@cookbookbutch all I'm saying is who would blame struggling single mom Tera Renard for harboring prurient thoughts about the strapping, ageless dhampir who sometimes stops by to check on her, Maria, and Richter?
Who wouldn't, after being abandoned by a deadbeat sperm donor with delusions of grandeur, find the sagely, dependable guardian of the Belmont legacy to be a breath of fresh air?
Who wouldn't, after spending all day tending to a household with two precocious and often bickering children, give anything to have a hot single vampire stay late and help her with dinner, and maybe then linger for just one more glass of wine sipped over the first engaging, mature conversation she's had with another adult in weeks?
Who wouldn't be tempted to offer to wash those rags he's always wearing? To invite him to just stay the night and head out in the morning instead? To let her gaze linger a little too long when one of them finishes laughing at the amusing anecdote the other just told? Wet their lips and inch closer when a hand rests unexpectedly on an arm or thigh? Late in the evening when it's just the two of them and some candlelight? The children long since put to bed?
I sure wouldn't.
And look. If I was the centuries-old guardian of the Belmont legacy, who's a bit jaded from staving off one apocalyptic event after another, I might also be charmed by the graceful woman who, after enduring the loss of her sister and her people, just... endures. Living out exactly the kind of beautifully humble human existence I've sworn myself to protecting. I might also see the spark of hope and kindness in her eyes despite her worn, tired face, and see a reason to keep going, keep fighting, keep caring. Might see in her a long-dormant passion beginning to reawaken, and start to feel it in myself too. Might see a grown woman aching to be seen as such for the first time in far too long, and thinking that if no one else is going to give that to her, then I gladly could?
