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It's not the skirt, Alucard decides, which is the problem. It's roomy enough to give his legs room, even when walking. It's the fact that Sypha is--was previously, before her pregnancy--thinner than him, which makes the clingy chest area of her old dresses less forgiving. He'd thought it would work out anyway, since he wouldn't need to worry about sleeves. Now, standing before Sypha as she holds back laughter behind one hand, he's wondering if he shouldn't have just put on some of his dirty clothing instead.
"Trevor's doing laundry," he explains.
Sypha does laugh then, loud, snorting sounds which bring a smile to Alucard's face as well.
"I-it's okay," she says between gasps, "I can't wear them right now anyway so-"
Seeing her face flush and listening to her joy filling the crisp fall air reminds him just how much he enjoys the company he has now. Far warmer than the echoing emptiness of the previous year.
He remembers the dampening silence, weighted as a tomb. Remembers how even when he would speak, it would be swallowed up. Something about him became diminished; He was fading away, into less and less of himself, and every day had been exactly the same as the one before. He'd tried to hard to numb himself to the pain that he'd become nothing but a shade.
"Alucard?"
He blinks, finding Sypha has extracted a whole arm from the blanket wrapped around her in order to reach out and hold his hand.
"Doing alright?"
He swallows, feeling off balance still, but, "Better."
Sypha nods, tugging him to sit next to her and blessedly ignores his little lapse into the past.
"I won't begrudge you the use of my clothing. Since..." She huffs another little laugh and unwraps her large blanket just enough for Alucard to see what she's wearing. "Do you recognize this?"
He does. It's his nightshirt, one of the larger, loose-fitting white ones with adjustable ties at the neckline. Alucard flushes at the way her pregnant curves fill out his clothes, but has to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
"How did we end up swapping?" he asks, feeling a smile come back to his lips. Sypha laughs with him, pulling the blanket tight again and snuggling to his side.
Wrapping an arm around her, Alucard relaxes. More than anything in the past couple years of his life, he's glad for the people he's come to love. People he can sit with, side-by-side in each other's arms, watching as the sun peaks over the trees to herald a new day.