Archive of Our Own ^beta

It took them six days to realise.

Six days in their worn and beaten old wagon, feeling each stone and hole in the road jar their bruised and aching bodies. Six days on the endless winding road, too tired and disillusioned to approach a new town lest Lindenfeld’s rot dog their heels and destroy it too.

They camped off the road under the waxed and badly patched canvas of the wagon, eating small, spare meals of bread and the watery soup Trevor could cobble together with a few soft vegetables and a lot of salt. Sypha always extinguished the fire soon after they ate, even though she complained heartily of the cold. Trevor could see from the sleepless shadows under her eyes that her complaints were mostly for his benefit. If she had her way, she’d say nothing at all. He couldn’t blame her for trying to keep up appearances.

Lindenfeld had been a senseless massacre. The Judge had been another beast altogether. Trevor knew Sypha still couldn’t reconcile it all to herself yet, but he could. People were shit. The only reason he was still fighting for them was because they had coin and beer wasn’t free. But Sypha, she still trusted there was some goodness in people. Lindenfeld had eroded some of that boundless optimism, and for that Trevor wanted the entire fucking village to burn twice.

It poured rain on the sixth day; hissing, torrential rain that slammed into the woods around them like it wanted to drill straight down to hell itself. In desperation, they’d pulled the wagon under the boughs of an enormous old beech tree, simply to spare the horses and themselves. Sheltering inside the wagon, throwing up any non-essential barriers they could at each end, Trevor found himself hating the miserable week they’d spent squeezing out for themselves. It was too much of his life before. Before he began again using the name of his house, of showing his crest. Before he’d met a tired rabble of trapped Speakers and de-petrified a young woman who threw up at his feet.

This wasn’t Trevor’s life anymore. It sure as hell wasn’t Sypha’s.

“I don’t know where we’re going,” Sypha admitted, hours later as the torrent began to ease. Her knees were tucked up almost to her chin. The oil lantern they’d lit picked out the shine of scar tissue on her bare shoulder. “No villages, no towns, no fun—Trevor, I miss our fun. Where are the ice-breathing trolls, the flower-vomiting cyclopses? This is a curse, it feels like a curse when I know we did nothing to bring that calamity upon Lindenfeld. We did everything we could.” Arms squeezing around her legs, Sypha grit her teeth. Tears sparkled in the corners of her eyes, furiously held in. “We killed Dracula, but one demon with a couple of stupid monks almost had us. I feel like we lost, Trevor.”

“Ah. Well, I did say welcome to my life: where everyone disappoints you and the weather is often terrible. Enjoy your stay.” Self-deprecating humour in the middle of a big rainstorm felt somehow fitting after the absolute kick to the collective balls they’d taken. As usual, Sypha didn’t appreciate it. Stretching his legs out beside her, he tipped his head back and felt his skull thud against the wagon’s frame. “It’s just some bad weather. A run of bad luck. Where did all that optimism go?”

“I left it in the Judge’s trophy room.” Ice-cold fingers skated across his thigh and found his own. “I liked him, Trevor. I mourned him. He killed children. Not even for magic or orders or—or food! Just for fun! The demons were better than him. At least they had a greater purpose. There was an honesty to their brutality.”

Trevor blinked. “Are we changing sides? Because I have a huge list of barkeeps I would like to go back and happily slaughter, plus a few random townspeople, overly pious bystanders and even a few nobles I’d very much like to hang by their ankles over a latrine of some description. Say the word, Sypha. I am ready to bring the pain at a moment’s notice.”

“Shut up, Trevor. Stop trying to make me laugh.”

“Why would I do that? You have a terrible laugh. Sort of like a donkey trying to fornicate with an, honestly, very shapely church bell.” Sypha snorted a little, then used the hem of her blue outer robe to wipe her nose.

“This sounds like the voice of experience to me. Where did you even try to put it?”

“Sometimes a little friction is its own reward. Now shut up, I’m trying to turn us evil.”

“What would Alucard say?” Sypha said teasingly, and in a single moment of clarity, they both straightened. “Oh.”

“Oh,” Trevor echoed, because while Sypha was an optimist and he was a pessimist, sometimes they were simply two idiots sheltering from a storm in a piece of shit wagon with no edible supplies. “Do you think he’d want to see us? It’s only been…”

“Two months and one week, give or take.” At his askance look, Sypha smiled. “I haven’t been pining. Speakers need a good memory for the passage of time. But more than that, I need a hot meal and a bath.”

It sounded better and better the more Trevor thought about it. Sure, it was the giant spooky Castle Dracula, but it was also a castle with lights and fireplaces and bathtubs and beds. Why had he ever shit-talked proper feather beds? He’d grown up sleeping in those beds. The only downside was that Alucard would be an insufferable dick about playing host to them again so soon. But maybe heading back to square one was just what they needed to recover their zest for life. If nothing else, they could open up the Belmont hold again and Sypha could lose herself in the library for a couple of days. Perfectly legitimate reason for barging back in. That, and the medicinal stores of salves and teas that could heal up their wounds in no time. The chunk out of his shoulder was threatening to stiffen his movement permanently if he didn’t get it properly looked at.

“You know what, let’s just go,” Trevor said firmly. “If nothing else the weather will be kinder to us, and I bet you the castle has a proper wine cellar.”

“Full of blood?”

“If it’s fermented I politely don’t give a shit.” Surprisingly, Sypha only gave him a small flash of a smile. She leaned into his sore shoulder.

“You know, I might even join you. Did I ever tell you alcohol makes me burp fire sometimes?”

“Well, that’s seals it. We’re going.”

Overhead, the easing rainstorm flashed with forked lightning. The horses screamed. Sypha groaned.

“Fuck,” Trevor said succinctly. “We’re going in the morning, then. How long from here to there, Speaker Navigator?”

“Speaker Magician, and perhaps eight or nine days by wagon. We’ve taken a few strange turns from Lindenfeld, so as long as the roads and bridges hold, we’ll be okay.”

It was settled then. Grabbing the rough blanket they’d been using for their makeshift bed, Trevor pulled it around their shoulders. Sypha winced as he jostled her a little.

“Is this a bad time to say I need to pee?”

“Oh, God. Not my favourite bucket.”

“Why do you even have one of those?” Sypha asked, pushing her hand into his scored shoulder to get to her feet. “Oh, my entire body feels like it was shoved through a very small knot in a very large tree. Don’t watch me pee.”

“I’m not watching a thing,” Trevor said, raising one hand to brush off the warning. Reclining back on their shitty little bed space, he hissed a long, controlled breath until his head touched the torn saddle blanket they’d been using for a pillow. “But I am listening. Intently. The tinkles are like a lullaby.”

“Well.” A small, soft rustle of fabric lifted and pushed aside. “Sleep well then, because this is an extended ballad.”

“About our heroic deeds?” Trevor smiled, his eyes slipping closed. Sypha laughed softly.

“Yes. A fitting melody for us.”

Eight days, then.

Hopefully Alucard hadn’t rented the place out.

It rained the entire way.

The. Entire. Fucking. Way.

Trevor had never been so disgusted, so tired, hungry, muddy, sleep-deprived or generally chafed from neck to toe as all his clothes went from decent fabric of variable quality to a hair shirt sent to destroy him. His cuts stung and kept reopening. The horses were exhausted. Sypha was looking hollow-eyed with lack of decent food. She was as tough as nails, but she wasn’t used to a diet of nothing but bread and salt for days on end. It was hell, just without the giant window of rainbow insanity or the time-travelling magician from another dimension to guide them.

The patter of rain on canvas was truly maddening. Trevor felt like he’d be hearing it for the rest of his life.

When their endless muddy trail finally broke into a large clearing, and the haunting skeleton of the ancient castle became something tangible and less like a foggy mirage, Trevor finally felt his spirits lift. Beside him, Sypha was dozing on his shoulder. She’d long since given up on staying dry in favour of staying in front to dispatch any approaching night creatures. Her cropped strawberry hair was frazzled in all directions. He didn’t try to wake her as they approached.

Trevor especially didn’t react an inch as the massive entrance to the castle was revealed, and the two impaled corpses came into view.

Strong pine, probably; the wood set at an angle while the body was shoved onto it at the best point not to pop out anywhere it shouldn’t. From genitals straight up to the mouth. Head tipped back just so. Or perhaps Alucard had thrown the bodies down onto it from a greater height. It was hard to tell. Trevor had never purposely impaled anyone for display.

What the fuck had happened after they left?

