A/N: Hieeeeee! So it's been a good minute since I last watched this movie (though I used to watch it nonstop around Halloween time on VHS and Disney Channel) but with the pandemic going on I recently got the chance to revisit it and the end result involved a lot of plot bunnies and this fic. So without further ado, here's From Dusk til Dawn!

Chapter One - Day Damn One


A large gathering of vampires stood near the foot of a cliff, all dressed to the nines in Shakespearean-style clothing. A father, his wife, and their three children stood front and center, staring intently at the full moon as the father held up an amulet with a red stone in the center and began chanting something in another language I couldn't quite translate: but I knew the reason why. It meant the end of their curse; if all went according to plan - and I sincerely hoped it did -, they'd finally be human again. A life they've been wanting for a long time.

A small gasp left my lips as I felt cold fingers interlock with my own; I turned to my left to see Gregory smiling lovingly at me. "You alright, love?"

I didn't know why I was suddenly a nervous wreck about this, but something in the back of my mind kept telling me that something awful was about to happen. I couldn't let him know that, he'd been waiting for this night and this moment for so long. It meant everything to him, especially with me being human. So, I flashed him a smile, ran a hand through his wild, long black hair and stood on my tiptoes to press a short but reassuring kiss to his lips. "Never better, just promise me one thing."

"Anything," he murmured, his piercing blue eyes locking on to my brown ones.

"That this is forever," I said, removing my hand from his hair to place it against his cheek.

"I promise," he said ardently, taking my face in his hands and pressing his lips to mine once more in a passionate kiss. After a few seconds, he pulled away and tucked a piece of hair behind my hair. "I love you."

"I love you too, with all my heart."

"VAMPIRES!" We all whipped around in shock and horror as the town's vampire hunter rode towards us at full speed on a horse-drawn carriage that had a flaming wooden cross and torches attached to it. Gregory quickly pushed me behind him as his father, Fredrick, rushed forward to take the hunter on. He held out a wooden cross in front of Fredrick, who hissed in pain and the man abruptly seized his window of opportunity.

"Give me that stone!" he snarled.

The two of them fought over it and it's only a matter of seconds before the stone is sent flying from the amulet over the cliff and Gregory's Uncle Von is quick to dive in after it. The vampire hunter suddenly whipped out a crossbow and pointed at Gregory who in turn shoved me further behind him and viciously hissed at the man.

"GREGORY!" I screamed, scrambling to my feet and shoving him out of the way. All I could feel next was excruciating pain. Gregory yelled my name as I spat out blood and I looked down at the wooden stake that now protruded from my stomach. Blood gushed from the wound, staining my gray and black dress and I fell to my knees. A set of arms quickly wrapped around me and I felt myself being pulled into Gregory's lap.

"Run!" I cried out, coughing up more blood as tears trailed down my face.

He shook his head; his eyes welled up with tears as he held me closer to him. "No! I'm not leaving you, you're gonna be okay! Stay with me, stay with me! Stay with me, okay?! You've gotta stay with me! Don't leave me!"

"I love you," I whispered, and closed my eyes. The last sound that filled my ears was him screaming out in agony.

I sat bolt upright in my seat and gasped loudly, causing some of the passengers to look at me with both annoyance and concern. Thankfully I didn't get the same response - or any questions for that matter - from the old woman sitting beside me as she'd fallen asleep with her headphones on. I raked a hand through my hair and laid back in my seat, praying that my flight would land soon. I'd gotten very little sleep so far, every time I closed my eyes all I could dream about was this family of vampires and the vampire hunter, and it wasn't just on the plane either. This had been going on for months.

All I could do was pray that spending the next three years in Scotland with my cousin, aunt, and uncle would take my mind off it. My mother and Aunt Dottie actually suggested a "fresh start and change of scenery" after countless nights of me waking up gasping for air or screaming. Not to mention they also saw it as an opportunity for me to make new friends, not that I had any back home to begin with. Though my mother was a little hesitant to let her fifteen year old daughter move to another country, I assured her that I'd call her when I got settled and call her often. The only thing I'd miss about Las Vegas - other than my mom - was the occasional trips to the strip with her.

