, but he couldn’t really help it if Viago’s got real and important work to be doing.
“You can come wait with us if you’d like.” Vlad offers, but with the stare he levels at Anton, it feels more like a command.
“Okay.” Anton mumbles, sheepishly padding over to Vlad. He feels wrong leaving his shoes on, but he knows that there are enough nails and splinters and viscera laying around that it would be worse to take them off.
Vlad leads him down a few odd hallways to what appears to be a living room, antique worn furniture clashing with the state of the art plugged into the wall and awkwardly sitting in the centre of the room, wires spilt across every inch of floor in between.
In front of the fancy lounge a squishy puzzle piece mat is spread out across the planks, and on top of it are Nick and Deacon, the latter watching bemused as the youngest reenacts something wild with the wide array of mismatched toys in front of him.
“Anton is here for his stay with Viago!” Vlad announces proudly as he leads Anton in, falling down onto the lounge with an impressive creak.
The pair glance up at him briefly, Nick offering him a brief wave, before returning to their game.
Vlad snaps his fingers. “Ah, say hello to our guest!” He scolds, rousing their attention from their game again.
Anton shrinks in on himself as both of their gazes return to him again, and he wonders if coming here was a big mistake after all.
“Sorry, Tati.” Nick whispers, turning around the face Anton. “Hi.” Nick mumbles, and Deacon echoes with a mumbled ‘Hello’ and a small wave.
Anton shrinks in on himself. His instincts aren’t telling him all that much, but his anxious mind is telling him to run back out and get home as fast as possible. He’s scared in this house without Viago, and even though he thinks Vlad would be nice to him if he got lost, he doesn’t want to risk it by trying to find the front door on his own.
“Don’t mind them,” Vlad huffs, noting the sickly anxious look on Anton’s face. “They get too into their dumb games.” He pats the spot next to him and Anton gingerly sits beside him, keeping precariously on the edge of the seat cushion.
Vlad is a lot nicer than Anton first took him for, monitoring Nick and Deacon’s game and cutting any conflict nonsense out the second it starts. He feels a bit bad now, because he’s not entirely sure if he was profiling Vlad or something - he should know by now that all vampires aren’t that scary. A heavy shame settles over him, and instead of watching the TV or keeping up with the game, he picks at the small tears in his worn trackies.
He feels a wave of heated flush wash over him as his eyes begin to sting. He feels awfully out of place here, too small to just be able to make conversation and feel any less stuck out. Hot shame floods him as a heavy wave of tears hit him, and he wishes nothing more that Viago could just come down and take him away.
“Are you okay?” Vlad murmurs, hand coming to rest on Anton’s knee.
He nods, scrubbing at his face, because it’s utterly humiliating to be caught crying like a child right now, even if he doesn’t feel all that grown up.
“It’s alright,” Vlad soothes, awkwardly rubbing Anton’s back. It’s obvious he didn’t expect to be doing this with Anton, but Anton just doesn’t think he could stop crying if he tried.
Vladislav pulls him against his chest, rubbing his arm with enough strength to crush him, which is oddly comforting. “I’m… sorry, that your mummy is not here.” he says, clearing his throat.
Both the reminder that Viago isn’t here and of that word, mummy , make a fresh wave of tears stumble out of him as he’s turned into Vladislav’s chest to cry.
It’s comforting, he finds, to be held against Vlad’s chest in a vice tight grip in order to cry, and soon he’s only sniffling quietly as Vlad pats his back, occasionally scratching behind his ears. It annoys him a little bit that Vlad knows where to scratch - mostly because he definitely learnt it from petting actual dogs. It feels good though, so he doesn’t complain.
He’s almost ready to fall asleep against Vlad’s chest soon, and he vaguely thinks he might be drooling on Vladislav, when he’s roused by a cool hand on his cheek.
“Oh, Welpe, I’m sorry,” Viago whispers.
“Mummy!” Anton gasps, jumping forward to smush himself against Viago’s face. He feels vaguely embarrassed as all eyes in the room turn to him, hear him say that word , but he can’t bring himself to care when he’s here in Viago’s arms.
“Ja, I’m here,” Viago murmurs, hoisting Anton onto his hip from his underarms, “Mumie was busy, I’m so sorry, kleiner.”
Anton nestles into Viago’s neck as he’s sat on Viago’s hip, tuning out the sound of Viago thanking Vladislav for minding him and focusing insead of the swaying sensation of Viago carrying up to his room.
“Oh, I missed you, my dear,” Viago murmurs, petting Anton’s back. “That council is utterly ridiculous, all that work I do for them and what do I get in return, welpe? Nothing! Zilch! Nichts!”
