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When Alucard first steps through the broken halls of his father’s castle, he sees few rooms in the house unravaged by battle, and even fewer unoccupied by ghosts. He runs careful fingers across the splintered banisters and the flayed tapestries, cataloging the damage. He drifts through the room like a ghost himself, and the glory and glamor of the rooms—the silk sheets, the gold filigree, the artful piles of treasures and trophies—are only a painful reminder of what he has lost, and who he has killed.
He doesn't dare step foot into the lord's suite.
He knows he should start the repairs, but there is so much damage, and he is bone-achingly tired. Another year's worth of sleep doesn't seem like enough to wipe the bruises from beneath his eyes and on his heart.
Still, before he can sleep, he has one last set of creatures to save. Alucard knows his father kept a few hundred beats in the castle as an emergency blood supply, but he doubts the food stores for those animals are well-stocked. His father had clearly been planning for a swift and brutal extermination, and Alucard thinks it unlikely that Dracula would have accounted for many long-term logistics.
He walks mechanically to the animal cages adjacent to the castle's dungeons and herds the trapped, terrified animals out into forests surrounding the Belmont Estate. As the last boar toddles shakily onto the grass, he glances up at the full moon settling huge and heavy beneath the treeline. The pale light catches the early-morning dew and the round eyes of the deer lingering, wary, at the edge of the ruined estate. Each breath is icy in his lungs, and his red-rimmed eyes still ache from crying. He's so tired that simply standing upright seems as insurmountable a task as— as—
He turns back inside.
The only bedroom on the ground floor is small and blessedly sparse, housing a single dresser, a washing basin, and a stuffed straw mattress in the back left corner. Oddly, it smells more human than vampire, although a faint trace of blood lingers near the basin. Without even the energy to wonder at the paradox of a human servant in his father's stronghold, Alucard falls to his knees on the mattress, lays down atop the neatly pressed sheets, and sleeps.
And sleeps.
And sleeps.
The first time he wakes, he blinks blearily at an unfamiliar ceiling until his memories come rushing back. The room has no windows, and he has no sense of time. The castle, even broken as it is, works to preserve the timeless peace of its rooms. He thinks he can feel its ancient magic reaching out to cradle him with what small comforts it can offer. At the back of his mind, he knows he has something to do, some promise he has made. It's important. He chokes at the thought of going back through the castle. Besides, hasn't he kept enough promises for one lifetime? Hasn't he given enough of himself to this dark and insatiable world? It can let him sleep for just awhile longer. He closes his eyes against the deluge of grief and pain and plunges back into the safety of slumber.
The second times he wakes, he is not the one crying, and the room is not peaceful.
"Alucard!" He knows that voice. He knows the hands gripping his shirt with surprising strength. "Alucard, please! Alucard, wake up, damn you!"
He catches the hands in his shirt with his own and breathes in the familiar smell of sweat and dust and desperation. "Sypha," he croaks, starting to open his eyes, "Sypha, stop. I'm awake."
She's almost nose to nose with him, her panicked breaths puffing across his face. He can just barely see Trevor over her autumn hair, looking more concerned than he was before the three of them first walked through the castle's entrance. Alucard's thoughts are scattered, out of time. He starts to sit up, only to catch the full weight of Sypha Belnades as she falls onto him him, letting go of his shirt only to pound against his chest.
"Damn you to hell, Alucard!" she shouts, words muffled. "Damn you straight to hell!"
He curls his arms around her instinctively as he sits up fully, and he looks over her head to Trevor for answers. Trevor, who has one knee on the mattress, another inch of bearded scruff, and looks something approaching clean. Instead of offering an answer, Trevor reaches one hand out to Sypha's back and one hand to Alucard's shoulder, sighing with relief. "Thank God," he says. "Not that God's done literally anything else for me, but thank God for this."
Alucard wants to say something witty, something about Trevor's faith or Alucard being a divine gift, but all he manages to say is, "You came back?"
Sypha sits up immediately, face filled with the fierce determination she uses when channeling her ice and fire. She's straddling his lap, hands still clenched into fists, and he can feel her legs shaking with emotional strain against his hips as she holds herself up. "Of course we came back," she says, tears at the corners of her eyes. "Of course we did."
Alucard coughs lightly to cover his relief, and Sypha suddenly seems to notice where she’s sitting. “Would you prefer to hold this reunion somewhere with chairs?” he asks, trying to alleviate the emotional tension blanketing the room.
