Spring Forward, Fall Back (Alucard x Chubby! Reader)

Reader P.O.V.

The day had progressed much as I expected with everyone going about their usual business: Trevor out hunting game and teasing everyone, Sypha scanning through some books brought up from the hold that contained information on how to expand her magic and Adrian sipping tea while perusing a book in the library before the fireplace. It seemed as though I was sitting in a daze through most of the day and sketching the other part of it. I wanted to give myself a reprieve from the constant reading I had been doing for the last few days and decided to exercise my sketching capabilities, furthering my designs for the project I had due in class.

'Class' I mused. 'I wonder how far behind I am. Will I be able to catch up? How will I explain my absences? What does it mean if these guys come back to my time and decide they don't want to come back to this one? Do my previous plans for my life even matter anymore?' The more I thought about things, the more I wondered about what everyone else was thinking.

'Would things change here if they decided to stay with me?'

'Would I be able to let them go if they decided to come back?'

'Would I be able to let Adrian go?'

I started to feel a deep depression weighing down on me at the direction my thoughts were taking me. The mere thought that they would leave me hurt, but it was the idea that Adrian would be lost to me forever if he returned here that wounded me the most. I could feel my chest begin to tighten and the familiar sting of tears gathering in my eyes as the thought sunk in deeper. It wasn't like he had to stay in my time, but I couldn't stay here. My time had made me weak to the diseases of this one and I'd grown far too accustomed to the convenience of my time. In essence I had grown far too weak physically to remain here and far too many things here could easily kill me because of my ignorance. Realizing all the things that made me less suited for this time upset me so much that I got up from my seat, leaving everything I had lying on the table and walked out of the room.

I made my way down the hall toward the room Adrian and I shared, my head full of depressing thoughts. I soon started to doubt how Adrian felt about me and felt the tears start to dribble down my cheeks to my chest. As I got closer to the room I noticed that my clothing was far more dirty than I'd originally believed and that made me think of the last time I'd had a bath. I sniffed myself experimentally and found a sour smell I didn't really care for.

"And I've been around those guys smelling like I dragged my ass through a pile of wet garbage? How could they stand my stink?" I asked myself aloud, my nose wrinkling at the idea. As soon as I got to the doorway to the room, I shot over to my pile of clothes and started digging through. Sypha and I had washed some of them a few days ago and my favorite comfortable outfit was amongst those that saw soap and water. Grabbing those and the rest of my bathroom necessities, I sped down the hall, the promise of a hot bath raising my spirits.

The bathroom itself wasn't overly large or ridiculously small, but the bathtub was a brass cauldron barely two feet deep, but was four feet wide and almost seven feet long with the hot and cold water spigots on the long side. A small oak bucket and short stool sat next to the tub and suddenly the idea of a Japanese bath sounded wonderful. I started up the water to get it primed in the pipes and prepared all of my bathing items for easy reach before I stripped down and put the stool into the bathtub.

It felt nice to have a hot bath without having to go a few miles away. And considering what happened the last time, I don't think I would have gone out if I was paid a million dollars and some change off the night table. I took my time to wash and condition my hair, apply the in shower lotion and made sure I'd scrubbed my whole body before I stepped out. I then took the time to fill the bathtub with warm water and sat in the tub for a soak. The steam coming up from the water helped my muscles to loosen, relieving the tension I hadn't known was so high. Miraculously I felt like a human being again. I applied my after shower body lotion and dressed before leaving the bathroom, but the moment I stepped over the threshold to the hall that familiar ache began again.