They were siblings, maybe. Of a similar bloodline, surely. Foreigners. Their flesh was decomposing badly from element exposure, but their overall shape held. Dark hair, brown skin mottled with decay; maggots were working their way through it. Busiest undertakers of all. From their frame and size, the dead had been young. Alucard had killed young humans.

Perhaps coming back had been a mistake.

Perhaps he was Dracula’s son after all.

Trevor quieted the horses as they approached. For dumb beasts of burden, they were especially keen to the scent of death. His elbow was ungentle as he nudged Sypha into wakefulness. She mumbled at the impact.

“Sypha. Something’s not right here.”

“Is it the Judge?” she asked, not yet in her right mind. Inhaling sharply, she lifted her head. “Are we here? Oh…Trevor. What is this?”

“I don’t know,” he replied grimly. “So I’m going to hide behind you while we walk to the front door.”

“That’s rude,” she yawned, but patted his arm. “I hope these humans had it coming. Alucard is not an enemy we need right now. Or ever.”

“I can take him,” Trevor replied sourly. “I mostly did, last time.”

“I mean because he is our friend.” Sypha didn’t look in his direction as she smoothed her hair down and checked her clothes. “We need our friends. They keep us alive.”

“Is this more of that travelling clan ideology?”

“It’s common sense.” Levering herself out of the wagon’s seat, she splashed right into a puddle and started striding for the stone steps leading to the main doors. Heading between the stinking rain-swollen corpses hardly seemed to faze her. “Come on. Alucard might be in trouble.”

“Seems like he dealt with whatever trouble he had,” Trevor ventured, but it was a lost cause. His boots hit mud and his knees did not thank him for the landing. “I want to get the wagon off the horses first. Can you wait a few minutes? They’re chafing worse than we are.”

Sypha clucked and stroked the muzzle of the nearest horse. “Of course. Treffy and Addy need tender love and care. Let’s put them under the overhanging corridor arm. Or should we bring them inside?”

“Sure, if we want Alucard to assume we’ve gone insane and should be killed on sight.”

“You have no tenderness toward animals.”

“Sure I do. Especially tender animals.” He could almost smell the hot crackle of a roasting leg of pork. “Delicious, slow roasted animals.”

They put the horses under the longest, thickest overhead corridor of the castle. It didn’t stop much of the rain, but with a complete and utter lack of stables it felt like the kindest thing to do. Sypha didn’t know any healing magic, so they simply unhitched both horses and wiped down their withers using an old scrap of cloth. The wagon they dragged themselves against the side of the castle wall, and pulled out their spare clothes.

“Do you want your bucket?” Sypha asked, offering it to him. The entire thing stank of old urine. “I’m sure if you scrub it—”

“No. Whole thing’s desecrated. Burn it and I’ll start anew.”

“Why? I pee rainbows and raspberries. You could drink what was in there.”

Trevor gave her his best ‘I’ve never hit a woman’ face and she smirked her lovely ‘I could take you and your whole family’ smirk back at him. Not for the first time, Trevor decided he really did like her, even when they were soaked and starving and hadn’t been able to wash properly in almost two weeks.

They headed up to the main entrance, which boasted enormous doors that stood over five times their height. They were closed tight, and there wasn’t a doorknocker to be seen.

“Oh, hold on,” Sypha said, and threw her belongings on top of Trevor’s. She pulled his belt knife. “I remember what Alucard said about his mother entering the castle.” Flipping the blade around to its pommel, she slammed it hard on the door exactly three times and waited. She did not, Trevor noted uncharitably, take any of her shit back.

For a long time, there was nothing but the soul-crushing patter of rain and the sound of wind rushing around the spires of the castle. Trevor wasn’t exactly disappointed or surprised by this unhappy turn of events. Lindenfeld’s curse was following them no matter what, so why wouldn’t Alucard turn them away? Dracula was dead. Alliance terminated. And yet, that didn’t seem right. For all his snobbery and the mutual ribbing of their differing family values, Alucard had never been the kind of arsehole that would turn former comrades away. If anything, he’d often been as surprised as Trevor at how well they could get along together once pretence slid away and necessity took its place.

After another period of bone-aching silence, feeling the wet wind picking around his cloak and hair, Trevor heard the blessed sound of the doors groaning their way open. Vampire-strength doors only opened for one hand, and internally Trevor felt himself steeling for the usual insults and acid-tongue bullshit that preceded any real conversation with Adrian Tepes.

The door was pulled open a large crack, and Alucard stared at them with mute, exhausted disbelief. His golden hair was hanging in lank tendrils over his shoulders, still clean but unbrushed and dishevelled. There was a sleepless mask of shadows hanging under his eyes, and his shirt looked like it hadn’t seen a hanger and a wardrobe in a while. By ordinary standards he looked fine, but by Alucard’s own something was definitely wrong.

“Please tell me you have beer,” Trevor said as the silence stretched, reaching for the first non-offensive thing to say. “And hot water. And food. And beds? Do you have beds? I can’t remember running past any bedrooms when we were here last. Sypha, do you remember beds?”

“I don’t remember beds,” Sypha admitted. “We slept before the fireplace last time. I got a sore back.”

“Well, if there’s no beds, we’re just going to have to sleep with Alucard. And he looks like a kicker.”

“I’m more of a slicer, actually,” Alucard said wearily, looking between them. For an instant Trevor thought he saw a flicker of refusal cross his face and wondered if they were about to be turned away. But he stepped back and opened the door further, gesturing them both in. “You do remember this is Castlevania, do you not? It has everything you require.” His golden eyes sharpened a little. “Except beer. But you may take whatever wine you find. Make yourself at home.”

Sypha did just that, her eyes lighting up at the prospect of hot water and a giant copper tub somewhere in the upper levels. She grabbed her things off the top of Trevor’s pile and made straight for the stairs in an uncharacteristically impolite exit.

“I’ll be back down when I don’t smell so bad!” she called from the upper landing. Alucard waved an unbothered hand.

“You’re as thoughtful as always, Sypha.” A narrow glance hit Trevor at every joint. “You can follow her, if you’d like. You stink like horse, sweat, and piss.”

Balancing his belongings, Trevor opened his arms and took a long step in. “But don’t you want to hug it out like the old war buddies we are?” Alucard predictably stepped away, his aristocratic nose wrinkling.

“It’s only been a few months, which is about four hundred years too early.”

“You know, a few months is a damn long time for some species,” Trevor replied, and his thin attempt at levity collapsed into tiredness halfway through his sentence. His shoulder hurt. His bones hurt. His ass hurt from sitting so much. The rain felt like it was drumming on the inside of his soul. “Why is it so fucking rainy in this region right now? Who are the corpses? Why do you look like someone’s had you under silver and stake for the entire time we were gone?”

“Shut up, Belmont,” Alucard said, turning away. “Some things aren’t your concern. Your family’s hold is largely untouched if you need it. I built a pulley platform around the hole we made if you need to get down there. Do what you will while you’re here. I care not.” Heading for an anterior corridor to the left of the entrance hall, Alucard started to depart the entire fucking scene.

“At least show me where the wine is,” Trevor said, dumping his meagre blankets and dry belongings at the entrance.

“I’ll show you after you bathe.”

Oho. Well, two could play that shitty game. “Then I suppose I’ll tell you about how I saw your parents after that then.”

The footsteps ceased.

“Belmont.”

“Can’t talk now, thinking about soap.” Grabbing up his belongings again, Trevor headed for the stairwell that Sypha had ascended. He had no idea where he was going, but he could at least pretend until he was out of sight. “Do you have food? We haven’t eaten anything proper in over two weeks now. Hellish story. Haha, hear that organic pun? Of course you don’t. Because you weren’t there helping us.”

“You told me to stay in this crypt,” Alucard grated after him. “You told me to remain, to curate it, protect it, use it, and—”

“And while you were playing overseer we had to shut an actual doorway to hell. While an entire village burnt to the ground and cultist monks tried to kill us. God, Alucard, do you really think you’ve had it badly in your snotty mansion of death?”

Alucard actually flinched. Instinct pulled a tight rein in Trevor’s stomach, stilling his ascension up to the next floor. At the bottom of the stairs, one dhampir cut a strangely small, pale figure.

“I tried to teach others.” It sounded like a confession. “From the hold, from my own knowledge. They came to me needing guidance, needing training to accomplish their goals. I tried to…do what a Belmont might.” Golden eyes slid away, deep into the shadows. Fangs dug into a taut lower lip. “I suppose they felt the ruse of that. I am no mentor. I do not understand humans, and now, I have no intention to. I killed my own father to spare those traitorous, broken—”

“Human here.”