“Oh!” Sypha says, fighting down a riotous blush as Trevor laughs behind her. “Yes, of course.”
Once Sypha manages to extricate herself from both Alucard and the mussed sheets, the three of them start making their way towards the heart of the castle. As they’re walking, Trevor catches Alucard more than once when he trips on a piece of debris. The third time it happens, Trevor doesn't let go.
"What's wrong with you?" he says, as blunt as ever. Sypha tosses a glare over her shoulder at him, and he rolls his eyes. "I mean, when we first found you, you woke up and were kicking ass in seconds. What's different now?"
"Maybe I was just as impaired then," Alucard snipes, "and that's the only reason you came close to defeating me."
"I didn't just come close—"
"Boys!" Sypha interrupts. "Am I herding men or am I herding cats? Alucard, where are we going?"
Alucard guides her through a few more hallways to the private sitting room, an area his father used to entertain high ranking officials of the night court. It's small, has a few couches, and he hasn't seen it since he was six or seven. He hopes it's a safe space for all of them. The walk alone was tiring, and as much as he's overjoyed to see his friends, a small and selfish part of him just wants to go back to sleep before they leave him again.
Trevor still hasn't let go of his left arm.
The sitting room is different from what he remembers; it looks like some of his father's generals had used it to pretend at playing war. There are maps of Wallachia hanging on the walls with red circles and x's and arrows pointing this way and that. As far as Alucard can tell, it has very little resemblance to what the night horde actually did. Even so, there are enough plush velvet couches and ornate, high-backed chairs to easily seat the three of them. Trevor drags Alucard into the closest settee and sits next to his left side, still holding his arm as if worried Alucard would fall over without him. Sypha sits across from the two of them in a massive armchair, her elbows stacked on her knees and her hands cupped beneath her chin. Alucard blinks at her.
"Alright, what is wrong with you?" she asks, the words bursting out of her. Alucard catches Trevor quirking an eyebrow at him, and he discretely elbows him in the stomach.
"Nothing," Alucard lies smoothly. "Just still a little tired. I'm only—"
"Thirsty," Trevor says, and both Sypha and Alucard look at him in shock. "That's it, isn't it? Last time you took a nap, you had those great vats of blood behind your coffin to keep you alive. This time you had only dust and straw."
"I am surprised you remember that," Sypha says, then grins, "especially considering how focused you were on Alucard's bare chest."
"For stabbing!" Trevor says, his ears dusting pink. "Besides, I'm right, aren't I?"
Alucard looks at them both, wary even through the fog blanketing his mind. The three of them hadn't discussed much of his physical vampire heritage beyond his ability to stay in the sunlight. He'd survived mostly on deer and the odd stray cow or pig in the ransacked towns they passed, and his two humans had seemed content to let the matter lie, content in their own bodily safety. For them to react with jokes about his physique, well. It is surprising, even after all this time. Surprising enough for him to tell the truth.
"Yes," he says, slowly. "I sustained a number of wounds in the fight with my father. My body did not have the reserves to heal itself fully, so I am... weakened. And I, ah. I may have let all of the kept animals loose in the forest."
Sypha huffs and throws her hands up. After a second’s thought, she starts, alarmingly, unbuttoning the hood of her travel cloak. "Men! Alright, well, fine. I, at least, am well-hydrated," she says, pulling her shirt away from her neck.
Alucard's mouth goes dry, his whole body betraying him in a rictus of need. He clamps his jaw shut and swallows hard, eyes locked on Sypha’s bare neck. To his left, he barely feels Trevor release his grip, only to throw his arm up in a bar across Alucard’s chest, bringing his other hand up to stop Sypha.
"Whoa, Sypha, hold up," Trevor says. The human half of Alucard's mind blesses the fear of the Belmont line, glad that Trevor at least has stayed sane since they parted ways. "I should be the one he drinks from. I'm used to almost bleeding out doing stupid shit, and I think a liter of blood from you is half your bodyweight."
"But—!"
"Plus," Trevor says, grudgingly, "I'm not sure I could pull him off of you, and I know you could fireball him off of me." His hand flexes on Alucard's knee, not so much to hold him back but rather to reassure him that his words, for once, aren't meant to anger.
