Stitched Up Hearts (Alucard X Fem! reader)

What The Night Will Bring

The castle still feels dead. Even though its occupants are alive, it seems much more drab than it once did. The walls seem to close in on me, cold stone pressed against my skin until I can't breathe. To stay here is to suffocate, to leave would be to bleed.

So I leave the castle walls. I seek sanctuary in the green and brown hues of the forest, cloaking myself in the smell of dirt and sap. And I listen. I listen because that is what I am good at, and I watch because I am good at that too. My steps are silent, a smooth cadence to my gate as I wait for something to happen. I had left before lunch, and I didn't know where Alucard was, nor where Taka and Sumi were. Now more than ever it felt like my relationship with Alucard was becoming strained. Like a stick between a dog's teeth, waiting to be snapped.

Something was going to happen. I could feel it in my chest, in that part of me that had been buried so long and grown tired with disuse. My days in Targoviste were long over, but I was never fully able to tamper those instincts. That nagging feeling, telling me to run. Run far away and never look back until you feel safe. But I could not do that here, not anymore. I wasn't some homeless street girl who slept where she found comfortable and ate what she could find. I was a wife now, and I belonged to this castle. I could not run. So instead, I tried to quiet that voice inside. I told myself it was nothing, that I was simply not used to being around new people. I lied to myself, and I moved on.

A flash of red brown fur in the gaps between trees. Above that, a set of small antlers. A roe deer, and a big one too. Hunting animals is far easier than men, as it would turn out. They are quicker to run, yes, but they are not as strong, they do not yell as loudly when I bury my knife in their throat. Deer are simple, even a buck like this one. They know that they are prey, or at least if they were sentient enough to, they'd know. They exist to be eaten by that which is faster, stronger, and hungrier.

The buck runs, but I am faster. He struggles, but I am stronger. His blood spills, warm into my hand, my hardened claws cutting through flesh as if it was cream. How long has it been since I tasted blood? Any blood, not just of a man but an animal even. What a far cry from the girl I was when Alucard met me. It was like we were different people back then. Adrian, and Y/N. that was all we were. Not dhampir, no husband and wife. While I loved him, loved the title and sanctity of our marriage, I sometimes wished I could go back to those days. We were more free, then. Free to talk, to run, to do whatever we wanted, and go where we pleased. Things were easier back then, just me and Adrian, and his parents. Now his mother was dead, and his father too. And we were the only ones left that knew the castle as what it once was.

The deer weighs heavily on my shoulders as I slog it back to the castle, dumping into the kitchen where I will skin and clean it later. For now, the castle was still suffocating, more than ever. A fog hung over the place, a taut string just waiting for a blade to snap it. So I avoid the castle again, and head back to the woods. Taka and Sumi walk through the trees. Neither of them can tell I follow closely behind, watching and listening. You give them more reason not to trust you, stalking them like this. I tell myself. Conflict shoots through my body like lightning. Do, or do not. A fork in the road, and I must make a choice. Listen, just for a moment longer.

"We should do something for them." Sumi suggests, looking down at Taka as he examines some stray daffodils. They wanted to do something for us? What could they have to offer, when they were so penurious themselves?

"Can it be after I've had a nap?" Taka asks, plucking a white puffy flower from its stem with an imperceptibly quiet snap. "I've read so much my brain hurts."

"So lazy." Sumi tuts, rolling her eyes. The two of them start to walk again. Their accents are so pleasant to the ear. So unfamiliar, but not strange. I was beginning to grow more and more used to the slant of their vowels, the curve of their consonance.

"I'm not lazy. I just conserve my energy for important efforts."

"Like eating?"

"God, did we miss lunch?" Taka looks like he just remembered how hungry he is. He really does act just like a dog. "Maybe Y/N will make us lunch again. It was so good last time. And dinner."

Stop following them and just talk to them. I cursed myself. Perhaps if I gave them a chance, if I silenced that voice telling me to run, I would see in them what Alucard saw. "You want me to make you dinner, do you?" I muse out loud, walking out from a tree behind them. "I suppose if you ask nicely, I could consider." I had never spoken to them on my own before. I was always accompanied by my husband. He was a buffer between us. The stone hearth that separated the fire from everything else. Now it was just me, and them alone.

The both of them jump at the sound of my voice, and Sumi is the first to turn around. "Y/N?" she asks, startled by my sudden presence. "Have you been following us?"

"No." The lie falls through my lips with practiced ease. "I was just sitting up in that tree having a little nap, and happened to hear you two pass me by." I look at the two of them, observe their features. Give me a sign. I plead, silently.

"Oh." Taka nods dumbly. "So, what's for dinner then?"

"Venison."

"You killed a deer?" Sumi asks with wide eyes. In her time here we had eaten only fish, bread and veggies. Never real meat.

"It is not so hard. Come, I will make you all some tea." it was my olive branch, extended and waiting for them to accept my peace offering.

"Tea sounds nice." Sumi says slowly, looking into my eyes. I do not know what she sees in them, and perhaps I do not want to. She is accepting my offer, Alucard's cold wife finally seeming to warm. Despite my instincts, I trust them. I tell myself to let go, to believe in humanity this time. I did not know what the night would bring. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Authors Note: yay! two updates in one day! finally on winter break, but with work and extra classwork, the torture never ends. It's been almost a year since I started this story so I'm hoping to finish it soon! Thank you all for reading my work, I appreciate all of you for reading, voting and commenting. Happy Christmas all, and I hope you all have a lovely holiday with friends and/or family. I'm hoping for a life sized cardboard cutout of RDJ to be under my tree this year to stand beside my Loki one, so cross your fingers for me.