“I don’t mean you,” Alucard hissed, which was strange because there wasn’t a sibilant sound in his words. The hiss came from beneath them, the hatred like steam being vented out into the air. “I mean them. The selfish, greedy, stupid cattle herd of them all. Out there, fucking and breeding and crying and shitting their lives away—what did I destroy, only to be plagued by them and all their fucking issues? What did—”

“Oh my God, you’re having a breakdown,” Trevor interrupted, groaning the words to the ceiling. Of course. Of course he was. “Look, I want to listen, but you’ve got to lead me to wine, a bath and maybe a roast chicken or two. Do you keep those hidden in the walls anywhere? Hm? Magic castle? Magic chicken?”

Alucard wordlessly glared at him for a long moment, his eyes far more wretched than Trevor had ever seen. Those eyes hadn’t even been present back when Dracula had met the sharp end of a stake and the blade of his sword. How the hell could life have gotten worse for him since then?

“Up three floors, take a right, then take the seventh door on the left. There is no fucking chicken.”

“Finally, some useful information. Come up if you want to continue your story. I promise to listen once I’m not wearing bandages that smell like the last plague.” An idea occurred to him. “Or you could tell Sypha. You just know she’s here somewhere in another bath, feeling sympathetic. She’s always better at this stuff than me.” He headed up the cracked stone stairs with gusto, already picturing steam-powered hot water rushing from one of those futuristic pipes into a waiting tub. Salvation and a possible therapy session was only three floors away.

Alucard didn’t follow, predictably. Host rules should at least demand letting people like Trevor wash and change before unloading terrible traumatic events on them. He himself had managed quite well to hold in his gushing spring of disillusionment and overall renewed bleak outlook on life quite well. Had he walked straight in to discuss the open mouth of hell staring him right in the face, or the fact that it had taken him many weeks of fighting demons before he even thought to use both his whips at the same time? No. Because he was a Belmont, and they hid their trauma and failures like men. God, he needed a drink. Why didn’t the castle have any magic chicken? It seemed to have everything else a person could want.

Three floors, seven doors and over half an hour later, Trevor was just beginning to ponder the idea of getting out of his, quite frankly, heavenly tub of clean hot Dracula water when the bathroom door opened behind him. Trevor’s eyes popped open wide.

“God, Alucard I was mostly kidding, my dick is completely on display—”

“I brought some wine,” Alucard said, swinging a bottle right over Trevor’s head. No label, corked, green glass. “Also, your dick is of no particular interest to me.”

“You sound just like Sypha,” Trevor grumbled, taking the bottle and jamming his thumb to the base of the cork. “Except she’s almost always lying. You can have a peek if you want, just don’t let me catch you.” The cork popped out with a violent ejaculation. Lucky bastard. “Fine, you’ve paid the price I require. Mostly. Come and sit, and we’ll talk this out while looking in completely different directions. I don’t need you commenting on my scars.”

“Back at you, Belmont.” Without much aplomb, Alucard dragged over a small footstool type of chair that had been buried in the corner of the bathroom and sat on it, putting his back against the middle of the tub. “Drink your damn wine for a while. I need to think.”

The damn wine was damn good. Trevor wasn’t an expert on the drink, but the long, golden notes of oak in the dry vintage reminded him of the table wine when he was a child, when the french stuff his parents had dined with had still been plentiful. One sip before dessert and no more, Trevor—and then fire, like everything his childhood had disintegrated into. What a strange thing to remember while naked in a tub next to a distraught vampire.

And there was no mistaking; Alucard was definitely cracking under the weight of something. Trevor didn’t like advertising how personally perceptive he could be, didn’t even like acknowledging it to himself really, but he had a keen eye for monsters and their tells. Just so happened that lately, monsters came more frequently in human flesh.

“Who were the two out front?” Trevor asked some time later, swiping his lips clean with his tongue. On a stomach as empty as his, the wine had hit pretty quickly. “The students you mentioned, I assume. Better tell me that whole story.”

Silence, and then a long, empty sigh. “Not a nice story.”

“I’m not a nice man.”

“Truer words,” Alucard said dryly, but it felt forced. “Give me the wine bottle.” When Trevor handed it over with a wet hand, deathly cold fingers covered his for an instant before they caught the curve of the glass. They weren’t any colder than Sypha’s feet. It was strangely grounding knowledge. Pretending to scrub into the gouged wound of his shoulder, wincing as the cloth hit inflamed and tender flesh, Trevor waited.

Alucard took a long, long drink from the bottle, his throat and hair arched back like the tumbling mane of some majestic, ethereal golden stallion. What an arsehole. He gasped when he finally swallowed, blinking dazedly at the adjacent wall beading with moisture. The hand that gave it back was still steady, but the fingers were warmer that time.

“I took in two young slaves who had won their freedom from one of my father’s lieutenants. I believe her name was Cho. Dead, now. She was unpleasant, from the stories I was told. The slaves—the humans—expressed to me their desire to learn the ways of killing vampires and monsters, so that they might feel safe again. Powerful. I think…their desire might have been to educate others, eventually. I couldn’t begrudge them the knowledge.”

“Hypocritical if you did,” Trevor said, tasting the story on the back of his tongue. “So where did it go wrong with them?”

“What makes you think it did?”

“Two slaves visit you, now there’s two corpses impaled in your father’s style out the front of this place? Jesus, Alucard, credit me with a little intelligence.”

“Hmm. Yes, you do play the fool.” The words sounded distracted, like an old remembrance. Had a couple of months really been that long? “They felt I had deceived them with lies of magic tutelage that I didn’t deliver on. They wanted to move the castle. Asked about it all the time, in fact. It displeased them to know Sypha had melted gears I had no desire to fix. I thought it was simply impatience to strike down their enemies, to free the oppression of others. I knew I needed to build their strength first. But they were too angry, too green.”

“Alucard, why the hell would you—”

“I was lonely,” Alucard snapped, eyes slitted and fixed on the wall. “Barely a month awake, my family dead, stranded in a world I hardly knew? I wanted people around me again. I wanted to feel important again. I did not want to become my father—and yet I did, and worse. Lisa had never turned on him one night in the bedchamber, eyes full of fire and hands of silver. They almost killed me, Belmont. Killed me because the world had been so damn unkind that they couldn’t see kindness in anybody else. Certainly not in one dhampir with a castle full of secrets.” Pulling up his sleeve, hardly looking, he gave Trevor a close look at the criss-crossing scars that worked their way up under his shirt. They were still bright pink, unhealed beyond the minimum needed to stop the bleeding. Silver wire could make such gouges in vampire skin, and not much else. But to make those particular markings…

“Where the hell did they get an artemis bridle?”

Alucard’s eyes widened. He stared at his own scars like he’d never seen them before. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. What was it?”

“Silver bracelets, wasn’t it?” Leaning forward with a splash, Trevor touched the nearest streak of scar tissue with wet fingers. “Usually two, though sometimes a third around the neck. Subjugating class, mostly for interrogation and torture. Silver blessed under a full moon. The sigils on the bracelets would give it away, they’re usually inscribed on the inside. Where would slaves…” The realisation came back and hit Trevor like a runaway carriage. Shame filled Alucard’s face in the moment before he turned away. Jesus Christ. “You let them into the hold unsupervised?! Alucard, you stupid fucking arrogant vampire, did you really think there was nothing in there that could hurt you?! You saw the skulls, you saw the fucking trophies and the swords and the history in there—did you just turn up your fucking nose and let them play with the Belmont toys?”

Against his better judgement, Trevor was furious. The mouldering hold had been laughed off by Alucard the first time. Chicken blood, sacrifices, stupid humans with their trash pile of things they’d found and didn’t understand. Barbarians with a treasure hoard of items they couldn’t use. Magic they couldn’t name. Trevor had been paying attention to his quips and bullshit the first time around. Nobody could understand the occult quite like a vampire, could they? And yet it was that exact pile of collected shit that let Sypha teleport the castle to exactly where it stood. Oh, but that was mage ingenuity, no doubt. Fuck Alucard and fuck those corpses out front. Fuck them all.

“I trusted them,” Alucard said recklessly, and finally turned his head. His expression wavered between hope and hate. “I thought they were like you. Bitter, mistrustful, but that they at least saw me as…well.” He cleared his throat, snatching his eyes away. “I was wrong. On all counts. The lesson was painful, but I will know better now. So will the humans who chance upon my doorstep in future.” Grabbing the wine bottle from his hands, Alucard stood and stalked his way to the door. Splashing a little, Trevor twisted to watch him leave. “There’s stew and bread in the kitchen. If you want anything else, make it yourself. I’m going to bed.”

