Stitched Up Hearts (Alucard X Fem! reader)

Aftermath

There is an aching kind of quietness that follows grief in this castle. Never had my grief and my sorrow been loud. How could one grieve loudly? Crying, wailing, gnashing of teeth, and pounding of fists in misery did not suit me or my husband. Instead, it is a quiet creature, timid and weak. It is a brewing storm cloud of bitterness, seeping into my skin and gripping me like a cold hand on my heart, telling me I deserved this. Deserved this pain, and the scars that linger on our skin like a righteous consequence of our trust. The torment boiled inside of me, seething and festering like an infection just beneath the skin.

Even as we left their bodies, bleeding and bent on sticks outside of our palace, we were silent. It was a warning sign, loud and clear to all who passed that this was not an inviting home. Danger. We were not hosts, we were vampires, and this was our castle. Every day I saw them, skin pale and necks split open, bent at that ugly deathly angle. They would start to smell soon, flies buzzing around their open wounds. Even animals were afraid to come too close to the castle, not even wild dogs came to pick at their bodies. They were an example now, of what happens to humans who harm us.

I am angry, just as equally as I am sad. Angry with Sumi and Taka, for betraying us and refusing our kindness. Angry at all humans, for being such ugly creatures, so worthy of the hate that churns in my heart. Angry with Alucard, for allowing them into our home and our lives despite my protests. Angry with myself, for shoving down the instincts that had served me so well in years past. Angry with the world and whatever god sat in heaven for causing the man I loved to become more and more every day the thing I so desperately never wished him to become; more like me.

In my grief, I turn away from him. There is a stranger to my rejection, to turning away from someone whom I so desperately wish to comfort and to be comforted by. I keep my promise, to pull the knife from his back. When he cries, I wipe the salty tears from his cheeks and give him what mere words of comfort I can conjure. When he is in pain I dress his wounds.

"I... am so sorry," he whispers as he cries, his body curled in on itself like a dying creature. I know he is sorry, for so many things. yet I cannot hear myself telling him I forgive him. I do not- I cannot-forgive him quite yet. Not when my wounds still sting so fresh. When he finishes, I find myself scampering away from him like a street cat. I cannot bear the way I see my reflection in his eyes, cannot stand to see the wounds on his body that mimicked my own.

"I know."

I do not speak to him beyond these moments of comfort. When he draws near I step away, when his hand reaches for me I retreat. I can tell that this hurts him as well, but there is too much anger and grief filling my body that I cannot change. How could he trust them? Two strangers, two humans, more than his wife? That felt like another betrayal itself. Humans, at least, I could hate for betraying me. I could damn them to every hell I wished and curse their kind and their family. I could despise them for being so exactly as I thought they were. But I could not hate Alucard. I had tried, when I first met him I had tried to hate his golden hair and fox eyes, I had tried to hate his beautiful voice and the way he called my name. I had tried to hate his tenderness and his cleverness, but I could not. I loved him, more than myself and more than anyone or anything that had ever existed or ever would exist on this cursed planet. This betrayal of his was only another sign that he was exactly what Sypha had said: A human in his own right. I am not human, nor have I ever been.

"I am sorry." He tries to tell me again, as I lie on the roof of one of the towers, high above the ground. I know that I can levitate, but something about being so high still feels free. I could fall at any moment, make a wrong move, or turn over too harshly and plummet to the ground, allowing myself to become a splash of red and a pile of bones and mush. Part of me likes that idea, and sometimes perhaps I fantasize too easily about stepping off the tower and letting the wind rush through my hair as I fall.

"I know you are," I tell him again, not bothering to look at him because I know my heart will sink when I see the disappointment and hurt etched into his features. Still, I cannot say that I forgive him, or that I am sorry as well. Stubborn as a mule, I push him away with my pride.

I began trying to find my comfort in the woods. In the grass and the river and the animals that called it their home. Alucard did not typically follow me there. I watch the fish swimming along against the flowing river, the squirrels that scamper along tree branches, and the wild birds that fly through the air. I feel a strange sense of unease in the shadows and twists of the forest, one that I had not felt before. I knew these woods well and knew the way through and out of them, but still, I felt like a stranger.

As I look past a clump of trees there is a small bit of clearing. On the ground, a lifeless shape of limbs and fur. As I draw closer I see that it is a wolf. Blood is crusted over parts of its fur, though I can smell the freshness of its death. When I touch its wound the blood is cold, but the body holds some warmth in it, though it's stiff as wood. It would not have been long ago that it died. Its wounds look as if it was gored by an elk or a deer, their antlers stabbing it in the gut and ripping its flesh apart. The prey became the killer and the killer became the killed.