Being that Alucard felt he had a certain image to uphold, he had a difficult time admitting that he was even capable of harboring complicated feelings. But now, almost a century later — while he felt he had grown as a person — you had been a constant. He could never forget you, no matter how much he aged. You from back then, with your voice like honey and your eyes like moonlight when they landed on him. You were sweet and seemed like you could never do any wrong. You four — Sypha and Trevor included — were just a band of idiots on a mission back then. You, who he didn’t think twice about marrying when Trevor so arrogantly helped him discern what that squeezing feeling was. You, who he had laid with for days on end when you passed due to pneumonia that he failed to cure, crying like he had faucets behind his eyes.

You, his old lover, who stood in front of him now, next to Richter Belmont, as he introduced you as Tera’s old friend, a parasol above your head to shield from the burn of the sun and your canines and ears both sharp with familiarity only he knew. His everything, who caught his eye and stared like you knew something he didn’t. Like you enjoyed watching his mind run in circles while he tried to pretend he didnt know you were his dead lover.

It was later, in a cemetery not far from the innards of the little Parisian town, that he cornered you. Alucard’s heart squeezed when he spoke, confused and torn by the way your face mirrored his love’s, from the crinkle in your nose to the flexing of your fingers when you stood idly.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, coming off as more of a puppy with flattened ears than a dhampir who was centuries old. “How are you here?”