“It’s the middle of the day,” Trevor said blankly, more annoyed about the loss of the wine bottle.

The slam of the bathroom door didn’t care one bit.

“So we have four points of interest,” Sypha said later, warming her freezing naked toes in front of the fire. Like hideous little worms, they worked independently of each other to gather the warmth. Trevor shivered before he could help himself. “Two impatient students, Alucard more interested in company than tutelage, the Belmont hold, and…did you say they attacked him in his bedchamber with that magic bridle? How could they attack him there?”

Trevor stared hard at the ceiling. Resting on top of him, Sypha’s feet stretched and wiggled.

“Look, I don’t know. That was a male and a female corpse out front, easily. So either they’re incredibly stealthy and made their way in there to get Alucard in the perfect position while he was out cold, or…” Or what? It felt like a strange thing to be speculating on. Trevor was nosy when it counted, but some things were better left unsniffed.

“Or Alucard allowed them to join him in his bed, and they betrayed him from there.” Sypha planted her hands on the stone floor and leaned back a little. The kitchen’s giant fireplace wasn’t exactly an ideal place to have a conversation, but it was warm and Trevor had gotten the best sprawl across the fire. Sypha, ever the opportunist, was using his stomach as a footrest. Her eyes were sparkling with thoughtful curiosity. “Trevor, you said he was lonely.”

“He said he was lonely. I just floated there with the wine.”

“Same difference. How did we miss it so badly? I’d never have been so quick to leave him if I’d thought for one moment he needed us.”

“All right, Saint Sypha.” A foot prodded him between the ribs.

“You wouldn’t have either. Don’t try to lie to me, Trevor Belmont. There’s a thousand reasons we could have used to stay.” Sypha’s voice dwindled a little. “This place is still such a mess. There’s scattered swords and holes in the walls, you know. I checked as I walked through. Smashed mirrors, burnt furnishings, skeletons, unidentifiable ichor…it’s like he just never bothered to clean a single thing up. He’s just living around his father’s corpse, Trevor. The enormous corpse of Dracula’s castle. No wonder he’s going mad, taking in hateful humans who don’t appreciate him or what he had to do.”

“Alucard isn’t some kind of god, you know. He’s just another arsehole dragged behind Dracula’s bad decisions.”

“Don’t be jealous.”

“I’m not. I’m being realistic. He’s not that wonderful.”

Sypha tsked. “Yet you yelled at him out of worry as much as anger, didn’t you? Imagine if they had killed him with one of those Belmont trinkets. You’d feel responsible for ever opening it.” When Trevor didn’t reply, just sighed deeply and stared at the ceiling, she rubbed one gross foot on his stomach. “He’s sheltering us here, feeding us, letting us borrow from the wardrobes while our clothes are washed, and the first thing you do is make him feel terrible and shut himself away.”

“Stop trying to make me feel sorry. He was an idiot. Even Dracula could be killed. Did he think he was impervious to harm? Letting two strangers down into my hold. He took it too lightly.” When Sypha didn’t reply with any censuring words, Trevor felt his mouth pull down into a frown. “Was he trying to replace us?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you find out when you go and apologise to him?” Swinging her legs off him at last, Sypha grabbed his wrists and pulled him upright, sweeping aside the loose neck of his borrowed shirt. Whoever had owned it had been broader than him, and the damn thing almost hung to his knees. Sypha’s blue eyes narrowed a little as she sniffed his shoulder wound. “Leave the bandages off from now on. The salve will do its job better with some fresh air to help it.” She glanced up and hesitated at Trevor’s unimpressed look. “What?”

“You’re doing that thing where you give me an order and then try to distract me from realising it’s an order.”

“Oh. Am I?”

“Yes. I hate that thing. For the record, I hate that thing a lot.” But he tugged his shirt back into place and gathered his strength, pushing himself off the stone floor with a long groan of misery. Sypha scrambled to follow him up. “I suppose I’ll go for a walk around the castle—”

“Go to the top floor of the eastern wing—“

“—a very impromptu walk with absolutely no particular direction in mind, and if I find our wayward vampire comrade I might, possibly, stop and rephrase my earlier comments.” Trevor very determinedly didn’t react as Sypha peppered his jaw with joyful kisses, laughing with pleasure. Was he a pushover, or was she just very good at what she did? Surely it had to be the latter. He watched her skirt the wooden table and head back to the pot of stew heating low on the stove, a location she’d already visited twice. Her eyes were bright as she ladled out the biggest chunks of fish and vegetables.

“You know, human blood will heal his wounds,” she said offhandedly as Trevor headed for the door, feeling tired and put-upon. He stiffened warily.

“Sypha, I’m not that sorry. Donate your own veins.”

“Perhaps I will,” was the airy reply. A slim finger pointed directly at the side of her neck. “I have very pretty veins, don’t I? Surely I am a delicious meal for any vampire.”

“Vampires prefer virgins, you know.” The finger pointing at her neck started pointing at him instead. A round glowing ball of fire was hovering at its tip. “Well, must be going. Enjoy the stew.”

“Goodbye, Trevor. Thank you for donating your second helping to me just now.”

“Fucking hell.” Still, better a missed meal than a fireball up his arse. Trevor got the hell out of there pretty quickly after that, heading toward the nearest staircase that would take him toward one brooding vampire. Hopefully Alucard was in sweeter spirits than Sypha.

And people called Trevor a pessimist.

After wandering around the castle for almost an hour, studiously pretending he was just seeing the sights and taking in the leftover ruin of Dracula’s almost-war, Trevor got himself completely lost and had to start peering out windows to get his bearings.

The late afternoon was as dreary and dark as the last week had been. No beautiful sunsets to close out the day, he thought morosely, figuring he still had a few more flights of stairs to go.

The castle wasn’t in terrible shape, really. Some holes from where Alucard had been tossed like a ragdoll, some pools of dried blood here and there, and a lot of smashed fixtures and portraits that needed throwing out. Sure, there was a skeleton or two, but with their decomposition well and truly finished, they weren’t exactly dragging the place down any further than it had already sank. Besides, in a futuristic vampire castle the size of a city, maybe a few skeletons were simply accepted as tasteful furnishings.

“I’m delaying the inevitable,” Trevor muttered as he stopped to admire the fifth portrait of Lisa Tepes looking kind and motherly, usually holding some kind of flower bouquet or her husband’s hand. What had she seen in Dracula, anyway? He didn’t look a thing like Alucard. “Come on Belmont, stop dicking around.”

It took twelve more flights of stairs and a small, quite shameful breathing break before Trevor got to the large doors that seemed like they could be a bedchamber. The air actually felt a little thin by that point, and when he looked out the nearest window he immediately wished he could lose consciousness and forget the sight of being approximately thirty thousand feet in the sky. What kind of mess would a body make if it was pushed off one of those balconies?

Trevor was still stewing over the horrors of that question when he grabbed an ornate door handle and jiggled it. Huh. Locked. He knocked with a full fist.

“Alucard? At least tell me I got the right room. I’m fucking fighting off a side cramp from all these stairs and I think I’m getting altitude sickness. Make it worth it.”

Terrible, terrible silence. For almost a minute there was nothing but the wheeze of his own breath and the horrifying knowledge that he’d have to make his way back down all those stairs. Then, quietly, there was a small rustle of movement from inside the room.

“Alucard?” Trevor ventured hopefully.

“Fuck off, Belmont.”

“Oh, thank God.” He leaned a forearm on the sturdy wood. “If it turned out I’d come all the way up here for nothing, I think I’d take the fast way down.” Reaching under his borrowed shirt, Trevor pulled his belt dagger. “Hold on, I’m coming in.”

“The door is—” With a click and a long creak, the door opened to reveal Alucard’s dismayed face. “Locked.” He was standing inside the enormous bedchamber by the windows, which were grey and speckled by rain. His expression quickly arranged itself into a critical mask of mild scorn. “Of course you’re a master lockpick, in addition to all the vagrant skills you’ve picked up over the years as a pariah of society.”

“I’m actually a novice lockpick,” Trevor said as he walked in, leaving the door open. “Your locks are just simple. A bit like you, really. Is this your bed? I’ve seen smaller peasant huts.” He wasn’t exactly joking; the bed was big enough for a whole family; some raised monstrosity of wooden posts and thick down-stuffed pillows. The whole thing was curtained by gauzy fabric that probably cost more than an entire township’s annual income. Hiding his curiosity under casual obnoxiousness, Trevor scanned the room for any indication of a struggle. Nothing. “Is this where they did it?”