My flight landed in Edinburgh Airport about two hours later, which was around three in the afternoon Scotland time. I yawned and rose from my seat and stretched my arms and legs before grabbing my bag and following the flight attendant off the plane (mom insisted on having me fly as an unaccompanied minor).

"Rhea!" Tony screamed and ran forward to hug me once I arrived at the entrance area.

I bent down and hugged him back, ruffling his hair in the process. "Hey squirt! I've missed you so much!" I then let him go and gave Aunt Dottie and Uncle Bob hugs.

"How was your flight, Rhea?" Uncle Bob asked.

"Long as hell," I snorted. "Didn't get much sleep either, but my mp3 and Gameboy kept me entertained."

"Well, you'll sleep much better now that you're here in Scotland," Aunt Dottie replied. "It's so beautiful, honey. Just wait until you see the new place, you're gonna love it."

"I'm counting on it," I told her with a wink.


Once we collected my luggage - which was six suitcases total - from the baggage claim and placed it on a cart, we made our way to the parking lot and loaded it into the car. I climbed into the backseat next to Tony.

"Are you excited for your first day tomorrow, Rhea?" Uncle Bob asked once we were on the road.

"I'm a little nervous, and I'm expecting cattiness from some of the girls," I said mordantly.

"Nonsense, you'll be making friends before you know it," he said. "Tony just had his first day a week ago and it seemed to go well for him, right bud?"

"Right," he said enthusiastically, then looked at me, subtly shook his head and mouthed 'no.'

How comforting….

"Holy shit," I breathed out as the Rover pulled up to the most goregous looking castle I'd ever seen. Being from the States, I'd only ever seen castles on TV, in books or online but never in person. I slowly got out of the car and stared in awe at it's old gothic Victorian aesthetic and I only knew the inside was just as beautiful.

"What do you think?" Aunt Dottie smirked, giving me a light pat on the shoulder.

"It's amazing," I said.

"Wait until you see the inside and your room," Uncle Bob chuckled, grabbing two of my suitcases from the backseat.

"Come on, I'll give you the grand tour!" Tony beamed as he led me inside. Trust me when I tell you that he had to ask me several times if I was alright because I was basically speechless at how big and alluring the inside was. He showed me the living room, kitchen, dining room, the creepy cellar, the bathrooms, his parents' room, his room, and then led me to my room.

I turned the knob and my mouth dropped open as I slowly walked inside. "This is...You're telling me this is my room?!"

"Yep!" Tony nodded, flopping down on the bed. "Mom said you'd love it, do you?"

"I do, it's perfect," I grinned. Indeed it was. It had a wooden canopy bed with light blue silk bedding, a wooden ottoman at the foot of the bed with a TV on it, a fireplace, and a connecting bathroom. The walls were ivory colored and the ceiling was decorated with Victorian arches.

"Tony I'm gonna change my clothes and unpack now okay?" I said wheeling one of my suitcases into a nearby corner and unzipping it.

"Okay," he said, a hint of disappointment in his voice.

"Don't worry, I won't be long," I said. "Just gonna shower, change, unpack a few things for the rest of the week, and then I'm all yours."

"Cool!" he nodded, hopping off the bed. "I'm really glad you're here, Rhea. Can I ask you something though? And promise you won't get mad."

I quirked a brow. "What is it?"

"Yesterday I uh, I overheard mom and Aunt Abby talking about you….A-About how you've been having nightmares about vampires."

The last thing I wanted to do was scare Tony and upset my Aunt and Uncle, but I was awful at lying. Especially to someone as stubborn as Tony.

I shifted uncomfortably. "I have; what of it?"

"So you've seen them too?"

"Who?"

"The gathering of vampires! I've been dreaming about them too! There's also an amulet, a comet, a beam of light, and a vampire hunter! It ends with some big, scary, blonde vampire diving over the cliff right at me and then I wake up. You're in the dream too, you were being all lovey-dovey with one of the vampires." He made a face at the last part.

