[ Everything is so, so distant. Everything is always distant. If it weren't for his enhanced senses there would be nothing at all.
Footsteps. The scraping of a chair. ]
Well. Fancy seeing you down here.
[ It's muffled. But then the temperature and humidity changes that tiniest little bit. The coffin's lid has been opened. The next time the voice speaks, it's clearer. ]
It's been a while since I came to visit you. I'm sorry. I've been- away from home.
[ The smell of blood. Clotted and masked by the smell of disinfectant and clean linen. Dressings changed within the last few hours. Fingers brush over Alucard's cheek, through his hair, curling a lock of it around a little finger. A laugh. Warm. Tired. So very, very tired. ]
Look at you, all whole again. The speakers looked over you while I was away, you know. It's safe to release the spell now.
[ The smells, all of them - the clotted blood and the clean linen and the disinfectant and the damp leaves and dirt under fingernails and candied hazelnuts and nothing else for whatever meal was last and wet dogs and dry dogs - all of them draw closer. There's warmth, a weight above Alucard. And as lips brush against his, everything is perfectly clear. The magic's hold loosens, begins to release him.
And then, the clearer things go, the clearer one more smell becomes. Fainter, hidden in among all the others. It's sweet in a more sinister way than the candied nuts, the horrible cloying sweetness of rot. It's there, mixed in with the blood. He could map out every capillary in her body by the smell of it alone, follow its spread. Follow it to the brain, too firmly rooted there to be moved.
The answer, the horrible answer, almost comes to him. But the body protects the mind, and the spell fortifies the body. The smells vanish. The voices vanish. The last sensation is the lips leaving his, and then there is nothing.
By the time sound returns, the voices are different. The same accents on different people. The smells of different dogs. Nobody lifts the coffin's lid. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Footsteps. The scraping of a chair. ]
Well. Fancy seeing you down here.
[ It's muffled. But then the temperature and humidity changes that tiniest little bit. The coffin's lid has been opened. The next time the voice speaks, it's clearer. ]
It's been a while since I came to visit you. I'm sorry. I've been- away from home.
[ The smell of blood. Clotted and masked by the smell of disinfectant and clean linen. Dressings changed within the last few hours. Fingers brush over Alucard's cheek, through his hair, curling a lock of it around a little finger. A laugh. Warm. Tired. So very, very tired. ]
Look at you, all whole again. The speakers looked over you while I was away, you know. It's safe to release the spell now.
[ The smells, all of them - the clotted blood and the clean linen and the disinfectant and the damp leaves and dirt under fingernails and candied hazelnuts and nothing else for whatever meal was last and wet dogs and dry dogs - all of them draw closer. There's warmth, a weight above Alucard. And as lips brush against his, everything is perfectly clear. The magic's hold loosens, begins to release him.
And then, the clearer things go, the clearer one more smell becomes. Fainter, hidden in among all the others. It's sweet in a more sinister way than the candied nuts, the horrible cloying sweetness of rot. It's there, mixed in with the blood. He could map out every capillary in her body by the smell of it alone, follow its spread. Follow it to the brain, too firmly rooted there to be moved.
The answer, the horrible answer, almost comes to him. But the body protects the mind, and the spell fortifies the body. The smells vanish. The voices vanish. The last sensation is the lips leaving his, and then there is nothing.
By the time sound returns, the voices are different. The same accents on different people. The smells of different dogs. Nobody lifts the coffin's lid. ]