Alucard looked as tense as a bowstring ready to release the world’s pissiest arrow. “Belmont, what do you want? You already have full access to the castle, my larder, and apparently my father’s wardrobe,” Trevor stared down at himself in horror, “so what more do you need? To ignorantly thrust your unkempt head into the last private place I call my own, simply because you can?”

“I have a reply to that, if you’ll give me a moment,” Trevor said, his voice muffled through the soft linen of the shirt he was trying to pull off over his head. “Bloody Sypha, she never did say where she pulled these from.” The laces got caught around his chin. His shoulder pinched painfully, the healing skin pulling dangerously taut.

“I have no idea how you stay alive,” a low, irritated voice said from the other side of shirt hell. Cold hands bushed his sides, tugging at the cloth. “Hold still, imbecile. You’re going to hang yourself.” The shirt was tugged in a couple of places until it flew free over his damp head with a whisper of fabric. Golden eyes scanned him from shoulders to waist, hitting each bruise and wound he’d brought back with him from Lindenfeld. “God. You look like a sad watercolour. What happened?”

“So you really weren’t looking in the bath,” Trevor said thoughtfully. “You chivalrous bastard.”

“Answer my question.” Alucard threw the shirt over the arm of a chair in the corner of the room. A long, pale fingertip was hovering over the deep cut through the meat of his shoulder. It was barely healing, but it didn’t hurt as much as it had. “This couldn’t have come from some run of the mill creature of the night. It looks almost like a weapon caused it. What was that you said about hell, and seeing my parents?” There was a cautious sort of concern in the words, like Alucard wasn’t even sure he wanted the answer.

Trevor was busy heading for the huge standing wooden wardrobe on the other side of the room and pulling it open. There was nothing inside.

“What the fuck?”

“I only recently moved into this room.”

“You could have said something,” Trevor replied into the cavern of the empty wardrobe, shirtless and deprived. “Do you still have that wine?”

“I do. Put the shirt back on for both our sakes and I’ll even give you some.”

That was how Trevor ended up sitting on Alucard’s massive bed, wearing Count Dracula’s giant vampire shirt, drinking wine from the bottle with the bemused and definitely sleep-deprived Alucard, who was taking it all in his stride in the manner of someone who was a little too dazed to believe any of it was completely real. So, in the interests of smoothing things over, Trevor started talking about the last few weeks of his life, when things had gone from exciting adventures to complete and utter bullshit.

“Some creatures are sensitive to rifts in time and space,” Alucard said slowly. He too had discarded his boots to sit on the bed a small distance away. “Like the scent of hell is something they long to track down again. For creatures loyal to my father, they would have been able to find him by the very essence of his power. But no ordinary creature could have devoured souls like what you describe.”

“I don’t know what it was,” Trevor admitted, swishing the bottle’s contents around. “Just that it was big, mean, and had about seventy eyeballs too many. I also think it had mushrooms growing on it.” Rather than laughing at the stupid detail, Alucard twirled the end of one golden skein around his finger and frowned at it.

“Perhaps it was a hallucinogenic fungi used to sway those monks. Most likely, it released breathable spores that affected reason and language. Opened their mind and emptied it out, so to speak. They became its acolytes from the moment it arrived in the priory. I imagine if you’d isolated the prior from the location, he would have regained his senses after a few days and told you everything he knew.”

Trevor took a deep gulp of wine.

“Why the fuck did we go anywhere without you?” he said with heartfelt frustration. “I had my arse absolutely handed to me by force, and here you are, listening to my shitty retelling and figuring it all out in an instant.” He stared at the bottle. “Maybe I am a fool.”

“Undoubtedly, but not because of this,” Alucard dismissed, grabbing the bottle off him. “You weren’t raised by two scientists who took a keen interest in the various properties of things like mushrooms, and how they affect human behaviour.” A small, catlike sip was taken. “I do agree that I should have come with you, however. Much could have been avoided if I’d simply locked the doors and gotten into the wagon with you. Unpleasant and unhappily fragrant as life on the road might be, I at least wouldn’t look like a children’s puzzle right now if I had.” He turned up his forearm and frowned sorrowfully at the criss-crossing wounds. “An artemis bridle, you say. A fitting name for something that can restrain a beast of the night. I couldn’t even shapeshift to escape. They truly had me.”

“I suppose we’re all poorer apart than we are whole.” Trevor stacked his hands behind his head and immediately winced as his shoulder shrieked. He hid the entire motion behind a stretch. “That’s actually a good line. I should use that on Sypha sometime.” When Alucard just raised his eyes to the ceiling, Trevor leaned in and stole the wine back. “I’m not joking, though. Maybe we should have all stayed together. It was never going to simply be over just because Dracula was gone. We got cocky.”

“You got cocky,” Alucard amended. “I got lonely and sentimental. I…actually thought you’d approve of my decision.”

Imagine that; Alucard internally seeking Trevor Belmont’s blessing to bring new humans down to learn the ways of hunting vampires. Leaning back into the pillows pushed up against the bedhead, Trevor tried to think of a way to reply to that without sounding just a little bit pleased.

“I prefer my fledgling vampire hunters not to turn around and try to kill their mentor the first chance they get.” Alucard’s lips turned up a little. Trevor cleared his throat and continued. “Don’t blame yourself for how it turned out. Even the downtrodden and disillusioned will still stick a knife in your eye if they think it’ll bring them closer to their goals. Sometimes people are just too damaged to accept help the way you offer it.” He blinked down at his callused hand. “Between you, me and the wine, I was that person for a long time after my home was burned. I think I was just too much of a coward to even try relying on anyone else. It’s not the Belmont way, you see.”

“Perhaps that’s why you’re still alive.”

“And why the rest of my family isn’t.” Trevor shrugged. “I don’t have any answers. Humans are only predictable to a point. If I had any advice to give, it’s to get out there amongst them and learn what a bunch of arseholes they can really be. You might even appreciate me more as a result.”

“I already appreciate you, Belmont.” Alucard grabbed the neck of the bottle from his hand. “You just piss me off a lot.” The long, greedy swallow took far too much from the bottle than Trevor was comfortable with. “So you saw my father in some hell rift, and my mother was with him. Does that strike you as odd at all?”

“Well, she did have sex with an unholy creature of the night who turned his back on God. Guilty by association.” Trevor shrugged, almost missing the arch look Alucard gave him out the corner of his eye. “What?”

“You’re in bed with a vampire right now. Don’t you fear for your immortal soul?”

“If heaven is full of pious priests and the kind of bastards who burned down my family’s estate, I’m fine with hell. It can’t be much worse than my actual life.” A thought occurred to him. “Probably the same amount of demons, lately.”

“You see yourself as already damned, then.” Did he?

“I don’t really worry about it. But to go back to your original point, I’ll ask you a question. What would Dracula do if he made it to hell and your mother wasn’t there to greet him with open arms?”

“Storm heaven to find her, most likely.” The words were careless, but Alucard didn’t seem to be joking. His eyes were calm as he tipped his head back, looking through the high windows behind the bed. Rain was soft on the glass. “He loved her more than his own life. Under his rage and hatred of the human race, I think he privately blamed himself for not being there. He was starving by the time we found him, you know. He hadn’t taken human blood in weeks. It’s probably the only reason we were able to kill him.” There was a melancholy note to the admission, but it wasn’t a fresh wound. Trevor tried to pretend he hadn’t heard it and took back the wine.

“You know, I saw the state of those silver burns. They’re not going to heal from a little fish stew and bread. Those are a vampire’s scars.” Alucard’s objectively lovely golden eyes widened, their spiky lashes lifting to stare at him. Trevor switched his eyes to the neck of the wine bottle. “Also I heard that vampire blood, when ingested by humans in small doses, will heal any immediate wounds that human might bear. Never tried it, myself. I’m pretty sure it’s one of the Belmont commandments: thou shalt not sip from the generally smug and fanged.” He looked up in time to see Alucard’s wondering expression fade into something a little more considering.

“You’re proposing a trade.”

“Yes. Very equal and noble of us both. Nothing to feel strange about.”

“I don’t drink blood. Did you think I named myself Alucard because it had a nice ring to it?”

“Well, if Dracula wasn’t drinking before he died, technically you’re still his antithesis.” Predictably, Alucard’s mouth twitched a little despite his best efforts. What else did he have to brighten his life?

“My, what a big word to come out of such an uncouth mouth. Did Sypha teach it to you?”

“I’m smarter than I look.”

