Chapter Text
It takes them a year to realize they’re fucked.
But first, victory.
It’s Belmont, surprisingly, who reaches out and takes Alucard’s hand.
The light of Sypha’s fires is reflected on her face, her soft hands outstretched. Ash, Alucard’s father’s ashes swirling about her. So Trevor takes his hand, orders him to release the bedpost and leads him from the bedroom of his childhood.
He isn’t gentle with Alucard, using more force than is strictly necessary to pull him forward and when he draws even with Belmont, a rough hand between his shoulder blades to propel him but this too is a mercy. Belmont being gentle with him would be forced, unnatural.
The leave the room and follow the corridor down until they come to a nook untouched by the fighting and Alucard can no longer hear the crackle of fire over the roaring in his ears. Belmont shoves him against the wall, orders him to sit. He collapses against it, undignified in his grief and Trevor slides down the wall beside him, a mere inch of space between them, close enough to touch. He buries that impulse and cradles his face in his hands.
Alucard breathes. It’s unnecessary.
He does it anyway.
Trevor quietly, slowly shifts until he’s pressed against Alucard’s side, a long line of heat and pressure grounding him.
He loses track of time, focusing on Trevor’s breathing beside him.
He can feel the moment Trevor drifts off beside him. Feels his head drift sideways until it is resting on his shoulder. There’s a wheeze in Belmonts breath that corresponds to the ribs his father broke and he should get up. Find Sypha, have her heal Belmont’s ribs, start piecing himself back together from the shattered remains of Adrien Tepes.
Instead, selfishly, he allows the enemy of his people to nap on his shoulder, and drifts.
When he stirs, it’s false dawn and the world is colourless. Sypha found them sometime in the night and is propped against the wall opposite, dozing.
She’s bandaged the claw marks on her arm, washed the dirt and soot from her face. The tattered remains of her robe is tucked behind his head, and she’s shivering in her undershirt.
That more than anything finally compels him to move.
His mother would have scolded him for leaving guests to sleep on the floor. His father would have laughed, until he realized that one of them was a Belmont. Neither bears thinking about right now.
He pulls away from Trevor carefully so he doesn’t wake, and wraps Sypha in her robes before he summons his sword with a thought.
Surely there is still something in this castle that he can kill.
Sypha and Belmont find him on the top of the highest tower, shortly after color has came back into the world, brought by the rising sun. It’s not quite over the horizon and he’s facing the stained glass, treated by his father so the sun cannot harm them. He’s thinking of hurling himself through that window.
Weakened as he is by the fight, the dawn and the fall would finish him.
He would ask how they found him but he’s left a trail of carnage through the castle wide enough that a blind man could follow, his fathers monsters, a handful of vampires left by the nobility, torn apart.
Trevor’s breathing is less labored, but he can still scent blood on both of them, his father’s mixed with their own, hours old, dried and tacky on the air. He refuses to look at them, to confirm what he already knows, that they live and breathe and share none of his anguish.
Trevor stands back, allowing Sypha to close on where he stands, panting, covered in blood that is mostly not his own. She rests a hand on his shoulder, more a gesture of acknowledgement than support.
“Better violence than grief.” Alucard says, not turning his head. He’s afraid of what he’ll see if he looks at her now.
She makes a soft noise, low in her throat, pained, and wraps her arms around him from behind. He can hear Trevor close on them but the hand on his shoulder is still a surprise.
They greet the dawn like that; standing tall, together, bloody and tired but so alive.
Alucard understands then, that this is how he would spend all his days, if given the choice. He’s not so foolish as to express the sentiment aloud.
When the sun is fully over the horizon, Trevor’s stomach grumbles, breaking the moment. Sypha shoves him off, ordering him to find food, and Alucard finally stirs, his mother’s lessons on hospitality too engrained to ignore, the sudden fearful knowledge of their mortality too much to dismiss.
He left them vulnerable in his father’s home, asleep, to vent his grief. Alucard knows the monsters that stalk these halls, knows that would have no problem devouring any prey foolish enough to leave itself unguarded. He had no thought of them too full of hate and grief and abruptly understands his father a little better.
He leads them to the kitchens, with only a handful of skirmishes in between, all monsters easily dispatched and shows Trevor the pantry, before collapsing at the broad wooden table. Sypha slumps beside him, pulling her robe over her head to use as a pillow and shield from the light, and is softly snoring within minutes.
This is familiar after a mere week of traveling with them. Trevor makes breakfast while Alucard and Sypha fumble through the morning, snapping at the world until he presses camp mugs of coffee into their hands, a kettle of the stuff left over the fire to acquire the sort of strength that would kill a demon.
(And had on their third day of travel when they were ambushed and Sypha had unthinkingly yielded the kettle as a bludgeon. The mournful noise she had made when she realized that the coffee was ruined had Trevor in hysterics until her second swing nearly took his head off.)
They’ve subsisted on hardtack, jerky, and coffee the past week, taking what supplies the people of Gresit and the Speakers could spare, moving too quickly to hunt or trade for supplies. Still the noise Trevor makes at seeing his father's full pantry is obscene.
But then Alucard has never known hunger until this week, shielded from the world as he was by his parents wealth, and the nature of his body.