My cheeks turned red from embarrassment at his last remark. "...On that note, I'm gonna finish getting situated. See ya in a few, dude."

Tony left the room and I helped Uncle Bob and Aunt Dottie bring up the rest of my things. Then I knelt down and opened one of my suitcases. After rummaging through it, I settled on a pair of plaid pajama bottoms and a black cami with white lace trim (which showed off the purple butterfly tattoo on my right arm) before stripping off my clothes and stepping inside the shower, sighing in relief as the hot water hit my body. On the upside, at least Tony's dream ended differently than mine did or else he'd probably be in therapy right now.

As I finished putting away a week's worth of clothes, organizing my hair and makeup products in the bathroom, charging my phone and laptop, and hooking up my DVD player and PlayStation 2, there was a knock at my door.

"Come in!" I called.

Aunt Dottie walked in wearing a black sequin dress and did a little spin. "How do I look?"

"You look beautiful, what's the occasion?" I asked.

"Thank you," she replied. "Your uncle and I are going to a party at his boss Lord McAshton's house tonight, would you mind babysitting Tony for a few hours? We should be back by midnight. If you're too tired I understand and I can call around and see if anyone's available tonight."

Even though I was still a little jet-lagged, watching Tony myself seemed like the better option over having some stranger come in and boss us around for the rest of the evening.

"I can do it," I said with a nod.

She blew out a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Rhea. Tony's bedtime is at nine, yours is at ten-thirty. No scary movies, don't answer the door for anyone, and there's money on the kitchen counter so you guys can order a pizza. I'm gonna go say goodbye to Tony."

Shortly after they left I phoned the nearest pizza place and ordered a large pizza for Tony and I. Half pepperoni for him and half cheese for me. I then laid down on my bed and flicked through all the movie channels on TV before eventually settling on The Sixth Sense.

"I see dead people..."

"In your dreams? While you're awake? Dead people like, in graves? In coffins?"

"Walking around like regular people. They don't see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don't know they're dead."

"How often do you see them?"

"All the time. They're everywhere."

"I know how you feel, bro," I mumbled.

The doorbell rang about a half hour later and my hungry ass wasted no time in running down the stairs to answer it. I handed the guy a twenty and set the pizza box on the kitchen counter.

"Tony! Pizza's here!" I called upstairs.

No answer.

"Tony! Get your butt down here or else I'm gonna eat it all!" I yelled playfully, hoping that'd get him to come down.

Dead silence.

Now I was starting to get worried, it was only eight and I knew Tony did NOT go to bed early. Not with the amount of energy he had anyway. Suddenly, I heard a loud thud upstairs. With a gulp, I grabbed a poker from the fireplace and slowly walked up the stairs. Hey, if someone was trying to break in there was no way in hell I was going up there unarmed.

"T-Tony?" I shakily said, twisting the doorknob to his room and pushing it open.

I'd only pushed the door open a crack before Tony appeared in front of me. "R-Rhea, if I open the d-door, you have to s-swear to me, you won't scream..."

I gulped again. "T-Tony, you're scaring me, what's going on?"

He slowly pulled the door open and looked down nervously. My eyes widened when I saw a pale boy with black spiky hair and wearing Shakespearean clothing lying in the middle of his floor. He leisurely sat up and bared his fangs at me and hissed loudly.

In that moment Tony's promise went in one ear and out the other. I dropped the poker and let out a blood-curdling scream and stumbled away from Tony's room and tried to run despite Tony's pleas for me to stop screaming/running and calm down. I didn't get far before I tripped and fell flat on my face. Oh God, I've officially become the dumb girl in horror movies that always trips when the killer's chasing her.

Pushing my hair out of my face, I let out a groan and turned around to see the vampire kid crouch down in front of me. "P-Please, don't hurt me, and don't hurt my cousin….Wait a minute, I-I've seen you before. Y-You were in my d-dream."

"Your cousin just said the same thing, must've been a nightmare," he replied flatly, and then held out his hand for me to take.