“I should hope so.” Reaching out for the now, sadly depleted bottle of unnamed wine, Alucard took a long drink from it that made his throat bob. The empty bottle was all but thrown onto the carpet. “All right. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t entertain the idea, but I want these scars gone. The reminder of them is unpleasant, as I’m sure you can imagine.” Biting his lip with a small hint of fang, Alucard seemed to finally, properly look Trevor in the eyes. “I could use a reminder of human generosity. Take off the shirt.”

“But my wrist is right there.”

“The veins are too small. I’d have to almost pierce them clean through to get what I need, unless you want me to take all evening.”

“But—”

“You could take off your pants instead, if you prefer,” Alucard said easily, pulling his own laced shirt out of his waistband and tugging it over his head. Trevor forgot his protestations in favor of abject staring. Not at the usual miles of milk pale skin and defined muscles, or even the old slashing scar his father had given him, but at the angry pink welts cutting through his chest and waist. They were mostly diagonal crossed lines gouging through otherwise pristine paleness, standing out like somebody had dipped a brush in ink and drawn lines all over his body. But the wounds were over two weeks old. They shouldn’t still be there.

Trevor had struck that skin with sword and consecrated whip, and the wounds had barely stayed half an hour. The bridle must have been ancient to contain the kind of holding power that had kept Alucard in check long enough for two humans to almost kill him. Absently pulling his shirt off with one hand, blinking to focus a little, Trevor shifted over on his knees until he could see the roping burns more clearly.

“They’re hideous, are they not? I find myself wondering if they’re lingering because I want them to stay. Should I have killed them? Should I be the one who still lives?” Alucard’s smile was humourless. “Perhaps I could be with my parents in hell, if I had not killed them. One happy family.”

“God, you’re depressing.” Trevor supposed he could handle a neck bite. Everything else had been thrown at him so far, why not that? “You’re starving, Alucard. Humans don’t bear silver burns like this, but vampires do. It’s time you healed like a vampire might. Now,” he touched his neck, squinting suspiciously at the peek of long fangs teasing Alucard’s lower lip, “how do you want to do this?”

How Alucard wanted to do it, apparently, was to squash him into the mattress by kneeling over his legs, pushing Trevor back into the abundant pillows. When fingertips touched his neck, sweeping away errant strands of hair, Trevor wondered if this was the kind of thing that would have gotten him disowned by his family. It seemed extremely likely.

“Thank you, Trevor,” Alucard said a moment later, his mouth brushing the side of his neck. The surprise of hearing his given name coming from those lips blanked out any rebellion Trevor might have felt as fangs punched quickly into his neck, as fast as a striking snake. It was almost too quick to feel any real pain from the intrusion. After that, there was nothing but a vague sting and the hot, wet sensation of a mouth sucking and pulling at his skin. It was actually quite pleasant, objectively. Or maybe he’d been living a life so shitty that having a vampire drinking his blood was actually a rather nice holiday from demons flinging him from wall to wall. Either seemed likely.

There was long hair pooling across his naked chest. Long, golden yellow hair slipping across his scars and bruises, looking like liquid sunlight. Privately, he could admit that Alucard was stupidly beautiful, if you were into that sort of snotty intellectual thing. Blinking hazily up at the gauze-draped bed canopy, Trevor found himself petting the long mane rather mindlessly. For a short, startled kind of moment, the mouth on his neck went still at the treatment, before resuming again. The long fingers wrapped around his biceps shifted a little, thumbs swishing back and forth like pendulums against his bare skin. But what Trevor was really interested in were the scars on the arm braced over him.

Little by little, the vibrant pink lines were turning pale. Flattening from their inflamed and blistered appearance, they sank down and smoothed out into nothing more than bleached white lines. Soon they were too faint for Trevor’s dull human eyesight to make out at all. Not that the wine and low light in the room was helping any. It was quite incredible to think his blood was what made it happen.

Finally Alucard seemed to do something complicated with his mouth that involved licking his neck a few times, then pulled back to sit astride Trevor’s thighs. He was breathing a little unsteadily. Slapping his hand to his neck, Trevor couldn’t feel anything more than damp skin and two dimples in his neck. Healed.

“Huh. Neatly done.” He couldn’t help but stare at Alucard’s mouth, which wasn’t dripping blood down his chin. The peek of his fangs through his parted lips was perfectly white. “Did it taste like wine?”

“A little. You need to eat more.”

“Tell that to Sypha. She’s probably still down there licking the pot.”

“Hm.”

An unbelievably awkward silence descended. Neither of them seemed able to look the other in the eye for more than a second or two. Eventually Trevor forced himself to stop touching his neck when Alucard reached for the waistband of his pants, but it was only to pull out his belt dagger. He held it up to his neck, then hesitated, lowering it to his wrist. He looked puzzled beyond measure. When he couldn’t seem to decide, Trevor pushed himself out of the pillows and sat up properly. It put them almost chest to chest. Unbelievably, Alucard looked a little pink across his cheeks. Maybe it was the flush of borrowed blood.

“I could…put it in a goblet,” Alucard said weakly. “I must confess, I’ve never done this before. You won’t need much. Unless you’re having second thoughts?” There was a hopeful note in the back of that uncertain admission, like Trevor’s general obstinate refusal to accept anything vampiristic in nature might rear its head. Well, fuck that. His shoulder was killing him.

“In the interests of embarrassing you and also maintaining our agreement, your neck will do.”

Alucard winced. “The idea of that whiskery mess touching my skin is truly abhorrent.”

“It’s not that bad,” Trevor argued, rubbing his chin. “It’s kind of soft now. Here, feel it.”

“No, thank you—” Alucard broke off as Trevor grabbed his hand and clapped it to his cheek, nuzzling into his palm helpfully. That strange pink flush became a florid red stain across his cheekbones. He snatched his hand back when Trevor snickered, staring at his own hand mournfully like it was ruined now.

“I suppose I’ll add my beard to my arsenal of anti-vampire weapons.” He patted one of the thighs holding his legs down. “All right, lets switch places.”

“No,” Alucard said sharply. At Trevor’s startled look, he amended, “I’d prefer not to be pinned down.”

There were deep shadows in those few scant words, and for a moment Trevor again considered exactly what kind of trickery had occurred for someone like Alucard to doubt his own strength. Then again, being tied down by magic wire in your own bed and almost murdered was bound to give anyone issues. Planting his palms on the soft mattress, Trevor tilted his head back and looked at the unhappy downturn of Alucard’s mouth.

“How’d they get you, Tepes?”

Golden eyes closed. “I think you know.”

“I do, and I’m shocked and offended that you never once flirted with Sypha or myself. I thought you just didn’t like humans.” Trevor waited for Alucard’s eyes to snap open and sharpen before he really started to enjoy himself. “Is it my beard? My roguish scar? Is she too skinny? Her elbows are like knives—”

“Trevor Belmont, don’t you dare say another word,” a voice said from the doorway, accented and light and very, very annoyed. Sypha’s head popped around the frame, her beautiful eyes shooting daggers of their own. Trevor’s stomach sucked back against his spine. Her gaze switched to Alucard and softened. “I was eavesdropping.”

With Alucard twisted around to look at her, the corner of a small smile was all Trevor could see. “I know.”

“I thought you might.” Sypha darted over to the foot of the bed, her voluminous borrowed shirt swamping her from shoulders to mid-calf. “I have many opinions on what you were talking about, but mostly I’m happy you two aren’t at each other’s throats.”

“Actually, that’s exactly what we are,” Trevo corrected. “As long as Alucard doesn’t chicken out of our deal.”

“Is the salve I applied not good enough for you?” Sypha sounded suspiciously offended for someone who’d done little more than smear some greasy concoction from the Tepes medical stash on his shoulder. Trevor shrugged painfully.

“It’s not magical vampire healing levels of good. No offence.”

“Offence taken nonetheless,” Sypha sniffed dismissively, and then clambered up onto the high mattress with them. Crawling towards them opened the neckline of her shirt almost to touch the mattress, which revealed she wasn’t wearing a single stitch of underclothing. Trevor smiled. Alucard, on the other hand, switched his gaze to the ceiling in mortification. Sypha noticed. “They are just breasts, Alucard. You suckled at them as a babe.”

“Not those ones,” Alucard muttered under his breath. “Belmont, hurry up and fill me.”

“Fill you?” Trevor repeated, inordinately interested.

“Take your fill. Of me. Oh, God.” Pale hands covered a decidedly healthy complexion. “Why did I let you two back into my house?”