Alucard scarcely notices, shocked out of his hunger into disbelief. His mind boggles at the idea of two human beings fighting over who gets to bleed out for him first. "You can't be serious," he says at last, when the others fail to change their minds.
"I can't let you— let me— I won't.” Alucard pauses for breath and to marshal his scattered thoughts. He has his mother’s heart beating in his chest; he can’t let her down. His hands clench into fists at his side, tendons taut as steel beams. “I won't become my father, wantonly bloodletting innocents."
"Look who you're calling innocent," Trevor grins, then jerks a thumb at Sypha. "Young Miss Belnades here has stories that'd give a whore a full-body blush."
"Alucard," Sypha says, not rising to the bait. She leans forward, intent, and her cloak falls to the floor around her feet in a soft blue puddle. "We're offering this to you. We failed you, when we left." Her breath hitches, and she re-centers herself with the strength of will he'd always admired. Intent, she'd said, when she moved the castle. Sypha's intent could move mountains. "We came back, and we won't fail you again. Let us do this for you."
Alucard, speechless, looks to Trevor for some semblance of sanity, but the proud last son of the Belmont family is undoing the red leather straps that connect to the guards on his shoulder and back, moving the collar of his shirt away. "Wait," Trevor says, and Alucard prays to the God who has never before answered his calls that Trevor has seen reason. "Does it have to be the neck? Can you do, say, a non-dominant arm?"
"Trevor!" Sypha shouts.
"I only have the one shirt, okay? And bloodstains are a bitch."
"It's a purely biological process, Belmont," Alucard manages with the ghost of his usual haughtiness. "An arm is fine."
"Great," Trevor says, just before twisting to the side and throwing his left arm under Alucard's nose. "Bon appetit."
Alucard breathes deep, and he thinks he can smell the beat of Trevor's blood as it rushes steadily through his veins. He reaches up, intending to shove the arm out of his face, but he ends up holding it a few inches from his mouth instead.
"You'll stop me," he says to them, instead of "You'll stop this".
His gaze flicks to Sypha as she smirks, summoning a small flame with a flick of her pointer and pinky fingers. "I'll stop you," she says.
Trevor chuckles, and the laugh travels all the way down his arm. "I'm not afraid of dying; I'm not afraid of pain; and I'm certainly not afraid of you, Adrien Alucard Tepes," Trevor says, infuriatingly smug, and Alucard can't help but sink his fangs into the network of blue veins mapped beneath his wrist.
He hears, "Oh, fuck", but he's lost in the rush of warm blood flooding his mouth, coating the back of his throat, hot and sweet on his tongue. He swallows once, twice, locking lips over the puncture wound and swallowing again, hard. His other hand reaches up to also grab Trevor's arm as he bites down a second time, reveling in the golden euphoria of healthy human blood. At the very edge of his mind, he registers a hand twisting, firmly but warningly, in the hair at the nape of his neck.
"Are you okay?" he hears, but the noise sounds like it's coming from underwater and far away. He feels Trevor respond more from the vibrations in his arm than any sounds hitting his eardrums. He presses his tongue to the second bite then curls his tongue around the wound, catching the stream of blood through long-repressed instinct. He'd almost forgotten what this felt like. No, he thinks, stars bursting across the backs of his eyelids. He had completely forgotten. How could he have forgotten this? Human blood like heavy, heady summer wine, running like life itself down his throat—
The hand in his hair twists again suddenly, and a brief gout of flame forces him out of his reverie. He gasps, chest heaving, and feels the red start to bleed from his eyes. Unthinkingly, he licks his lips, a few drops of blood sparking on his tongue. After another breath, Alucard comes back to himself. In his hands, Trevor's wrist is still bleeding profusely, four deep punctures to the left of the main tendon. In an instant, Sypha reaches over and, with another burst of flame, cauterizes the wounds. Horrified, Alucard turns wide eyes to Trevor, who has sagged down into the cushion of the settee, skin pale and slick with sweat. His right hand is still twisted in Alucard's hair.
"Trevor," Alucard says, slowly, carefully. His thoughts are already moving faster, his body waking up with every second that new blood is pouring through his system. "Trevor, say something. Please."
The hand in his hair tightens, just a bit, before Trevor disentangles his fingers and pats the back of his head, grinning. "Not even the worst you've done to me so far, pretty boy. Don't get your knickers in a twist."
Alucard’s eyes linger over the sweat on Trevor’s forehead, the darkened shadows beneath his eyes. His chest feels heavy with something like grief. “I should get you some water.”
