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It was surprisingly easy for Trevor to turn the cart around and follow Sypha back to Dracula’s castle. It was easier to seek out Alucard buried in rubble and dark memories, to take him into their arms and lay soft lips on his mouth, his neck, all his tattered edges and ragged breaths. It’s a new truth in Trevor’s life that these are two people whom he would gladly give the world. Who he’s already gifted his hearth and home. There’s a family crypt further back from the carcass of the mansion. Trevor thinks about taking his (lovers? paramours?) out to the graves, except who knows if Alucard might spontaneously burst into flame. Dracula’s son is certainly made of stronger stuff than a garden variety dhampir, but Trevor would like to avoid taking chances. Sometimes Alucard slips out of bed in the deep night, leaves Trevor and Sypha to roll over into his warm empty space. He wanders quite a bit during the daytime as well, but in his blood he is a creature of the night. Like foxes, owls and other animals which fill the nighttime darkness with their cries, Alucard steps through his sprawling lands. Trevor was never one to hide his wonderings and will usually ask what he’d done in the night, and almost every time Alucard give him a satisfactory (albeit rude) answer. Hunting, cleaning, basking in the comfort of sadness. The latter answer is always met with a vested attempt to create new happy memories for him to relive. The hurt will never fully dissolve, but it can be diluted over time. One night after Alucard leaves, Trevor remains awake cradling Sypha to his front. He smells the apple blossom soap in her hair. (It was wash day, always a fulfilling endeavor, bathing together to “conserve hot water”). She snores terribly. He palms her swelling waist remembering the happy moments which drip from the last six months like an overfull honeycomb- painting a new nursery, sitting by the fire sewing toys and tiny shifts. They have no way of knowing who exactly caused the pregnancy, but Sypha insists that it won’t matter. She zips about the grounds preparing for the birth in her own Speaker traditions, never wandering far, but obviously restless. They’re all restless- with excitement and anxiety and desire and fear. And fear. Trevor quietly slips out from the sheets with a soft kiss pressed to Sypha’s temple, rucking the bedspread up over her shoulders so she won’t miss his warmth. He pads through the castle, pausing only to slip on a pair of soft soled shoes, and follows his tried and true Belmont gut feeling toward the Hold. The full moon illuminates a footpath cleared of debris which trails around connecting castle to ruin. The night creatures are singing, croaking, howling a cacophony through the leafy forest. Even in the middle of summer this far eastern corner of Wallachia retains a coolness in the air once the moon rises over zenith. Trevor could run these paths blind. He hopes his child will be able to as well. Trevor is the only one of their merry little band in need of manual access to the Hold. There’s a rope ladder woven from the castle’s remnants (sheets, blankets, pulleys of the moveability engine) descending down into the depths, and upon relentless questioning Alucard finally admitted it was the first thing he thought to make from his new gains. Trevor kissed him right then and there, at the edge of a colossal drop. He moves nimbly through the debris of the ancient staircase and through the belly of the beast- stacks upon stacks of his family legacy. His gut instinct brings him past the lectern, past the endless shelves, into the artifact display where Alucard stands unnaturally still in front of the display case. Each skull bears a placard carefully noting the assumed age of the specimen, sex, location of harvest. Sometimes Alucard forgets to breathe. It’s something he only does around Sypha and Trevor, to pacify their human instincts as if he’s still afraid they’ll grow to fear him. He doesn’t breathe now. “You have a storied history, Belmont.” Alucard says. “With dedicated effort it may take me the better half of next century to sift through it.” “It’s a good thing we’ve indexed it all for you then. Cut out the boring bits.” Trevor doesn’t dare touch Alucard. The moment pulsates in uneasy waves. It’s a slow heartbeat. He stands with a handbreadth of space between them, which is near enough to satiate his own desire for closeness and respect Alucard’s implied wish of distance. He stares at a cranium no bigger than the palm of his hand. “Shall I read the inscription for you, Belmont?” Alucard asks. He continues before Trevor can protest the use of his surname. “Dhampir, aged one month or less. Culled with mother near Targoviste- Etienne Belmont, 1376.”