"Kid, you have no idea," I retorted, cautiously taking his hand and getting to my feet.

"I must leave." He turned on his heel and limped back to Tony's bedroom.

"But you can't even walk!" Tony argued.

"Who needs to walk, when I can fly!"

Tony and I rushed back into the room to see him jump off the balcony. He hovered in the air for a few seconds before falling to the ground.

"Come on, he needs our help," I said, bolting from the room without waiting for Tony's response. Thankfully he seemed to agree as he caught up with me pretty quickly. We sprinted down the stairs and out to the side of the castle where the kid was laying. Tony and I knelt down next to him.

"Are you okay?" Tony asked.

"Do I look it?" Came his sarcastic reply.

Wrapping an arm around his shoulders, I carefully helped him sit up as a big red truck with flashing lights drove by the front gate.

"Rookery!" The boy quickly shielded his eyes from the light until the truck was gone.

"Who was that lunatic?" I huffed, glaring at the gate.

"He's a vampire hunter, he's been after us for a while now, and his family's been hunting us for centuries," the boy said weakly.

"What an asshole," I muttered under my breath.

"Do you know where I can get a cow?" He asked the two of us.

"If you want a glass of milk-" Tony began to say.

"No, not milk. A cow, hurry!"

Tony and I got his wagon and put the kid into it. As luck would have it there was a farm full of cows nearby. Man, I really hope this farmer is a very heavy sleeper.


We arrived at the barn and led him over to where the cows were. He raised two of his fingers and slowly waved them at the cow. "Your eyes are getting heavy," he rasped out. "You're falling into a deep sleep."

He walked over to the cow and put his hand on its neck, the cow mooed in pain as the kid loudly slurped his blood like he hadn't fed in years.

"Uh...I think I'm gonna hurl." I leaned against a wall and glanced at Tony and motioned for him to go ahead and wait outside, which he didn't hesitate to do. Can't say I blamed him, I was somewhat grateful I hadn't eaten that pizza yet because I more than likely would've thrown it up on the barn floor.

"My apologies for scaring you earlier." I craned my head to look at the boy.

"Don't worry about it, I've just been on edge lately," I admitted, blowing out a sigh.

Loud beeping noises and the sound of someone driving like they were auditioning to be in Fast and the Furious prompted me to bolt out of the barn towards where Tony was. The big red truck was barreling towards him at full speed and before I could run any further I felt the kid grab my hand as Tony screamed.

"Shut your eyes, hurry!" He yelled at us. I immediately shut them and a couple minutes later I felt myself land on something soft.

"You can open your eyes now."

I opened them and peered around to see that we were now sitting on the same blimp my uncle made for Lord McAshton.

"Wow," Tony and I said in unison, though his 'wow' was an excited one and mine was more of a 'what the shit?!' one.

"Enjoying the view?" The boy grinned.

"Yeah and thanks dude," Tony said. "You saved my life, that truck was gonna splatter me."

"You keep calling me dude, my name's Rudolph."

"Dude is slang, like you call a friend," Tony explained.

"A friend?" He stated as if he'd never heard the word before.

"Well we saved each other's lives, didn't we?" he asked.

Rudolph nodded. "Yes we did, friends."

"My name is Tony," he said, before shaking Rudolph's hand.

Rudolph turned to me, held out his hand and smiled. "And you are?"

"I'm Rhea," I answered, giving it a firm shake.

"Come on, let's play!" Tony excitedly got to his feet and Rudolph followed suit before they both started jumping up and down on the blimp.

"My best friend's a vampire!" he yelled

"Yeah!" Rudolph yelled back.

I giggled at them and laid back, crossing my arms under my head and looking up at the night sky. It made me glad that Tony finally found a friend his age considering most of the kids in his grade were so awful to him. The thought alone made me grit my teeth together and clench one of my fists.

"Rhea, are you alright?" I looked over to see Rudolph staring at me with a concerned look on his face.

"Peachy fucking keen," I lied, giving him a thumbs up. "Why do you ask?"

