[ Their first return to what-it-still-felt-odd-to-call-home had been. Strange. Difficult. Emotional. Most of the castle was still unsafe. It wasn't ready for them. Alucard hadn't been ready for them either, Trevor suspects. The castle never saw a Belmont twice, up until then. And maybe its master hadn't been expecting them to return either. They'd spent the night outside, that night, in the late spring air and on the same bedrolls they'd been dragging around on the wagon. And he wasn't sure if he'd ever seen anyone so simultaneously joyful and anguished as Alucard had been when he'd watched Sypha curl up into his arms to sleep.
Because he and Sypha made a different shape, these days, and they still had to work out how to fit Alucard against it.
It had been simple enough in the end. Or rather, it had been simple enough for Sypha. She was good at this shit. She mediated, and she slept between them, and they both adored her. They set up the room where they would sleep between them, and Alucard figured out which areas of the castle were safe and things were- whatever fucked up kind of thing passes for normal in his life nowadays.
Sypha isn't here now, called off to aid one of the caravans with some kind of magical bullshit that he doesn't understand, and so once again they've been left with a pair of shapes that don't quite fit together so much as they both fit against her. ]
You don't have to pretend to sleep for my sake. That shit must bore you out of your mind.
[ It's the early hours of the morning, and it's a deeply weird feeling, after a few weeks of the three of them being piled into a definitely-not-large-enough-for-three bed, to be sharing a bed with someone and determinedly not touching them. And he still has his eyes closed, his back turned to Alucard, but he can hear the way he's breathing. And he's still a Belmont who Must Observe the Vampire. He knows what awake-Alucard's breath sounds like. ]
[There hadn't been particular notification that the two were coming back to the castle. Had there been, Alucard would have at least been able to eck out a spot for the two in all the glass and rubble and millions of repairs that needed to be done. The list was so long, and that didn't even include the Hold. (He hadn't even touched the Hold. He could float and getting in and out of it was still a pain.) He had barely enough food to feed three. In truth their coming back was a real surprise. (Sypha probably figured that one out in two seconds.)
So that tree it had been, and there had been half a dozen awkward parts that went with it. The same strangeness in the next morning, and a few days in, until Sypha made a simple decision and that was that. Alucard had managed to find at least a small set of rooms that were undamaged and not terribly deep into the castle's depths (the other two would get so lost so fast). And that had been that for a brief time.
It was a weird shape. He didn't dislike it, it felt nice when his brain turned off and he just enjoyed the weight of Sypha either curled up in his arms or trying to tug him close. He didn't really sleep, so he focused on her warmth instead. And on trying not to brush up against Trevor too much, because there were far too many questions. They couldn't demand Sypha mediate everything.
For that reason, her absence is keenly felt. The bed is weird, Alucard has his own he could just use instead, but he isn't because that'd be weird too. So he lays there in silence, his face turned towards the door. Expecting nothing.]
Anything I want to do at the moment would be extremely loud and wake you.
[ Usually as a result of drunkenness, but still. He's good at determining what's danger and what isn't in his sleep and tuning out what he needs to. It's a skill you learn, sleeping outdoors for the better part of two decades.
It's not a skill that fucking prepares you for situations like this. He can tell animals scrapping from a monster attack, but that's no use at all when the thing keeping you awake is the fact that you're sharing a bed with an infuriatingly beautiful floaty ethereal vampire and your muscle memory is screaming that 'right now, your arms ought to be here'. ]
Already did. [ His subconscious is being simultaneously better and worse than usual. On the one hand, no burning. Fucking fantastic. On the other, what the fuck is he supposed to do with its newfound habit of coming up with new contexts for the end of that fight in Gresit? ] Done now.
[Because that...that's still true. This is his home, they're visiting. At least that's as far as Alucard's come to understand whatever this all is right now. Either way, he's sat up fully now, back still turned. Feet on the floor, and fairly certain that just getting out of bed is better than lingering in awkwardness.
Sypha's not here. So it's painfully awkward.]
My sleep habits aren't ones you should copy. And it isn't like you're inclined to read until dawn either.
[ He does turn over to look at Alucard at that, because movement. He doesn't sit up, but he raises himself a little on one arm. Guests. It doesn't sound wrong, not for referring to him. For referring to Sypha, though. ]
Is that what she is, too? Figured you'd think of her as- closer.
[He's on his feet. Going for the door, because he's awake and maybe he can at least justify working on returning the pages of books to their appropriate homes in the library. Bookbinding is an art he is learning by requirement now, and it is quiet work. Good night time work.]
I don't know what any of this is.
