Stitched Up Hearts (Alucard X Fem! reader)

Mentally Ill Hoarders

My shoulder still hurts, though the pain has numbed down to a dull ache. I whine into the fabric of Alucard's shirt. It smells like him, like honeysuckle, vanilla, and old leather bound books. "I'll be more prepared next time." I mumble into his chest.

"I'm sure you will, love." Alucard teases. "Perhaps next time, you won't rip your dress to shreds either. I think it's been a while since Belmont has seen a woman so exposed."

I open one eye, scanning the skirt of my dress which is now ripped right above my knee, and torn so there is a slit going up my thigh where I'd fumbled for my ax. "Oh, I liked this dress." I put a little, closing my eyes. "You can put me down now Alucard, I can walk." I assure him.

He sets me down gently, inspecting my shoulder as we walk. "You should consider yourself lucky you have such a strong healing ability, those injuries would have been enough to permanently scare a human. But for you, the burning should clear up in a week or so."

I spotted the rubble of what used to be the Belmont estate first. It was in far worse shape than I thought, years of disuse allowing nature to invade the pillaged home. It was nearly unrecognizable as the grand piece of architecture it had once been. Black vines and flowers surrounded the area, latching onto pillars and crawling up them in curls and loops, filling cracks and whatever else they could leech onto. The destruction of the house was beautiful somehow, as if giving testament to what the place represented, once a long time ago. Belmont seemed sad to see his old home in shambles, to watch the place he grew up become nothing but a pile of rocks. I wanted to be able to sympathize, though the feeling was unfamiliar to me.

"This was your home?" Sypha asks, looking around at the expanse of wreckage once we've all gotten "inside."

"Yeah." Belmont nods, clearly not keen on being back in a place with so many memories, after such a long time. I wonder how long it had been since he was evicted from the home he knew, left without a family.

"You grew up here?"

"Yeah." Belmont keeps his responses to one syllable.

"I can't imagine what it was like to grow up in a single place." Sypha inspects the old stair railing, trying to imagine what a childhood in one stationary place would be, and coming up empty handed.

"It was fine. Wasn't the worst way to grow up." I find myself becoming more jealous of Belmont the more I see of his home. Jealous that he got to grow up in a house like this, surrounded by ages of family history and knowledge. He knew exactly who he was, his name, his family and what came before him. He could trace his family line back for centuries, know their names, faces and deeds. I had none of that, I knew nothing of my family.

"How old were you when your family home was taken?" Alucard asks. He's always been curious, for as long as I've known him. He always wanted to know more, if he could, even if it's about the only remaining Belmont.

"Thirteen, fourteen, something like that." Belmont shrugs, as if that sort of information is unimportant. I try to deduce whether or not he's only playing at the fact he doesn't remember, so he doesn't have to think back on the past too long, or if he truly doesn't remember when he was set on this path.

"You've been on your own since you were fourteen?" Sypha asks, and I can hear the pity in her voice.

"Maybe twelve. Who remembers that sort of thing?"

"I do." I say quietly, not meaning for anyone to hear me, as I'm facing away from them and inspecting a broken portrait on what I assume was a wall many years ago. They do hear me though, and I can sense Sypha and Belmonts eyes shifting toward me, questions running through their heads. "I'm sorry you lost your family Belmont. Even if you are insufferable, nobody deserves to be on their own, at any age."