No harm done. [ Well, maybe a little harm done. But not the kind he'd ever complain about. He kisses Alucard. They're close enough now that he barely has to move to do it. ] You forced John-fucking-Damien to show his hand early. He could still be trying to fuck things up in secret if it hadn't happened. He might have become competent, given a few extra months. It'd be terrifying.

[ And he chuckles. ]

They're really not. It was back in the aftermath of that whole silver dust thing, when I needed to make plans to keep the peace if the next attempt was successful. And I did. I had all of these plans for what to do if you weren't here. But none of them were good enough. Even when I get accounted for everything. Even when they were perfect. They weren't good enough.

And I figured out what they were missing, in the end. It was that I'd never scheduled when we'd go to pick up groceries. Like there's no point in having a city with markets and shops if I can't go to buy awful fucking bread from them with you.