"You seem rather...tense and distraught. You kind of remind me of my older brother whenever he gets angry, which is quite often."

"He probably wouldn't like me very much then," I replied coolly, getting to my feet.

Rudolph chuckled. "Quite the opposite actually, I think he'd fancy you."

Rudolph, if you only knew…..

I decided to change the subject by looking down at my watch, almost giving myself a goddamn heart attack right after I did so. It currently read 11:40, which meant Uncle Bob and Aunt Dottie would be home in the next twenty minutes.

"Oh my God, we're gonna get killed!" I exclaimed. "Aunt Dottie and Uncle Bob are gonna be home in twenty minutes! We have to get back, like NOW!"

"Oh no, how do we get down from here?!" Tony urgently asked Rudolph.

"We'll fly," he said nonchalantly.

Tony looked at me and then looked down. "But we can't fly."

"I got the two of you up here, didn't I?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Then stay calm, friend." He stood up and looked at us. "Alright, let's fly." He stuck out his hand.

"Oh, I have a bad feeling about this," I said anxiously as I looked down, it finally dawned on me how dangerously high up we were.

"As long as I'm holding onto you two, you're fine," Rudolph assured us. "Trust me."

I took his hand and Tony did the same as he slowly flew upward. We were in the air in seconds and Tony and I cried out in delight.

"Wow, it's great to be a vampire!" Tony said ecstatically.

"Membership does have its privileges," Rudolph agreed.

"Look! My mom and dad went to a party there," he pointed out as we flew by McAshton's place. "Vampires are different than I thought they'd be."

"Father's seen to that, we're family not fiends," he stated. "That's why we only try to drink cow's blood.

"But I thought vampires only drank human blood?"

"They do," I deadpanned. "But they don't want to be hunted down and go into hiding all the time and they definitely don't want to feed on the one thing they're trying to become."

"Exactly," Rudolph said.

"Do you see what color that car is?" Tony asked, looking down on a car that was speeding down the highway.

"Green. Man and woman inside. Man talking very loudly and waving his hands-"

"Shit, that's them! They're almost home!" I began panicking. "If we don't get there before them we may as well call the local morgue and start planning our funerals!"


Thank God Rudolph was able to get us there just as the Rover pulled into the driveway. We landed on Tony's balcony.

"Just get under the covers to hide your clothes and take your glasses off!" I told Tony, before turning to Rudolph. "You, hide!"

Both nodded their heads and Tony took off his glasses and climbed into bed while Rudolph made his way up the wall and hid in the far corner. Taking a deep breath, I ran out of the room - making sure to close Tony's door behind me - and into my room. Kicking my slippers off, I turned off the lights, got under the covers and shut my eyes just as the front door opened and closed.

I heard my door open a few minutes later and felt Aunt Dottie kiss my cheek and whisper, "See? She's finally getting some sleep. I told you it wouldn't be long before she adjusted to this new environment."

"Good, let's hope it stays that way. The last thing we need is her waking up in the middle of the night screaming too," Uncle Bob said.

They left the room and shortly after I heard their bedroom door close, I yanked the covers off me and tiptoed to Tony's room and quietly knocked on the door. "Tony, it's me."

He let me in and I saw Rudolph walk over to the window and then turned to us. "I haven't had so much fun with anyone my own age since I really was nine. Thank you, both of you." He pulled the curtain back then stopped dead in his tracks when he heard Rookery's truck passing by.

"If you need a place to crash you're more than welcome to stay here," I proposed.

"Maybe I should." He nodded in agreement and walked away from the window.

"Do vampires really sleep in coffins, because that's gonna be a problem," Tony pointed out.

"Just as long as the sun can't find me."

"Alright, I think that's my cue to go to bed. Goodnight boys." I left the room and climbed back into my own bed and shut my eyes. Maybe living in Scotland wouldn't be so bad after all.


A/N: And that concludes the first chapter! I hope you all enjoyed it and don't forget to favorite, follow and drop a review! Rhea's outfits, tattoos, and what her room looks like will be on my fashmates page (starfire-tamaran).