Val is a character I'm absolutely in love with even though they've only had one scene! 🤭 I need more of Val! More more more!
Val Zugravescu - Name Origins (Click for the story they're from)
(Tags/Tw: death mention, gravestone, grief, emotional whump, hurt/comfort, slight whump fluff, Lukas is in here too)
Lights in the room were low and the curtains had long been drawn for the evening. A tall, slender vampire was snipping flowers in their kitchen, standing at the counter, and tending blooms in the sink. They were careful, trimming each under submersion as they'd learned best for their preservation.
After a bundle was laying amid parchment paper, they gave careful arrangement in an idle nature before twisting it closed in the shape of a bouquet. A careful few inches of twine and they were picking their clippings out of the sink and pushing the rest into the garbage disposal.
The house around them stood quiet, there wasn't sound or draft to be heard. Their movements were nimble, stealthy, they themselves ghosted around the manor as if they'd always belonged there in spirit.
Once their mess was tended to, they gathered the flowers and paced through the house to the back garden. Past a waterfall, through a dozen rosebushes was a single pillar that looked as though it was the steeple to a tower. Flowers surrounded it but it lay unmarked. There was little need when there was nobody beneath the gravestone.
"I dreamed about you last night," They spoke, voice soft as ever while they knelt to brush trimmings off the concrete slab. "We were back behind that waterfall, where you found me all those years ago."
They could still hear the voice of their beloved, their worry, as they'd approached them as a naïve youth. Youth was such an amusing term when everyone behind their centuries sat at the title of youth. But they knew they were young, when they held such little fear in their presence.
"I'd been hiding there for days, from hunters, and in you walked.. Bright green eyes and a curiosity that made me believe when you said you'd just turned nineteen." They laughed in memory, thinking of the hours they spent tending to them. They placed the flowers in an upright ground spiral and they displayed nicely with a final primping.
"I've never met a human so unpredictable in my life." Val came to settle on the freshly trimmed lawn and crossed their legs under them, elbows slumping on their knees. "My precious Valen, I think I'd give my immortality for another life with you."
The grave never talked back and they expected it, instead, it was there to brunt the weight of their thoughts. They hoped somewhere in the afterlife, the place only humans could go, that they'd already become the angel they were on earth.
That was one thing, they could never take from him, the ability to pass on and finally meet a peaceful demise as natured originally planned. They had loved him until he was old, withered inside his human shell. They still kissed him just as tenderly on his elderly deathbed as they did when he'd been nineteen. It had to have been hard, to see them in such youthful perfection as their vessel finally gave up hosting his miraculous soul. He'd wanted it that way. He'd never wanted to turn but he also didn't realize he'd be forced to leave them behind at one point.
They allowed it. They allowed his age to be their demise and he passed holding their hand, their teary words reassuring they loved him and that they'd make it long after he was gone.
They made it like they promised but it never took the ache away of losing the only human they'd ever considered themselves married to. Being a widow meant they'd tasted real love, for the better part of a century, and that was just fine with them.
"I love you Val," They whispered, "Please promise you'll find me if you ever make it back to this life."
They knew they shouldn't have gone, when they were walking in to see a face so similar to their lost love. But this human, bound by law or not, brought them so many reminders of their husband, once upon a time.
As soon as they walked in the door and met face to face with vibrant reminding eyes of the past; they were lost to a sea of emotion that hadn't surfaced in years.
"Are you okay?" Lukas asked gently, immediately standing when the vampire walked in and looked nothing like their usual selves. They were always so proper, held themselves tall and inspiring but right now they wore a slump across their whole body.
Val froze when they were met in the middle of the room and warm hands reached for their face, the human staring up at them with concern.
"Please, talk to me..." Lukas pleaded, watching their dark eyes cloud with a teary haze.
It almost snapped their reality, to see black hair and green eyes trying to care for them. To see someone so physically, expressively close to their long-lost beloved. It's why they'd gone and fallen in love with Lukas in the first place.
"I miss him." They dared mutter aloud, Lukas' face falling and pity soaking into the gaze he gave them. He couldn't plausibly imagine, losing someone he'd loved more than life itself.
"I know, I know you do.." He muttered, hands coming to take theirs and gently turn the bedside lamp off before crawling onto the mattress.
They followed the pull of his hands and when they were in bed, he laid beside them and diligently pulled the blankets over their shoulders. It was rare but even Lukas knew how not to be selfish for someone he too, cared about.
"Do you... want to pretend? Will it help?" He asked with such soft words and they could tell he was embarrassed, about what he'd just offered. When they'd first broken down on a particularly hard anniversary, they'd done a sort of roleplay that still felt like a betrayal.
Ever since then, it had become a source of comfort, when everything about him, gave such a close reminder to their husband and their happiest century.
"No.." They denied, for the first time since they'd started the mental charade. "I can't pretend forever."
Lukas fell silent and instead, he pulled them close, tucking them under his arms and rubbing along a smooth back with a methodical hand. He pushed back their hair, carefully twirled it up like he'd give them a ponytail, only to move it away so neither of them leaned on the glorious rope.
Val laid against his shoulder, allowing themselves to bury deep into the human's chest where they could hear the metronome inside him. As he turned to get them both a bit more comfortable, they laid limp to his will and he cradled them closer.
"Shh, shh, shh..." Lukas soothed, feeling the tension rise in their body before it broke free with a small, hiccuping sob. "I know baby, I know it hurts."
They broke down further when he placed a warm kiss on their temple, resting his cheek against their's to whisper in their ear. "It's okay, I'm right here.."
It took all Lukas had not to break down with them, the pressure of their emotions and the weight of their pain making his heart heavy. It wasn't fair, that they had to lose someone so close to them. When he thought Val was someone that deserved to be loved forever.
An hour, two hours passed before Val had exhausted themselves against him and finally fell asleep. He laid on his back with the taller vampire laid against his chest, hands still idly touching them somehow. Sometimes it was down their head and back, others it was the hand that rested on their thigh making soft sweeps. He didn't stop, he knew they'd wake up if he did.
He'd lay there until the old lady came to kick Val out, he thought. He didn't care, as long as they stayed peacefully sleeping against his chest.
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I love Val with all of my fucking heart and soul and I will burn down a village in their name if they asked. Please take a story about their name origins as a token of my affection for both you and Val. <3
Sorry this took so late but with Whumpmas out of the way as being priority, I'll be back to answering asks a bit more timely.
I was given the prompt of perfume & remembered a scene in 2017’s The Little Vampire (3D). The quote is included next to the perfume. This was drawn 2 days ago (September 5th 2021).
[Photo ID: digital art; a green perfume bottle modeled after Chanel Number 5; it has a blue neck with a tiny headstone/gravestone marked “R.I.P.” below a purple cap, with a red background; it’s labeled “Rookery’s Eau De Vampire” & says it’s from Transylvania; top right corner is signed by Tony & Nico of the Void Collective; right side has a light purple background with a large grey gravestone shape; gravestone on the right has a quote accredited to Rookery from The Little Vampire 2017: “¿Smell that? The smell of dampness and decay. Some know wine by its bouquet, others know the scent of lilies and rose blossoms. ¿This? This is my perfume, my Chanel Number 5. I can smell it from a mile away.... ¡Eau De Vampire!” /end ID]
