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Warning(s): T, some suggestiveness
He looked at her the way Greeks did their philosophy: beauty was terrifying. When his mother had first read the phrase in some old tome that smelled like cobwebs and warmth and old parchment, he had looked at her quizzically, not understanding. Mama, why was beauty terrifying? He didn’t understand and had forgotten about it. Once, he’d asked his father, but all the old Count could explain was that it spoke of being in love and what it could do to people, its beauty, and what one would do to keep it. And still, he didn’t understand. Lisa had laughed because he was too young. He laughed, too, and Dracula smiled in amusement.
Alucard was much older now, and he understood. His father had killed for love, for Lisa’s beauty beyond the physical. He saw how terrifying it became.
Across the fire where they’d sought shelter from the winter interlude, again he understood—another chapter. Beauty was terrifying. Beauty was a kind smile and gentle, sky-blue eyes and hair like maize or pale gold. Eyes that drank in books more voraciously than blood, that stood before nightly terrors and declared, I’m not afraid!
He couldn’t stare for too long at the Speaker, Sypha animated as she spoke with such a mesmerizing candor that he soaked it in like sunlight. But, this couldn’t be love. Not when the sole thing louder than her bewitching conversation was the pulsations, the beat of her heart that rattled the very air and agonized him in temptation. Blood his fangs lengthened yearningly for, wanted red and livid.
That wasn’t love. That was bloodlust. The yearning of a beast.
Brows furrowing, Alucard numbly excused himself for a moment as an reason to recoup; a piss-poor excuse. Claiming to be patrolling the perimeter of their camp when it was needless due to his extrasensory perception that could sense anything that stepped within a ways of its borders. But, it was time distracted, watching as people sleepily submitted themselves to their tents until Sypha was the last one left.
Somehow, there was a God he’d have to thank for that.
“Oh, Adrian, I was wondering where you went off to,” the scholar greeted sleepily as she brought her knees to her chest, opening a wing of her heavy blanket invitingly to share in her warmth. As always, he was too much a fool to think of refusing. Not when it gave some paltry excuse to be close. “The night’s so beautiful, isn’t it? The others are right; maybe I am risking a cold, but it’s almost too beautiful for me to care.”
Did she realize her own wonderment was far more beautiful than the sky could ever be?
“Yes, it is.” His eyes were nowhere near the stars. “Perhaps you should heed their words. I can keep watch, Sypha.”
The blonde snorted openly at that. “Are you kidding? After they made us dinner and let us stay in their encampment? No, kindness has to be repaid with kindness. Besides, isn’t the view a bit of a bonus?”
He wanted to agree, but when Sypha scooted marginally closer he could feel warmth creeping along his sides, the nape of his neck, like he’d been burned by the loveliest fire. Her fire. “I— Surely their kindness must extend to me as well,” he protested, but it was weak. Empty words and emptier wants when her sweet scent was so intoxicating he wanted to drink her in like water. Like a man crawling on the desert sands and finally able to slake his thirst after so long.
“Sorry, Adrian, but you’re outvoted here. It’s the view and their kindness versus…well, that kindness applying to you only. I’m afraid it’s majority rules,” Sypha reasoned with a short laugh, certain as not to awaken the others. She wrapped her arms around her knees again, seemingly oblivious to Alucard’s incremental closeness.
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” He perked up at this, genuinely interested. “The stars are so far away and cold… And it’s winter here. It’s cold here, too. Do you wonder if one of those stars is a place like this with people gathered around somewhere warm? Do you think they look at us and wonder what we’re doing?”
“They might. It’s hardly implausible to wonder,” Alucard answered neutrally even though his heart warmed tenderly. She bore so much of the same intelligence his mother had. It made him ache and yearn all at once despite being barely millimeters apart. “Although, I doubt those people could fathom someone such as yourself. You’re one of a kind, Sypha.”
Sypha blushed; he could feel it with wan, secret delight. “I hope you mean that in a good way,” she teased placidly. There was no offense in her voice, just a genuine wonder.
“Why wouldn’t I? Do I have reason to lie?” He could see flashes of her neck. Flashes like dreams. Bathing still in her warmth.
Sypha’s brows furrowed, smiling wryly at him. “I should hope not, I—”
The scholar never had the chance to finish as Alucard suddenly craned downwards to gently capture her lips in a kiss. There was nothing overbearing or forceful about it, just a shy passion that bubbled to the surface. Against her own awareness, coming as easily as instinct, she leaned into it while Alucard hummed warmly. A hand touched her waist, holding by the small of her back while she leaned into him without even thinking twice. Her hand curled into a fist by the lapel of his jacket, pausing once to catch a breath while she felt the prominent well of an eviscerating loneliness and despair and grief well profoundly in him.