Trevor leaves the coffee for last in deference to Sypha’s slumber, boiling water, toasting bread, frying ham and eggs, juggling the lot with easy movements. He adds the grinds from a packet retrieved from his pack and wafts the scent to her with an amused grin, planting a mug beside her head. She lifts her head groggily, eyes closed through sipping the first half of the cup, while Trevor hands Alucard a mug of his own, then heads back to the fire to plate the food, pour the coffee into a carafe, and finds silverware in the drawers. She’s almost conscious by the time he hauls it all back to them, and Alucard’s sense of unreality has faded, replaced by the warmth of the coffee.
They eat in silence that does not feel strained.
Trevor is no great cook but the food is warm and unburnt, filling after the last week.
When they’re done, Alucard rises automatically to deal with the dishes, a compromise agreed upon when his companions realized that he’d never cooked before, but Sypha catches his arm and he allows her to pull him back to the bench.
“We need a plan,” She says, “and now is the best time for it.”
Trevor after a moment of studying Sypha, starts another pot of coffee.
“The castle is going to be a problem.” He says when he’s refilled the carafe and their mugs. “As is the library. The castle will need to be cleared and moved if you know how to Alucard? Someplace out of reach of those who would use it. And we’ll need a way to seal the library against the weather and attacks.”
“I know how to move the castle.” The words stick in his throat but- “My father used to let me make a game of it.”
Sypha nods, leaning into a hand. “I can make a temporary shield for the library, keep it safe until we’ve dealt with the castle.”
“There’s a way of shifting the castle outside of reality. It would put it beyond the reach of anyone who wished to use it. I want it forgotten, the knowledge lost, my father’s armies scattered.” Alucard says, finally angry the way he’d been expecting since his father died.
“That can be done from outside the castle?” she asks, eyes lighting up with curiosity.
“There’s a way to leave after it’s done. The passage closes behind the person who moved it and won’t open to anybody but family.” He hesitates and adds, “Everything currently in the castle would be sealed in.”
“We should still clear it before we tuck it away.” Trevor says, surprisingly. When Alucard eyes him, he expands exasperated, “It’s your inheritance Alucard. Just because you don’t want it now doesn’t mean you never will.”
He nearly loses his temper then, almost demands to know what Trevor knows of loss, how it feels to be the sole survivor of his family, before the image of the empty library rises in his mind. He swallows those bitter words and nods sharply, too angry to speak.
Sypha must see some of that in his face, as she volunteers Belmont to retrieve their gear from the library, and sets Alucard to the dishes. “I’ll set the shield when you return but for now none of us should be alone in the castle.”
“And outside is fine?” Trevor asks.
“It’s daylight and there’s a door that leads directly to the courtyard here. Are you telling me the legendary Belmont heir is afraid to be alone?”
He scoffs at her but yields.
Sypha watches him go and asks, “Are you well, Alucard?”
“No.” He says tightly.
“We don’t expect you to be.” She tells him quietly.
Trevor returns with their packs and Sypha ventures into sunlight to seal the library. When she returns, they pack their gear into the servants quarters, warded so that no monster can reach them, empty since Alucard left his parents behind to see the world, and his mother ordered his father to travel.
By mutual agreement they press into the castle afterwards, fighting creatures weakened by the sunlight. They fall into battle seamlessly, Trevor calling their attacks and formation, Alucard going over the top, Sypha guarding their backs, drawing her magic into forms that shake the walls and crush their enemies. They distract and protect to her heavy hitter, as easy as a dance they’ve done a thousand times. They don’t falter, don’t get in each other’s way. Battling alongside them feels like coming home.
Ironic, given the setting.
They move quickly the castle already partially empty from the creatures the fled after Dracula’s death, and his army left behind is Bralia. They seal rooms behind them with a touch of Sypha’s magic. Its tedious work, made better by the company and the way Belmont and Sypha quibble over how many monsters they’ve killed, each claiming more absurd numbers by the hour.
When the sun starts to set they return to the kitchens through servants passages, trapping the doors behind them. Alucard was raised with human servants, tempted by the wages his mother offered and a promise that their quarters would be shielded from everything inhuman. Now it means that they have a safe place to retreat to bruised and weary but in better spirits than they started the day.
Sypha makes dinner as Alucard and Trevor wipe down their weapons, Alucard pulling a sharpening stone from his pack. He loses himself in the mindless task until Sypha calls for help in setting the table and they pile onto dinner like locusts, starving.
She made them stew, hearty and spicy, served with hunks of steaming bread, and a pat of butter on the side.
They’re still mostly silent, the enormity of what they’ve done beginning to crash down on them.
Alucard does the dishes, and shows them the washroom where they marvel over the combination of magic and science that supplies a steady flow of hot water. They make Belmont go first, tripping him into the water, soaking him from head to toe. He comes up spluttering, spitting curses, and Alucard laughs a rusty thing, sharp and painful but real.
When they’re all clean, they move an extra mattress into the largest room, the seneschal’s quarters and take out the bed frame settling the two mattresses side by side on the floor.
There is no question of them separating, so they collapse into bed, three in a row, Sypha in the middle.
They’re asleep within minutes.