[She eases into him, tucking her face against his neck, resting heavy on his shoulder. Something like this is always a little touchy with Alucard, being as sensitive as he is about his fangs, but it's so often her instinct, too — to tuck in and bury her face in the bend where neck meets shoulder, to listen to the sound of his pulse beating and warm herself in the heat that radiates off his skin.]

Then I want your stories.

[It's quiet, but she stays back just far enough that she's not forced to mumble the words on account of how she's pressed against him. They're soft, and low, but not muddled.]

All of them. Every one of them. I want you to give them to me, to keep and to hold, and when you run out of your own stories I want you to make up others, and still tell them to me. I want you to sit up late with me, night after night, telling them like Scheherazade until we both fall asleep. I want to memorize the sound of your voice in every language you know. I want to be your Speaker. To speak for Trevor Belmont.

[She breathes in slow, shaky. She lets the same breath out again, warm and humid against his neck.]

I want you to replace in me what you take from me. Will you do even that?