With a gasp did they part, Sypha breathing hard and staring at the dhampir in mute shock. It felt accusing, even if it wasn’t, Alucard swallowing down a breath and just as shocked as she at what he’d done almost subconsciously.
“Adrian—”
Wordlessly, guilt opening a black hole in his heart, he sat up quickly and fled the incriminating scene in ground-eating strides, not giving time for the blonde to digest what had just happened between them.
A week passed, maybe more. She hadn’t seen Alucard since that incident, even Trevor wondering where he’d gone. Not in Castle Dracula, the Hold’s library, or anywhere else she could think of. Not the places she thought, and even exploring that treacherous palace yielded little. Guilt wracked her heart and her mind, spiraling into confusion she hid behind a studious and chipper exterior even Trevor hadn’t caught on to. That…kiss, it was just a fluke, right? Maybe he’d mistaken her, or—God, she didn’t know. All she did was she’d returned it, Something she shouldn’t have done, especially considering it was just an accident, right?
“Look, Adrian, next time you fuck off for a week could you at least tell either one of us? Throw a brick through a window or something,” came Trevor’s familiar, exasperated grouse. It was the voice she heard that caused her to internally retreat.
“You seem to forget I am in no need of permission for affairs that concern me. In any case, I was investigating something at Styria’s borders. A lead to find Carmilla.”
“Ugh, whatever. Do what you want,” Trevor murmured dismissively before espying Sypha, feeling her nerves constrict her throat as he clapped her on the back and smiled crookedly. “Ah, the voice of reason. Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”
Sypha smiled half-heartedly. “Ah, yes. I certainly can try, Trevor…” Though, her voice tapered off, leaving an enormous gulf only she and Alucard occupied. Almost ready to flee again, she instead steeled herself. “Adrian, may I speak with you?”
When she stood face to face with him, it was being struck by lightning. That same, lonely gaze that thawed from behind his frigid exterior caught her off guard, made her resolve nomadic. Still, she couldn’t run away. Not now. She’d fought hordes of evil, for the love of God! “…I needed to apologize. For what happened last week. I cannot know what brought it on, but—I did wrong by prolonging it. And for that, I’m sorry.”
If that was true, then why didn’t it feel like a fluke? Like something lighthearted and funny between friends? Why did it feel like someone had dumped lead in her heart and left it there to hang and tear? She felt a hot sting in the corners of her eyes, averting them from that honeyed gaze of the dhampir she knew could strip her to the bone if it wanted. Where were the gamey jokes, the teeming laughter at an understanding of that kiss’ nature?
Alucard watched as Sypha crumpled into herself, murmuring another apology as she mistook his silence for mortification.
Wait. No, I wanted to kiss you. I want to, please. Don’t feel this way.
But, he couldn’t bring himself to say it. Instead, Sypha’s retreating back was all that filled his vision, that crippling hunger and the sickly sweet yearning for her that boiled with the sting of self-admonishment: how could he be such a colossal fool? Ground-eating strides followed her in hot pursuit. “Sypha, wait!” he barked after her, catching her by the bicep as the blonde sagged and he thought he heard her choke on a sob. “I wanted that. I wanted you.”
At that, Sypha whirled around, flushed and sobbing messily. “I’m not a little girl, Adrian! You don’t have to indulge this foolishness. Not even for me!” She shook back a sob, voice cracking. Why was she so heartbroken by this?
Not another word could be spoken as Alucard suddenly framed her face with his hands and brought her lips to his own, this time no passion disguised, unbridled and roiling. Sypha was stock still in shock before she found herself succumbing to the kiss, those hands replaced around her waist and back, bringing her flush against his form while breathing became a forgotten practice as he kissed her woes away, even if new ones took their place.
“Sypha, I know what I want. And it isn’t to reject you. No…I want you.” There was a marked vulnerability in his voice, so rushed into the present that she saw how it evaporated the chilly exterior of control he wore like a mantle.
It wasn’t enough. Not when hers was a dam near overflowing. “Adrian, why—I, I don’t understand!” Was what it that made her heart hot and cold all at once, reveling in the kiss while despairing in it in one breath?
A heart blind to the love it was in.