“Because you love and appreciate us,” Sypha said matter-of-factly, “and because we love and appreciate you. But mostly because we were looking hungry and pathetic.” She shifted until she was sitting at their side, facing their overlapping thighs. The laces on her shirt hung open to her navel. Suddenly Dracula’s wardrobe of identical gauzy cotton shirts had some real appeal. “Alucard, please hand me the knife. Trevor, be ready to put your mouth where the knife touches.”

“That knife is regular steel,” Alucard replied, handing it to her. “You’ll need to give me quite a wound for him to take enough before it heals. My strength is greatly returned now.” Sypha tested the point with her fingertip, her brows creasing as a bright bead of blood swelled in its wake. “Well. At least it’s well-cared for.”

“Hello, monster hunter here,” Trevor said wryly. As though he’d have dull blades. Not that they paid him much attention; Sypha was trying to stick her bleeding finger in Alucard’s mouth. Alucard, on the other hand, was pulling his head away as far as he could. “Sypha, no means no. Leave the blushing vampire alone.”

“I am not blushing,” Alucard argued, and Sypha used the opportunity of his open mouth to stick her finger right between his fangs. “Urmm.”

“Lick it,” Sypha instructed with iron in her voice. Alucard closed his mouth around her finger. “That’s better.” Her finger came back out with a soft pop, clean and shining. “My, you really do have a beautiful blush. Like rose petals laying against ivory.”

“Now it’s more like blood on salt,” Trevor added, hugely entertained and resting back on his elbows. Nobody could stand against Sypha when she was being disarmingly forthright and bossy. “Are we doing this? Stick him right in the neck.” Alucard’s response was to shove Trevor’s entire head in between the pillows and lean on them. Hands flailing blindly, he grabbed a long piece of hair and used it as a rope to pull himself back out before he suffocated. “Nice try, but attempted murder won’t get you out of this.”

The words had some strange effect. Alucard was looking askance at the knife pointed at his throat and down at Trevor with sudden trepidation. Well, shit. Reaching up without looking, Trevor took the dagger from Sypha’s fingers and started to put it back in its sheath.

“No.” Hard fingers grabbed his wrist. “There’s no need for that. I trust you both, and we have an agreement.”

“Oh,” Sypha said, abashed. “Of course. You must look at us and see—”

“Not at all,” Alucard said succinctly. “But the last time I was in a bed with two humans, I summoned my sword and slit both their throats. I suppose the memory is still somewhat fresh.” Catching Trevor looking curiously about the room, he added, “My sword isn’t currently here.”

“It’s under the bed, isn’t it.”

“It’s not under the bed.”

Sypha jumped to the floor and started crawling around. “It’s under the bed!”

“Fuck,” Alucard sighed. “Look, it’s simply a precaution. And it was here before I knew either of you would be barging into my bedchamber. Can we please drop the subject? Sypha, get up here and cut my neck open.”

Trevor squinted. “The subject of your very clear trauma that undermined your faith in humanity and eroded your trust in basically everyone forever and ever amen?” The bed didn’t even dip as Sypha launched back up onto it, shirt sagging off her shoulder and exposing the rise of one pert breast. Absolutely huge mattress, the back of Trevor’s mind whispered. Meanwhile, Alucard was looking fed up.

“Yes, exactly that.” He gave the knife back to Sypha, wrapping her fingers around the hilt and guiding it right up to his neck. “Belmont, don’t waste any time when this goes in, please. No maidenly shows of disgust.”

“I’ll control myself somehow.” Sitting up completely straight, Trevor found his mouth was in line with Alucard’s neck anyway. All he had to do was…drink the haughty vampire’s blood when it started coming out. The only blood he’d ever had in his mouth was his own. Was it going to taste like that? Or like secrets? Maybe like some strange, old wine. Exactly how old was Alucard, anyway? He couldn’t be that old.

Sucking in a fortifying breath, Sypha slid the knife an inch into Alucard’s neck and pulled it back out. Red started running heavily from the wound. Then there was a palm on the back of Trevor’s skull, pulling him in.

Showtime. With a single desperate lick to catch the run-off, Trevor sealed his mouth over the cut and sucked at it like a sensual piglet at a really tense teat. Thinking the least sexy thoughts he could was the only thing that saved him as Alucard gave a raw, shocked gasp at the contact, his fingers tangling roughly in the strands of brown hair caught between them. He didn’t know Trevor liked having his hair pulled.

The blood did taste like blood. Blood and something earthy, something dark. It didn’t taste like secrets but each swallow filled his body like one; a warm, glittering wave rising in his stomach that seemed to fill each of his limbs in turn with torrents of crackling life. The aches in his bones faded. His shoulder prickled and tugged as the wound sealed itself over, the heat of low infection gone as though it had never existed. Strength and energy returned to him like the tide coming in. Trevor had never been so aware of his own skin as he was sitting there feeling each bruise tingle its way to oblivion. He actually felt good again. He hadn’t been entirely sure he ever would. Pulling at the retreating cut with his mouth, one hand to Alucard’s offensively smooth jaw, Trevor tried to clean up every last drop of blood before it healed.

Finally there was nothing but clean, warm skin under his tongue. Feeling languorous and entirely drugged, Trevor sighed regretfully and rubbed his cheek there, pulling back to blink at them both. Every muscle felt loose and relaxed as he leaned out, his fingers slipping away from a bare shoulder. It was strangely quiet; Sypha said nothing when he looked at her. She looked devastated, the knife held loosely in her small hands. Trevor looked up.

Alucard was crying.

Not in loud dramatic sobs, but silent, sparkling rivulets of tears spilling down his cheeks and off his chin. The fingers splayed across his eyes weren’t doing a thing to stop or hide them. Trevor’s heart sank.

“Sorry,” he said, and meant it.

“What are you sorry for?” Alucard asked softly, his voice only faintly trembling. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Turning to Sypha, who was wiping a tear from the corner of her own eye, Trevor gave her his best please help me look. She completely missed it. Fingers slid through his hair as he turned back, just sort of petting it a little. Alucard was trying to pull himself together, but every time he blinked more tears sparkled off his lashes.

“I’m sorry,” Trevor said again, like it might sink in for them this time. He had the dumb, cornered feeling of a wild animal who sensed a trap but couldn’t see it. What had he done?

“You silly man,” Sypha whispered fondly, and wrapped her arms around them both. Turning her head between them, she kissed Trevor’s cheek, then Alucard’s jaw and back again. “I adore you both. Can we just enjoy this beautiful moment of mutual trust and affection?”

“Is that what it is?” It didn’t seem all that beautiful from his vantage point trapped under a sad vampire who couldn’t seem to get his tears under control. Exhaling roughly, Trevor unrolled his sleeve the entire way and used his fabric-covered hand to pat Alucard’s face dry. More kept coming. “For God’s sake, it’s never-ending. You’re going to dry up like an apple at this rate.” In response to that, his hand was knocked away only for Alucard to hunch his body over until he could push his entire face into Trevor’s newly-healed shoulder. “Well. All right.”

“Oh, hush,” Sypha said, saving Trevor’s confounded arse by sliding a leg over his knees and hugging Alucard from behind. She looked happy, just—all the way happy again, with her cheek squashed up and her eyes crinkled. Her lashes were spiky with moisture. Normally, Sypha wasn’t one to get teary-eyed at all. Upset, true, but she’d never cried once over any of the horrors they’d seen. Strange that a little thing like happiness might do it.

Or maybe not. One was in much scarcer amounts than the other.

“I have no idea what’s going on anymore,” Trevor sighed to the ceiling, but gave in and hugged his way around Alucard’s back anyway. His arms weren’t long enough to grab Sypha too, but he ended up sort of petting her tousled head, which was almost the same.

“I’ve missed this kind of thing,” Sypha murmured into Alucard’s shoulder. “I miss hugs, and touching, and being honest about one’s feelings—”

“Excuse me, I hug you,” Trevor interrupted. “Sometimes. In bed.”

“Trevor, I don’t know if you know this about yourself, but you are extremely distanced when it comes to casual affection.”

“But—”

“Extremely.”

On his shoulder, Alucard seemed to have gone rather still. Maybe he was just listening in by that point. Trevor tried to think of a way to defend himself that didn’t sound whiny or like he was asking for pity. He couldn’t really come up with anything.

“Well…” He scratched his head. “I suppose I didn’t know anyone would want me to hug them. Most of the time I don’t even smell very good.” Shrugging at Sypha’s blank expression, he tapped the tip of her nose. “We get by, don’t we?”

