I've only been playing Code: Realize for only about a week but I've already fallen ridiculously hard for the Van Helsing/Cardia pairing. After all, how could I possibly resist the story of a fearless, death-seeking vampire hunter who falls deeply in love with a mysterious but courageous and compassionate young woman he can never even kiss?

And with that said, after realizing how few (read: basically nil) fics there are about them, I decided to rectify the situation a bit. And thus, here begins yet another drabble series, soaked in both sentimentality and cynicism. I do hope any Code: Realize fans about enjoy this.

And please let me know if you're interested in collaborating/role-playing about this couple… or even simply chatting about them!

Saints and Sinners, Chapter 1

A Van Helsing/Cardia Story

There is no fool quite like an old fool, and van Helsing feels ancient all the time.

He's barely even passed the border of thirty and when he looks at his reflection in the mirror, the picture of youth gazes back at him, eyes narrowed in surprise. His face is still youthful enough, his skin unlined enough, that he hardly looks like a hardened warrior who could send men fleeing with a smile. And if one knew nothing of him, one might even consider him to be nearly fetching – the thin face, that golden hair, those sharp eyes.

In fact, there is nothing that makes him look a jot older than most of the new… companions he has recently acquired.

And yet, there can be nothing that ages a man more quickly than having blood on his hands.

And van Helsing has shed an ocean of blood already – an ocean in no way compensated by the medal he pins to his chest daily with a bow and a mocking smile.

He is an old man, no matter what his face might say – and he knows death stalks him all the time.

Van Helsing knows that just as keenly as he knows that his burdens belong to himself alone, and that dragging an innocent into his life would be a cruelty that even he cannot abide.

He knows that he deserves nothing but the death that is due to him – that he deserves whatever bloody end that will occur eventually.

His whole life has been a blur of blood and bullet-holes - that is his fate and his right.

Only.

Only…

Only… everything has changed ever since he met Cardia and realized he wasn't quite ready to die.

There truly is no fool like an old fool.

And the oldest fool of all is the one who allows himself to fall in love when he knows that there is no chance of any reconciliation, reciprocation, or even respite.