Stitched Up Hearts (Alucard X Fem! reader)

Forever is A Long Time

"Do you think things will always be like this?" Adrian's buttery voice reaches me across the thick warmth of the fireplace. It is autumn now, and the warm breeze that once danced through Adrian's hair has turned cold. Rain dripped from the heavens far more frequently now too. Now the weather always reminded me of Adrian, and I was fond of that notion. More and more things reminded me of that boy, that boy who was more and more shifting into the shape of a man as months passed us by. In the city, the rain washed everything away. It turned the streets slick and wiped away evidence of sin and misfortune. Then the city would dry, and the slate would be dirtied again. Now the rain made me think only of the day that I had sparred with Adrian in the woods, when he had held my hand only because he wanted to. How silly, to do something just because you felt like it. I was glad he did, though.

"Like what?" I asked, looking up from my book, still lazing beside the warmth of the fire. Dracula had once told me I was foolish to go so near something that could kill me. I supposed it was the human part of me that was drawn to something I should fear. But everyone in the city used fire, how was I supposed to know it was a vampiric weapon? There is no proper guide on how to be a dhampir, on what abilities you do or do not have. I had to learn it all on my own.

"Me, and you. And my mother and father. And the castle. All of us, together here. Do you think it will be like that forever?" Adrian's slender fingers twirl over my own, feeling the shape of each one as he sits with his head on my lap, his long legs draped over the chaise lounge.

"Forever is quite a long time, Adrian. Especially for us. Humans' lives are so short compared to ours... cities could rise and fall within our lifetimes. We may even live to watch the world go up in flames." I muse, wondering how long a life for a half vampire is. Dracula, I know, is hundreds, if not thousands of years old. He has seen civilization advance, he has watched countless human lives pass him by, and he lives still. From the way I understood it, vampires were virtually immortal. Unless they are killed skillfully, they may live forever. Clans like the Belmonts seek to make sure that is not so, that they kill the undead. "I don't know what the future holds, especially in a time as long as ours. Anything could happen."

"But whatever happens, do you think you will still be here? With me by your side?"

"Would you still have me?" The question feels like fog over the room. It was the thing I'd been wondering about for a long time. People grew, and changed, and vampires had a long time to do so. Would we still be suited to each other ten years from now? Twenty? Even a hundred?

Perhaps the answer didn't matter. I would be happy, even if he cast me aside tomorrow, that I had gotten to spend a brief, shining chapter here. That was what mattered, I think. That I would be happy with whatever period of time I could spend with him, because it had made everything else worth it. He was the sun, and I was a flower, eternally shifting my face to view him that much better. And when the sun went down, I would keep my head facing the sky remembering the way its warmth felt.

"I would."

"Forever?" I asked again. I wanted to cement his answer into my brain, so that it would live there eternally with me. So that I could remind myself, if he ever changed his mind, that he had once wanted to be with me forever.

"As long as forever is for us." He promised.

"What do you think it will be like, ten years from now? Will we still pass time the way we always do, you think?" I asked, setting down my book and turning my attention to making small braids in Adrian's silky hair. It was growing back even more from where he had chopped it, and I liked seeing it so long.

"Perhaps. Or maybe we'll be the ones inventing things, and writing the books instead of just reading them." Adrian mused, leaning into my touch with a gentle smile.

"What ever would we have to write books about that hasn't already been written?" I laughed slightly, weaving his hair piece over piece, watching the soft braid take shape.

"Perhaps we could write a Dhampir guidebook." he smiles wryly, showing off those sharp, elegant fangs. A reminder he was like me. A monster. Inhuman. Somehow, even though his skin was cold, he never seemed it. To me, he always radiated light, as if he was a painting of christ. It must be his mothers influence that made him so humane. That kept him from the darkness that shrouded his father and I. They were golden, and human, and kind. Shining examples of what humanity should be. We were not. For all of Dracula's immense power, he was still no more than a moth drawn to the flame of his shining wife. I was the same with their son. And that itself, is the most human thing either of us could do. Repeat history, walk the same path that others had before us, as if we had not been alive long enough to know where it would lead. Yet, history is a book that can still be written by its subjects, its ending forever changing, uncertain of where it will end.

"Do you think anyone will need that but us?"

"I'm not sure. There may be others, someday in the future. Perhaps there are others now that we do not know."

"I like to think we are unique." I hoped there were none like us. Not because I wanted us to be different, not really. Because I could not bear the thought that there might be someone like me wandering the world, wondering why god cursed her to be so unlike the rest of his subjects. Questioning why her life must turn out this way, that she could not have been one or the other. Alone. Always, alone.

"But to be unique is lonely." Adrian always had a way of saying exactly what I was thinking.

"Then it is a good thing neither of us are as unique as we thought."

"You once told me not to expect anything of you. That you were... not going to live up to whatever expectations I had of you." Adrian reminds me of that night in the kitchen. Of our first meeting.

"I didn't want you to get your hopes up." I tried to explain myself, to defend that scared girl, who reacted with coldness and violence. "You seemed so... hopeful. If I was going to disappoint you I wanted to do it early on."

"You have never disappointed me, Y/N. Every day I continue to find new things about you that amaze me. So, I suppose you were wrong. You far outshine any expectations I might have had of you." he looks up at me, caramel fox eyes looking into my own, cold skin against cold skin.

"You are the one who shines, Adrian."

Then, his lips were on mine again, and the world seemed less cruel than it had before. How could a cruel world give me something so beautiful? How could he glow so brightly, if the world was truly as dark as I thought?