“Jesus, Belmont.” The words were rumbled into his neck, warm and sounding a little stuffy. “Don’t tell me I’ve survived patricide, betrayal and an almost-execution, and you’re still the most fucked up thing in the room.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Trevor,” Sypha said adamantly. “Or you. Or me! We’re completely well-adjusted considering the circumstances we’ve been forced to endure over the years.” Shuffling back off Alucard, she slid around to sit next to Trevor. There was a fierce curve to her eyebrows. “What’s a little betrayal, murder, routine ostracism, some beatings, petrification, excommunication, the crushing realisation that almost all humans are garbage and we just so happen to be human so perhaps we, too, are garbage and simply aren’t self-aware of our own faults and failings and should be purged just like Dracula wanted—”

“Maybe that’s a little extreme,” Alucard said, finally emerging from the damp cave his hair had created around Trevor’s shoulder. His cheeks were flushed from crying. Trevor was starting to wonder if pink was actually Alucard’s default colour, and the blood-starving had simply been hiding it all along. He got off Trevor and sat on his other side, wiping his nose with the back of his hand like a peasant. “I started thinking that too, until you two turned up on my doorstep, asking about magic chicken and where my bathtubs were. Idiots.”

“Don’t forget the wine,” Trevor added. His legs felt cold. He wiped at his shoulder and came away with a hand wet with what he hoped desperately were tears. “How did we get to the point where Sypha wants to purge humanity and you’re defending them? The recent lawn ornaments would suggest you’re on her side.”

For a while there was no answer. Alucard had grabbed his shirt from where it had been thrown across the plush wall of pillows, throwing it on and releasing his hair from the collar. Trevor looked around for his own and couldn’t see it. Great. Finally Alucard straightened and settled himself alongside Trevor’s flank, which put him uncomfortably in the middle of two apparently emotional, sort-of affectionate people of frightening power. Wearing no shirt. He resisted the urge to cover his nipples.

“It occurred to me that were I to reject the goodness still left in humans, and snarl at every outstretched hand in case it might hurt me, then I would be no better than Sumi and Taka.” Alucard leaned back in the cushions and rubbed the corner of his eye absently. He was warm against Trevor’s side. “They believed they were alone in the world; the only two good humans left. I wish I had been able to get them to meet you both.” Golden brows creased with a sad approximation of a smile. “And yet, the idea provokes jealousy in me. I don’t want to share either of you.”

“Good,” Sypha replied, flopping back on the bed and tugging her laces into order. “I concur, and Trevor didn’t want to share you either. Did you know he thought you were trying to replace us with your human students? To think, this uncommonly skilled and very handsome hunter of vampires worried you’d like somebody more than him.”

Trevor stared through the painted ceiling. “I never said that, and your flattery does nothing. I am stone before your lies.” He threw a couple of cushions aside so he could burrow down in the pillows. He might as well be comfortable, he thought, trying not to smile when a small square cushion beaned Sypha right in the face. “Besides, I never said we would have dropped everything if Alucard had so much as sniffled when we were rolling out of here in that shitty wagon.”

“But you would have,” Sypha countered, rolling onto her side to pinch his nostrils closed. “Alucard, we must teach Trevor the freeing powers of being honest about our feelings.” The vampire in question was busily combing through his own hair and blinking at the gauze canopy over the bed. “Alucard?”

“Hm? Oh. I agree.” Without any further comment, he lifted his hips and began unbuckling his twin belts, throwing them onto the thick rug laid out beneath the bed. “I’d like to discuss this once I’ve had a decent sleep.” A small hesitation, then, “I’d prefer you both slept here, if it suits you. I think the proximity might help.”

“You don’t seem the type to sleep in your trousers,” Trevor noted, knocking Sypha’s fingers away from his nose and turning his head almost entirely into a soft, down-filled pillow. “Shy? Your scars are gone now. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Are you asking me to take all my clothes off, Belmont?”

“I’m saying if we get under the blanket at the same time, nobody has to see anything.”

“Are we all sleeping naked?” Sypha asked, sounding thrilled. She threw her wispy shirt on the floor in no time, diving under the pillows like a mink searching for the edge of the blanket. With a sleek wriggle and a twist she was under the duvet and sighing happily amongst the high pillows. “Oh, to be clean and warm and well-fed!”

“And naked,” Alucard said bemusedly. Sypha laughed.

“And naked! Isn’t it wonderful? We’re together, we appreciate each other and I don’t have to pee in a bucket for once. I am in heaven.” Throwing her arms up above her head, she hummed contentedly into the dreary grey dusk light that filled the room. “Perhaps the sun will come out tomorrow.” Shutting her eyes with a long, luxurious sigh, she rolled until her back was to Trevor’s side and backed up until the soles of her feet were touching where he’d pinned the blanket down. “Trevor, get into the bed.”

“No.”

“Trevor.”

“God.” He started unbuttoning his pants. Common sense said he should keep them on, but Sypha would only demand he took them off anyway. It just wasn’t worth the argument.

“Her feet are where she keeps her ice magic,” he hissed to Alucard, who snorted softly, his eyes gleaming as he watched him disrobe. “Aren’t you going to chivalrously turn away again?”

“I wasn’t planning on it, but if I must.” Another shirt went sailing across the room. Inside of one long breath the both of them were underneath the heavy blanket, determinedly looking at the ceiling and not each other. Alucard cleared his throat gently. “Thank you both, for putting up with my….me. I expect you were anticipating a much warmer welcome when you arrived here seeking shelter.”

“Not really,” Sypha yawned, reversing even further until her rounded behind was resting against Trevor’s thigh. It made the bone-chilling ice that radiated from her feet only slightly more bearable. “I love you dearly, Alucard, but what I really wanted was hot water and soap. And food. And this bed. This is the best bed I’ve ever been in!” Flipping over, she snuggled her way up onto Trevor’s shoulder. A warm hand grazed over the sensitive skin of his stomach, making it jump, but she was only reaching past him to Alucard. “Come in closer. Do you want to be in the middle? We can move.”

“This is far preferable,” Alucard said, and his eyes seemed far away. He also looked tired as hell. Trevor could relate. Now that he was somewhere comfortable, somewhere quiet and dry and safe, the languid warm pull of tiredness at his newly-healed body was almost impossible to ignore. Maybe there was a giant sword under the bed. Maybe his dagger was on the other side of the room. There was no danger there. No crazy monks, no demons, no township judge to earn their friendship and reveal himself a monster.

Best of all, there was no rain. The patter at the windows had stopped. When, Trevor had no idea. Somewhere along the way he’d stopped counting raindrops. It felt like a good omen.

With that in mind, feeling very unsure about it, Trevor lifted his arms out of the blankets and spread them out until he could wrap an arm around Sypha. His other arm had to stretch a lot further, until he finally just grabbed a hank of yellow hair and pulled it back in his direction.

“Ow,” Alucard said pointedly, following like an animal on a very short leash. “I see now what Sypha meant about your inability to correctly express affection.” He still slid across the sheets until he was pressed against Trevor’s side, chin digging down into the bone of his shoulder. “But I suppose this will do.”

A warm hand crossed Trevor’s stomach back in the opposite direction, and Sypha mirrored it. All at once he felt incredibly…something. He wasn’t quite sure yet, but it was good. Strange, definitely, and he’d never slept next to a dhampir and a magician at the same time before, but it didn’t feel dangerous. It felt warm and comfortable. The breath touching his neck wasn’t unwelcome. Nor were the curiously circling fingernails drawing sleepy lines across his ribs.

In completely unfamiliar circumstances, sheltered inside the futuristic skeleton of Castle Dracula itself, Trevor felt more right than he ever had in his entire life. Content, comforted and safe. Lindenfeld was a fading memory in the face of that. Drowsing on it for a while, watching the dull light fade behind his eyelids, he tried to think of a way to put the feeling into adequate words.

Against his side, as though he’d heard Trevor’s actual thoughts, Alucard stirred and pushed his nose further into the hair behind his ear. On his other side, Sypha twitched and rubbed her inner thigh up the outside of his. A lot of murky, pleasant feelings suddenly snapped into focus at once—and they were spelling out one enormous word.

Blinking in startled realisation up at the mural painted on the ceiling, Trevor wondered if maybe some sudden realisations were better left unspoken.

In the meantime, he had absolutely everything he needed.

“Goodnight,” Sypha mumbled into his skin, and tucked her freezing feet under his calves.

“Yes,” Alucard replied simply, gently biting into Trevor’s shoulder. He did not unlatch his teeth.

“Fucking chew toy,” Trevor muttered to the ceiling. “I’m really rising up in the world. Goodnight to you both. Don’t kill me in my sleep.”

Yeah, everything he needed. With a few extras.

Trevor knew he wouldn’t have it any other way.