Alucard moves to stand, but Sypha stops him with a look. With a flex of her fingers, she generates a pile of thin ice shards in a cupped hand. "Come on, you baby," she says, crouching in front of their couch to feed Trevor the ice chips one by one. "You swooned like blushing maiden; stop acting all tough. Where's that 'legendary Belmont stamina'?"
"Ask Alucard," Trevor groans. "He probably slurped it all up."
Alucard feels ice settle in his stomach as suddenly as if Sypha had summoned it there herself. "My apologies," he says, suddenly unable to move or look away from the raw red mess of Trevor’s wrist. "I should have been more controlled. I lost myself."
"Oh, shut it," Trevor says, his voice becoming syrupy and slow as his eyelids droop, even as Sypha tries to force more ice chips on him. "You didn't take anything more than I gave you. You don't get to add this to your growing guilt mountain of shit you couldn't fix."
Alucard blinks at him, even as Trevor's eyes close and his breathing settles into an even rhythm. "Was that...?"
"Emotional competence from Trevor Belmont, House of Belmont, last of his name?" Sypha smiles as she checks Trevor's pulse on his uninjured wrist, grabbing a throw pillow and trying to push Trevor's deadweight into a slightly more comfortable position. "Yes, I have been working on it. We're very proud."
Alucard watches her struggle to arrange Trevor's head, now snoring slightly, and then he reaches over to shift Trevor's upper body to lay against Alucard's shoulder. Alucard settles his left arm around Trevor's waist to keep him from sliding off the settee, Trevor's lank brown hair draping over his collar bones. When she raises an eyebrow, Alucard shrugs with his unburdened shoulder. "There's no way we'll be able to bend him into position on the couch," he says, tripping over his words a bit when she blushes at his phrasing. "And, ah. I'll be able to feel his heartbeat this way."
It is weaker than usual, soft and slow, but its rhythm is as steady as the man it beats for. The smooth cadence is a reassurance that he isn't full monster quite yet. Now that his thoughts aren't marching through thick fog, he notices some of the things he'd missed. Trevor's beard is thicker than the scruff he'd accumulated in their journeys, and Sypha's hair is curling sweetly over her ears and past the nape of her neck. The wounds they'd sustained at his father’s hands are mostly healed, and the claw marks on Sypha's right arm are only pale, shiny scars. Sypha watches him watch her, and sighs. She sits back on the edge of her armchair, scooting it as close as she can to her boys.
"It has been a month since we left," she says at last, guilt heavy in every trilling syllable. "I am so sorry, Alucard. We never should have left you here alone."
Her gaze unfocuses and drifts to some point over his shoulder and a world away. "When we got back, and we could not find you—well. I was panicking. We were making plans to go check your vault in Gresit when we finally found that little room, and then." She looks at her hands, her fine-fingered and devastating hands, as if they might hold the answers. "I thought we had killed you."
She looks up at him then, compassion and regret shining in her clear blue eyes. Tipping forward out of her chair, she goes to her knees before him, grabbing at his one free hand. "We are not leaving again," she says, as if her words could make it so. For Sypha Belnades, they probably can. "Not unless we take you with us."
He presses her hand with his own. He wants to tell her not to worry, or at least to save her promises, but more than that, he wants to be selfish. He's taken what Trevor gave; he can take this, too. "Thank you, for coming back," he says.
She smiles up at him, bright and grateful. "It was Trevor, if you can believe it. He made up some story about hating having no one to take the third watch, but, well. He knows something about being the last son of a long line, and he knows what grief can do to a person. I had no idea, but he was right. And," she says, eyes sparkling, "we both missed you something awful."
Against his shoulder, Trevor huffs in his sleep, as perfectly timed as if he'd been awake. Alucard tightens his arm reflexively around Trevor's waist and glances back at Sypha, who's staring at Trevor's sleep-slackened face with a fond, besotted little smile. He had begun to suspect, but, "Sypha, are you two...?"
Sypha doesn't jump, just laughs a little into her free hand. "Oh, yes," she says. "Often and well. He might not seem it, but Trevor is a quick learner."