Anton giggles into Viago’s mess of layered fabrics as he watches with timid eyes, Vladislav waving him goodbye as he turns round the corner. He feels a bit bad for not waving back, but maybe Vlad will just think he was too small to wave? He pushes the thought away as he inhales the stale smell of Viago’s - certainly ancient - clothes.
“Would you like to sit in my room, puppy? in Mama’s Zimmer gehen?”
Anton’s not quite sure of what Viago says, even as he nods - he likes, even prefers for it, when Viago talks to him in german. It makes him feel impossibly small, and the combined joy at both recognising odd words as Viago rambles and seeing the vampire’s face when he meagerly responds in awful, awful german, makes it a hundred times more fun.
“Oh, bist du nicht ein guter Junge?” Viago coos, not faltering as he lugs Anton up a flight of stairs, “Ja, das bist du, mein guter kleiner Junge, so wunderbar!”
Anton flushes as Viago babbles and coos soft words into his ear, hiding his face against the cool skin of Viago’s neck.
“Ah ah, now, let me put you down now, welpe,” Viago murmurs, patting the seat of Anton’s jeans and gesturing for him to stand up on his own. Pulling his face away from Viago’s neck, Anton realises they’re already in Viago’s room. He lowers his feet to the ground and shakily stands up on his own. Looking around the room he notices the unfamiliar pile of blankets and pillows and few odd teddies and feels his phantom tail wag fanatically; Viago has made him a nest .
He shrugs his backpack off and makes a beeline for the dense arrangement of fabrics, weasles his way in and settles in the middle with a soft sigh. A lot of this small stuff still feels out of place on him, like he’s out of place even when Viago is holding his hand and telling him he’s good - but this , this he knows. He presses his face against his pillow - a dark brown plush bear - and nestles into the careful and prim and perfect scent of Viago .
“Ah, I see you’ve found my latest addition!” Viago grins as he settles on his knees beside the neatly arranged circle of blankets. “Are you finding it well, Anton?”
Anton nods into the soft bear beneath him, sheepishly giggling as Viago strokes a finger over the silhouette of his face.
“I did some reading, mein baby, and after Stu supplied me with some reputable information I had this idea!” He grins down at Anton, fangs glinting proudly as he giggles. Seeing Viago so proud of himself makes him want to burrow even further into the warm welcome sensation of the nest, pull Viago with him so that only he gets to share in the presence of this whimsical, odd vampire.
The room settles into a comfortable silence as Viago quietly heads back over to the doorway, flipping off the lightswitch - the ugly yellow lightbulb makes Viago’s pretty wallpaper look all washed out and sickly, and besides, He and Anton can see in the dark well enough to go without.
He brings the backpack with him, unzipping it as Anton watches, enthralled. He gasps as he pulls out the copious containers of tupperware. “Oh my, who’s made all this for you?” He asks, inspecting the clear bottom of the container as he lifts it over his head. “Did someone make sure you’d be all well fed for me?”
Anton grins again, nodding into the teddy. It brings up an odd fluttery sensation in his stomach to be reminded that his pack try to make sure he’s taken care of when he can’t do the same for them. It’s sort of fulfilling.
“And look what I’ve found, munchkin!” Viago gasps exaggeratedly as he lifts a light blue soother out of his pack. “Would you like your soother? Dein schnullen?”
Anton nods as fast as he can, and Viago suppresses a giggle as Anton snatches it from him and shoves it in his mouth, lips sealing around the rubber nipple.
“And wow, mein gott, look what we have here!” Anton sits up the second his special blanket is pulled out of the bag, grabbing for the soft fabric desperately.
“There, there,” Viago soothes, patting back Anton’s mussed up hair, “Be patient, wenig Liebe, all is well.” He unfolds the blanket and lays it across Anton, chuckling as he curls up underneath it immediately.
“How lucky, my pup, du musst so geliebt sein,” He murmurs, flattening Anton’s frizzy curls against his forehead. “Your pack wants to make you feel so safe, don’t they?”
Anton nods, cheeks flushing as he hides the growing red stain behind the fleecy blanket.
“So loved, mein welpe, so cared for.”
Viago floats overtop of him to curl against his back at the other side of the nest. His body is always cooler than Anton’s permanently flushed skin, but his touch is welcome as he wraps himself around Anton’s curled up form.
Anton snuffles as Viago presses a soft kiss to his temple. He’d been so nervous these past few weeks that Viago had insisted on caring for him. But now, wrapped tight in his embrace, flooded with the comforting scent of pack and family and Viago , he doesn’t know why he’d ever felt worried in the first place.
Viago hums quietly as Anton nestles backwards into his embrace, and Anton lets himself doze off, held warm and safe in Viago’s waiting arms.