Standing in the dark clothed only in his white underthings it would be easy to mistake Alucard for a ghost. But then again, his face has always looked haunted. Sypha called him a bottomless pit of icy loneliness, and said that his sadness swallowed everything around it. Trevor has spent the last fifteen years falling down all manner of pits, drinking himself half blind and indulging in the comfort of pity and sorrow. There isn’t a pit deep enough to prevent him from climbing out. “Heard he was a bit of a cockwart, Etienne.” Trevor jokes. Alucard doesn’t laugh, broody fucking mess. “That won’t be our child,” he says instead. “There are no more Belmonts left to hunt it, remember?” “Apart from you.” Trevor lets the hurt wash over him for less than a second before it is swallowed by glowing anger. “Do you really think I would ever–” But as soon as he rounds up on Alucard it all dissipates. “I’m sorry Trevor, that was poorly said.” Alucard whispers. Trevor’s hand on his shoulder relaxes. Sypha was only partially right when she called Alucard an icy well. It’s only his face that reflects his sadness. “I’m not worried.” he says.
“Never asked if you were.” Trevor draws his thumb across Alucard’s marble cheekbone. Patience is a learned virtue. He finds it in soft touches and warm eyes. They are things that he lost for a time, but is slowly finding them again. The Hold echoes in drips of water and creaking old wood settling around them. Trevor’s patience stretches with the minutes of silence. He doesn’t need to be able to read the collection notes from this shelf to know the stories behind each solitary head, and it occurs to Trevor that Alucard might not know those stories firsthand. It’s one of the few things Trevor knows about Dracula– that he was the most qualified man in the world to keep his child safe until…Until. “I’ve never known of a dhampir having children.” Alucard finally says. “I grew up sitting on the knee of a man possessed of generations of knowledge, and I can’t even begin to think about how to raise a vampiric child. And if it is born of me, what will I tell it of its grandfather?” He trails off. “Its grandfather was Gabriel Belmont. He had brown hair just like mine, and he killed the last of the great dragons of eastern Europe. It wasn’t hurting anybody or terrorizing villages. In fact, it was torporing through winter when Gabriel came across it. He killed the beast at its weakest, brought my sisters and I back dice carved from its talons. And we spent hours playing games with those dice. Being happy. Its grandfather is also a kindly old Speaker who would rather suffer the pain of death than abandon those in need.” Trevor threads his fingers through Alucard's hand. In their glass reflection he could see Alucard’s eyes begin to wrinkle the way they only did when he knew Trevor was making sense. “This place is a tomb.” he countered weakly. “And a memorial. Part of growing up is learning things your parents try to protect you from. Or did you skip that bit?” “Shut up.” Their reflections smile and Trevor knows it’s alright, for the moment at least. Alucard turns to face him and is taken aback, as if just now realizing how close Trevor had huddled himself into the other’s warmth. “You aren’t wearing a shirt.” “Yeah, and it’s fuckin’ freezing down here. Come back to bed.” Alucard laughs into a sigh. “Very well.” In four years, nearly a third of the castle has been put back into livable condition. The East Wing is reserved for bedchambers and small reading rooms, each of which Sypha paints a different color. In the blue room, hung on a small piece of wall untouched by sunlight and far away from the floating ash of the fireplace is a small oval portrait. Trevor and Alucard stand regally in the back, somewhat overlapped in the middle as if holding hands behind the chair where Sypha sits in a practical linen dress front and center. Atop her knee is a young babe, no more than two years old. She has a riot of black curls carefully pulled away from her face with light blue ribbons, and her eyes spark with glee. Out of the corner of her mouth peeks a single small fang. On the back of the portrait in careful letters is written-
Alucard Tepes, Trevor Belmont, Sypha Belnades, and Marie Esthe.