Alucard looks down at their twined hands, suddenly unsure. He loosens his grip and opens his hand, but Sypha only clamps down harder, bringing her other hand to catch his. He can feel her fingers folded into the valley of his palm's life and fate lines, firm and sure. "Sypha, you shouldn't—"
"I am a grown woman and can do what I please," she says, smug, and when he looks up he sees that the fondness hasn't diminished in her smile. "I have been teaching Trevor both emotional competence and honesty, Alucard, and do you know what he has told me? What I have told him? We both want you, Alucard."
Alucard's breath catches, and his throat feels drier than it was when he first woke up. Accepting their kindness alone had felt like more than he had deserved, and to take yet more seems the worst kind of greed. He knows the prophecy's story, the happy marriage they should have. The children, many and happy and deadly, that they should cherish. How can he take that from them?
"Is that why you came back?" Alucard regrets asking immediately, but he has to know.
Sypha squeezes his hand as if the question itself pains her. "No, that’s not why," she says, voice clear and honest. "We came back because we wanted to make sure you were alright. Anything beyond that would be simply an added benefit."
When he doesn't say anything more, her smile turns understanding, and she moves to stand. He marvels that, even standing, she's only slightly taller than he is on the couch. She doesn't loosen her grip, just holds their arms like a bridge between them. "There is no need for you to give an answer now," she says, a wellspring of compassion in her voice that almost hurts him to hear. "We are not leaving you behind no matter what your answer is, be it 'yes', or 'no', or nothing. We want you in our lives any way we can get you."
Can he take one more thing? Can he bear the weight of having something to lose once more? But Sypha is smiling down at him with her kind eyes and her kind smile, and he can't help but gently pull on their linked hands, the bridge between their hearts. She puts one knee between his legs on the couch, careful not to jostle Trevor, and he leans up to kiss her. She moves one of her hands to cup the back of his head, an echo of Trevor earlier, and she tilts his head to kiss him fiercely. Her lips are chapped and her tongue is quick, swiping across his lips before moving back, just a little. She knocks their foreheads together, smiling as they breathe each others' air, and Alucard, at last, cannot help but smile back. She shifts her weight to her right and presses a kiss to the top of Trevor's sweat-soaked hair.
"Perfect," she says, back to sounding smug and self-righteous. Despite her brisk tone, Alucard can see a faint rosy blush across her cheekbones and down her neck that makes him grin. "Alright, we are leaving. You need some air and a few weeks away from this castle, and Trevor needs to sleep. We can come back when you're ready, and only when you are ready. No sane person would dare approach the castle, and clearly has not yet, so we have a bit of time before we need to worry about looters. Which way to the entrance, Alucard?"
Trevor is a dense, six-foot block of muscle mass, but with vampiric strength Alucard easily folds him into his arms. Sypha laughs about him carrying Trevor bridal-style across thresholds as he leads her to the foyer. They pick their way through the salt-crusted carpets and molded statues of the entranceway, the smell of saltwater still lingering. Beyond the castle gates and the crumbled masonry of the Belmont estate, the two-horse wagon is exactly where she left it. The horses glance up from where they've been tied up to graze, unharmed and unconcerned. The wagon itself has a few sacks of supplies stashed at the front of the cart, but the back half is empty but for a few thick furs covering the bare wood. Alucard lays Trevor down atop the waiting furs, pausing to tuck a loose piece of hair back behind Trevor’s ears as he does. At the motion, Trevor's eyes blink open, slow as warm molasses, and his face shifts into a sheepish grin as he glances between Sypha and Alucard.
"He said yes?" Trevor asks, and Sypha huffs in frustration.
"He has said nothing yet, and we are not going to pressure him, you great lug."
Alucard leans back down over Trevor, pressing his lips gently to Trevor's smile and stroking a thumb across' Trevor's stubbled cheek. "I said yes," he says when he pulls back, leaving his hand tucked in the hollow of Trevor’s jaw.
Trevor takes a deep breath, genuine relief and joy stealing across his face, then he covers it with a slight grimace.
"You know, this would be a lot hotter if I didn't think I could taste my own blood in your mouth," he says, and Alucard can't help but burst into laughter, burying his face in Trevor's chest and shaking as first Trevor, then Sypha, wrap their arms around him and welcome him home.
"Come here, you half vampire bastard," Trevor whispers into his ear, pulling him inexorably up and into the cart. "We've been waiting long enough."
There's hardly room for three people, but they make it work. Alucard lays down to sleep in the arms of the people he loves most, and—this time—knows he'll wake up come the morning.