[There's honesty in that statement at least. What any of this is is beyond him, aside from moving forward with whatever this aftermath will eventually settle as.]
Don't go around calling her 'guest', at least. She'll hate it.
[ It's honest, and not all that combative for once. Because she will hate it. Because it's taking something away from her, making the castle just another of many, many, many places that aren't really her home, just a place where she stays sometimes.
It's easier to talk about Sypha. She talks about how she feels so very much, and he has nothing better to do than to memorize it. ]
[His hand lingers on the doorknob. (He has to unlock it first, because he is still Alucard.) Sypha's....open. And straightforward. And any call she makes is impossible to question because of those facts and because she has always known what she wanted.
It made things easier. Less complicated, because he could just respond to all of it. No thinking required than just going with what Sypha wanted and his own gut. The rest was...nebulous at best.]
You're an asshole with nothing left but her, and I'm an asshole with nothing left but her.
[ They have that, at least. Like sailors navigating by the same star. ]
But there's no good fucking word for that, is there? So- fuck it. I don't have enough family left that I can just go about refusing when she forces one onto me.
[That was not a joke, and he opens the door. There's no noise as it swings open, moonlight filtering in from the window just across the way. Half moon, and the light streams over Alucard. He's already pale enough, he doesn't need the help.]
Dragged along in the same current. Different captain of the ship now.
[ That's not a response. Not to anything Alucard's said, anyway. He's unearthly in the moonlight, the silver of it leeching the colour out of his skin (and fuck if that isn't a phrasing he's going to regret in three years time). Each strand of his hair catches the light, softens it, so that there's a hazy mist of white light about his head and shoulders. Beautiful.
(He doesn't deserve either of them.)
The next words fall clumsily out of his mouth while his mind is occupied by that thought. ]
[At least that answer is instant. A gut answer, because the prophecy said three, didn't it? It never said anything about three concluding, and it makes this discussion feel easier to have. (It is not.)
He leans in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes looking at the window rather than at Trevor.]
[ It's- as comforting as having an escape route blocked off can ever be. Because that's what it would be, if he left 'for their sakes'. So that the heathen can have a good, church-approved monogamous relationship with the actual fucking vampire. Because being church-approved would naturally be their first priority.
(It had made sense in his head.) ]
Either you've got competent at lying while we were gone, or you actually mean that. [ There's a little amusement there. A little bewilderment. A lot of apprehension. ] Shit. I- shit.
Belmont, who is possibly here that I can practice lying to other than myself?
[That's the point as far as Alucard's concerned, all the nonsense in Trevor's head mercifully confined. If it were to be voiced, Alucard would just stare at him and wonder why the approval of such a wretched institution would matter to begin with.
Heathen, vampire, excommunicate, after all. No matter the arrangements involved.
The apprehension is new though. Alucard's eyes go over to Trevor, betraying some bafflement.]
This wasn't how it was supposed to go. When I asked her to come back here. I thought I was going to just leave her here with you and stop dragging her down. And she thought-
[ Okay so their decision to come back may or may not have been at least in part a result of mutual drunken admissions of fondness for their dhampir. And he'd thought that he'd found an easy escape route, and she'd thought that they'd just come back and everyone would articulate feelings as easily as she did and this would all go fine. ]
-and neither of those things fucking happened. And now I'm sharing a bed with a fucking vampire and I have no idea what the fuck I'm supposed to do about that.
Belmont, you're proposing a nomad stay in one place for...how long, precisely? [Alucard's question belies the real tone which is are you fucking kidding me? A stupid plan if Alucard's ever heard it, and he is maybe the king of stupid plans when you realize that "patricide" was his answer to "my dad went batshit with grief and is destroying a whole country."
That's not the actual point here. He knows it. But he doesn't care, because he's not sure where this is going. Better to stick with what's known.]
If you'd prefer the bed to yourself while she is away, I can oblige. Unless the real question is how do you feel about the fact we're both in the same bedroom, in which case I can't tell you what to do about it aside from make a decision about your own opinion on the matter.
She thought we'd give a shit about each other. That that would happen and that this would make sense because of it.
[ It didn't. It doesn't. He hates this. ]
I feel like I don't want to lie in bed next to someone who doesn't want me to be there, who's just going to spend the whole night judging me for want of bricks to count.
We've had plenty of discussions about my sleep habits before. You're taking that fact personally now?
[That isn't the point either. Which means even daring to address what this really is, better known as the question of where do we stand in relation to each other? Sypha was...easier, in many ways. And Trevor was right about both being assholes with nothing else left but her. That was one of the reasons that it was easy. The rest was just Sypha's nature.]