“Sypha, you know me. I do not act upon capricious whim. Especially not in affairs of the heart. …The kiss, I don’t know how else to say that I’ve fallen in love with you. What else would you have me do?”
“What would you have me do, Adrian?!” Sypha demanded brokenly as she extricated herself from his arms, cheeks still awash in tears. “Do you…see yourself? Know what other people see? There’s a sadness in you and it’s so deep I feel as though it could swallow me whole! I saw it in you, and in your father when we defeated him. And if I became to you what Lisa was to Dracula, what would that mean if I died? If something happens to me? We haven’t seen the full extent of your power and I’m afraid of what you could unleash if it came to that! What…horrors could be done all for the sake of revenge! Adrian, I don’t want to be the thing that makes you into a monster!”
Sypha sniffed and calmed herself somewhat, eyes shining as she gazed on him, imploring, stricken. “I saw what he was capable of. How could it be any less true of you, dhampir or not?”
That stunned him into a silence unprecedented. He remembered overhearing snippets of her conversations with Trevor shortly after they’d discovered the Hold, of the bottomless despair and mourning prominent in his character like a black hole that swallowed every good thing it touched. How it was different from Trevor’s, fathomless. Though he couldn’t say a word in reply, rendered speechless by such an astute and eviscerating observation, he gathered one of her hands to place a tender kiss upon. He wished she’d say something else, a clear cut distinction. Anything but this grimness.
Sypha shivered, but not unpleasantly. “Adrian…don’t let me become your weakness. Don’t let me become the reason you’d lose your humanity. Even if our enemies used me against you, please—promise me.”
“Never. I promise.” he swore in a harsh, adoring whisper, imploring and clinging to her every word. So much fear and longing in his gaze, so contradictory, even as Sypha bumped their brows together that he leaned tenderly into.
Saying nothing more, he wrapped his arms around her, Sypha surrendering to his embrasure.
They needed time after that, to simply process everything that had been said, this tumultuous proclamation of love. Now, for the first time in ages, he understood what all the love poets meant by love that was never easy, filled with strife and sorrow for every moment of happiness and beauty. It truly was agonizing, wasn’t it?
He was alone in one of the Hold’s many alcoves, perfect for a solitary reader such as himself, before Sypha found him in their shared silence. It was an uncanny thing that made his heart throb adoringly.
Wordlessly, she curled into his side and he gladly made room for the small woman, struck by how petite she was when the blonde nestled into his flank and wound an arm over his middle and buried her face into his chest. Surely, she heard the way his heart beat a little louder, apparent by the way he felt the weight of her head against his chest. His lips grazed the crown of her head and he gladly held her where she lay, breathing in her sweet scent.
This was the weight of the war they’d waged, he realized. She was only human. And sometimes, she didn’t want to have to be strong and invulnerable, but small and pliant and held.
“…I’m sorry about what I said earlier. It wasn’t right for me to compare you to your father. You’re nothing like him, Adrian.”
It had hurt, it was true. But considering how he feared his own nature like a reaper, such sentiments were unavoidable. “It’s only rational to at least wonder after such a thing, Sypha. In fact, I forgive you totally. Considering all we’ve been through, I can hardly blame even an impasse.”
Sypha sat up some, lower lip worrying. “You can’t just let me off the hook like that! I understand, maybe some of him is in you. It is! It’s inevitable, but—you don’t use what he’s given you to the ends he went, to the means to an end that he tried!” She deflated considerably, sighing deeply. “I know you. You’re not like that.”
He didn’t know what to say to that other than she was right. How his very alias was an axiom, a reminder of what he’d always be: the exact opposite of what his father had been. Even so, a relationship between them wasn’t guaranteed to be easy. Not when there was so much opposition ahead, not when there were enemies stacked against them still. Those vampire generals alone commanded legions, and those loyal would thirst for vengeance.
A soft sound of disquiet was uttered when he felt Sypha try and maneuver him into her arms, something he submitted gladly to. He nuzzled into her bosom and sighed contentedly when he pressed his cheek against her heart, against her softness while her arms cradled him near. It was a tender moment, one that made him shudder before melting into a warm haze.
“Adrian?” she asked after a long moment. “Can you promise me something else?” Sypha paused for a beat, one gold eye cracked lazily open that met hers. “I want to be your strength. I don’t want to be the reason for your weakness in any capacity. Can we try and do that, please?” Her voice was thick with sentiment, something that made her throat bob with it.
Though, his eyes sank closed again, nestling anew into her embrace.
“Yes,” he murmured drowsily, “I promise.”