#alucarddear: saving souls

[alucarddear]

Ideas fluff scenario of s/o helping an insomniac Alucard (also maybe retain his personality in S4E1) to sleep.

Saving Souls*

Each time he has an episode, you wonder if you can love all the pain away, if one day it will be enough.

[Alucard x You] Combining two related requests in one: nightmare and insomnia. I got quite a lot of sleep-related requests from you guys. I hope you're all sleeping well lol, I certainly am not.

P.S. it’s a bit sad though—not exactly fluffy, but full of love all the same. *CW for panic attack.

Alucard may have survived all the trials and tribulations that the cruel Gods had sent his way, but he certainly hadn’t made it out unscathed.

To this day, sleep comes to him rarely. Whenever it does, he is able to have a peaceful rest in your arms, but there are times when that peace is disturbed and his elusive sleep is accompanied by unpleasant dreams.

And now, it is happening again. He is writhing in bed, his forehead glossy with cold sweat. His tossing and turning even woke you up from your own slumber. Tonight, it seems, will be yet another one of those nightmare-induced sleepless nights.

You sigh, feeling sorry for the dhampir. If not for you being in his life, you are quite sure he would have long ago shut himself in his coffin, forced to a dreamless sleep for hundreds of years.

You watch your lover's brows knit, grumbling and twitching in his sleep. About to wake him, you stop for a moment to reconsider. He hasn't had a good sleep in at least three days. Will this one come to pass?

It doesn't, and he makes a noise, a whimper, so disturbing it couldn't have come from anything but a distressing dream.

“Adrian,” you shake him gently, thinking it best to wake him. “Love, wake up.”

He startles, sitting up with a choked-up gasp. His eyes are cloudy, almost incognisant. Immediately, he begins feeling around him, searching for something. Searching for you, you realise.

You sigh, reaching out to grasp him gently on his arms. “Adrian, it’s me,” you tell him. “It’s okay.”

He looks at you—through you—panting, eyes wide, moisture gathering in them. The sight of him stills your heart.

As soon as he sees you though, he’s gathering you in his arms, tears falling. “I—I…”

“It’s alright, Adrian. It’s fine. It’s fine. You’re okay,” you tell him over and over like a mantra, pacifying him with each stroke of your hand on his hair and each kiss upon his face.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he chokes out suddenly, sobbing into your bosom, grasping you tightly against him. “You—I thought I’d…!”

Oh, my love.

“I’m okay, I am fine,” you try to soothe him, voice soft and calm, mollifying his worries. You lift his chin up, meeting his blurred gaze. “I’m right here, you see? Just breathe for me, please, Adrian. Deep breaths.”

He nods vigorously, trembling in your arms, regulating his breathing, just the way you’d taught him before. “You are. You are,” he repeats to himself, a shaky sigh of relief escaping his lungs.

“But—I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I thought I’d killed you. I can’t feel my limbs. I thought I’d…” He rambles, breaths coming out of him in a ragged manner. “I choked you. Darling, I watched you die!” His voice breaks. “I did it myself. Instead of my father, I—”

With a firmer, sterner voice, you tell him, “It wasn’t real. Alright? Let’s breathe again. Please, Adrian.”

It’s not real. It’s not real. It will never be real, you repeat to yourself even as goosebumps littered your skin.

Adrian, still shaky from his disturbing nightmare, has trouble coping with his hyperventilation. You notice him slipping away, his eyes hazy. There, but not really there.

You grasp him by his shoulders then, giving him a firm shake, hoping it grounds him, keeps him sane. “You would never hurt me. You could never do that to me, my love. Look, just look how much you’re quivering just from the thought.”

He crushes you against him, nodding, holding onto you, pulling you closer as if you were going to disappear on him.

Inhale…. exhale.

Inhale…. exhale.

Inhale…. exhale.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” your voice cracks despite your attempt to subdue yourself. “I’m so sorry, Adrian.”

I wish I could do something. I wish I could make it go away. I would take your horrors away, dream your nightmares for you, trade our dreams to give you peaceful sleep, Hypnos be damned.

It is always difficult to see him this way. For him to think, even just subconsciously, of himself as such a monster so as to hurt his beloved… it tears you apart. It makes you angry.

He’s never truly completely forgiven himself for his patricide. It was a necessary evil, he’d told you once. Yet how it shattered his heart. How it continues to do so now. How the act of it still seeps into everything, tarring it all black. All that is left of him.

Each time he has an episode, you wonder if you can love all the pain away. If one day it will be enough. If only saving souls could be as easy as it is to love Adrian.

And you love him, Gods, you do—you love him just as he is. Lonely as he is. Broken as he is. Afraid as he is. Hopeful as he is. The beautiful and kind and gentle, still hurting soul that he is.

Just as he is, and all that he will be.

“I would never hurt you,” he tells you then, promises you—promises himself—eyes boring into your very soul and breaking your reverie. “I love you,” he whispers, leaning closer, forehead pressing against yours, calmer, better. “You are the one I love the most. I could never lose you.”

It will never come true. It will never come true.

“I know, I know. I love you too,” you tell him, hot tears falling onto his lap. “I will always love you.”

And I will always be here.

His breathing’s less erratic now. “Better?” you ask him after a moment, cupping his face into your warm hands.

“Yes. Yes, my angel,” he whispers, a reassuring smile on his face, wiping the moisture away from your cheeks. “Thank you. Thank you for being here.”

“Always.”

You cry in each other’s arms.

Sometimes, it’s all you could do, and tonight, you realise that that’s okay.