We are both prickly by our natures. Let us begin with that simple fact.
[ So yes. That's an agreement. Shit, why did Sypha find this so easy? It's not fair- she doesn't need to express this shit with words anymore. She just curls up against either of them and it makes sense. She's good at words, and she doesn't even need to use them. ]
I'm taking it personally that you don't want me to be here. And you don't want me to leave. And so what the fuck am I supposed to do?
[ The silence is fucking suffocating. It it could have been a few seconds or it could have been an hour but it's enough time for his stomach to turn and for him to regret every single individual decision that led him here. ]
I can't make you happy. So you may was well just fuck off until she comes back.
[ Request or not, usually he'd just be an ass and ignore it for as long as he could anyway. Right now- right now he doesn't have the energy to act like a shit.
He shoves himself out of the bed, following to the library in defeated silence. ]
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cryptsleeper) wrote2018-11-10 11:26 pm
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Because he and Sypha made a different shape, these days, and they still had to work out how to fit Alucard against it.
It had been simple enough in the end. Or rather, it had been simple enough for Sypha. She was good at this shit. She mediated, and she slept between them, and they both adored her. They set up the room where they would sleep between them, and Alucard figured out which areas of the castle were safe and things were- whatever fucked up kind of thing passes for normal in his life nowadays.
Sypha isn't here now, called off to aid one of the caravans with some kind of magical bullshit that he doesn't understand, and so once again they've been left with a pair of shapes that don't quite fit together so much as they both fit against her. ]
You don't have to pretend to sleep for my sake. That shit must bore you out of your mind.
[ It's the early hours of the morning, and it's a deeply weird feeling, after a few weeks of the three of them being piled into a definitely-not-large-enough-for-three bed, to be sharing a bed with someone and determinedly not touching them. And he still has his eyes closed, his back turned to Alucard, but he can hear the way he's breathing. And he's still a Belmont who Must Observe the Vampire. He knows what awake-Alucard's breath sounds like. ]
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So that tree it had been, and there had been half a dozen awkward parts that went with it. The same strangeness in the next morning, and a few days in, until Sypha made a simple decision and that was that. Alucard had managed to find at least a small set of rooms that were undamaged and not terribly deep into the castle's depths (the other two would get so lost so fast). And that had been that for a brief time.
It was a weird shape. He didn't dislike it, it felt nice when his brain turned off and he just enjoyed the weight of Sypha either curled up in his arms or trying to tug him close. He didn't really sleep, so he focused on her warmth instead. And on trying not to brush up against Trevor too much, because there were far too many questions. They couldn't demand Sypha mediate everything.
For that reason, her absence is keenly felt. The bed is weird, Alucard has his own he could just use instead, but he isn't because that'd be weird too. So he lays there in silence, his face turned towards the door. Expecting nothing.]
Anything I want to do at the moment would be extremely loud and wake you.
[Repairs are loud and the castle does echo.]
Go to sleep.
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[ Usually as a result of drunkenness, but still. He's good at determining what's danger and what isn't in his sleep and tuning out what he needs to. It's a skill you learn, sleeping outdoors for the better part of two decades.
It's not a skill that fucking prepares you for situations like this. He can tell animals scrapping from a monster attack, but that's no use at all when the thing keeping you awake is the fact that you're sharing a bed with an infuriatingly beautiful floaty ethereal vampire and your muscle memory is screaming that 'right now, your arms ought to be here'. ]
Already did. [ His subconscious is being simultaneously better and worse than usual. On the one hand, no burning. Fucking fantastic. On the other, what the fuck is he supposed to do with its newfound habit of coming up with new contexts for the end of that fight in Gresit? ] Done now.
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[Because that...that's still true. This is his home, they're visiting. At least that's as far as Alucard's come to understand whatever this all is right now. Either way, he's sat up fully now, back still turned. Feet on the floor, and fairly certain that just getting out of bed is better than lingering in awkwardness.
Sypha's not here. So it's painfully awkward.]
My sleep habits aren't ones you should copy. And it isn't like you're inclined to read until dawn either.
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[ He does turn over to look at Alucard at that, because movement. He doesn't sit up, but he raises himself a little on one arm. Guests. It doesn't sound wrong, not for referring to him. For referring to Sypha, though. ]
Is that what she is, too? Figured you'd think of her as- closer.
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I don't know what any of this is.
[There's honesty in that statement at least. What any of this is is beyond him, aside from moving forward with whatever this aftermath will eventually settle as.]
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[ It's honest, and not all that combative for once. Because she will hate it. Because it's taking something away from her, making the castle just another of many, many, many places that aren't really her home, just a place where she stays sometimes.
It's easier to talk about Sypha. She talks about how she feels so very much, and he has nothing better to do than to memorize it. ]
You're family to her. That's what this shit is.
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[His hand lingers on the doorknob. (He has to unlock it first, because he is still Alucard.) Sypha's....open. And straightforward. And any call she makes is impossible to question because of those facts and because she has always known what she wanted.
It made things easier. Less complicated, because he could just respond to all of it. No thinking required than just going with what Sypha wanted and his own gut. The rest was...nebulous at best.]
And your take?
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[ They have that, at least. Like sailors navigating by the same star. ]
But there's no good fucking word for that, is there? So- fuck it. I don't have enough family left that I can just go about refusing when she forces one onto me.
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[That was not a joke, and he opens the door. There's no noise as it swings open, moonlight filtering in from the window just across the way. Half moon, and the light streams over Alucard. He's already pale enough, he doesn't need the help.]
Dragged along in the same current. Different captain of the ship now.
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[ That's not a response. Not to anything Alucard's said, anyway. He's unearthly in the moonlight, the silver of it leeching the colour out of his skin (and fuck if that isn't a phrasing he's going to regret in three years time). Each strand of his hair catches the light, softens it, so that there's a hazy mist of white light about his head and shoulders. Beautiful.
(He doesn't deserve either of them.)
The next words fall clumsily out of his mouth while his mind is occupied by that thought. ]
Would it be easier without me?
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[At least that answer is instant. A gut answer, because the prophecy said three, didn't it? It never said anything about three concluding, and it makes this discussion feel easier to have. (It is not.)
He leans in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes looking at the window rather than at Trevor.]
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(It had made sense in his head.) ]
Either you've got competent at lying while we were gone, or you actually mean that. [ There's a little amusement there. A little bewilderment. A lot of apprehension. ] Shit. I- shit.
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[That's the point as far as Alucard's concerned, all the nonsense in Trevor's head mercifully confined. If it were to be voiced, Alucard would just stare at him and wonder why the approval of such a wretched institution would matter to begin with.
Heathen, vampire, excommunicate, after all. No matter the arrangements involved.
The apprehension is new though. Alucard's eyes go over to Trevor, betraying some bafflement.]
What?
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[ Okay so their decision to come back may or may not have been at least in part a result of mutual drunken admissions of fondness for their dhampir. And he'd thought that he'd found an easy escape route, and she'd thought that they'd just come back and everyone would articulate feelings as easily as she did and this would all go fine. ]
-and neither of those things fucking happened. And now I'm sharing a bed with a fucking vampire and I have no idea what the fuck I'm supposed to do about that.
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That's not the actual point here. He knows it. But he doesn't care, because he's not sure where this is going. Better to stick with what's known.]
If you'd prefer the bed to yourself while she is away, I can oblige. Unless the real question is how do you feel about the fact we're both in the same bedroom, in which case I can't tell you what to do about it aside from make a decision about your own opinion on the matter.
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[ It didn't. It doesn't. He hates this. ]
I feel like I don't want to lie in bed next to someone who doesn't want me to be there, who's just going to spend the whole night judging me for want of bricks to count.
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[That isn't the point either. Which means even daring to address what this really is, better known as the question of where do we stand in relation to each other? Sypha was...easier, in many ways. And Trevor was right about both being assholes with nothing else left but her. That was one of the reasons that it was easy. The rest was just Sypha's nature.]
We are both prickly by our natures. Let us begin with that simple fact.
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[ So yes. That's an agreement. Shit, why did Sypha find this so easy? It's not fair- she doesn't need to express this shit with words anymore. She just curls up against either of them and it makes sense. She's good at words, and she doesn't even need to use them. ]
I'm taking it personally that you don't want me to be here. And you don't want me to leave. And so what the fuck am I supposed to do?
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[...Here's a time for honesty, isn't it?]
Nor do I actually know what I want at the moment.
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[ And it's probably the most aggressive anyone has ever been when expressing that sentiment. ]
And she can do that, but I can't.
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Oh.
And he's going to stand there for a moment more than a little dumbfounded.]
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I can't make you happy. So you may was well just fuck off until she comes back.
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[That's not a request, Alucard's tone is clear on that. Sypha mediates. She's not here. So work will have to do that instead.]
Neither of us are sleeping, and I've been oblivious.
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[ Request or not, usually he'd just be an ass and ignore it for as long as he could anyway. Right now- right now he doesn't have the energy to act like a shit.
He shoves himself out of the bed, following to the library in defeated silence. ]
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