[ It helps. It doesn't change a thing, but it helps. He'll still never know if he was right to choose what he did, to choose to be himself instead of The Last Belmont The World Would Need. But the question has hung in the air and been dismissed and is no longer stuck inside his head flinging itself against the walls.
Maybe he was wrong. But at the end of the day he owes the world nothing, and he owes the only two people who would have suffered from it the world.
Alucard kisses his forehead. Frees him. And he shakes his head. ]
One last round.
[ This is going to be the last time they do this, isn't it? The last time in a long time, at least. Because none of them will let any of this happen again. There'll be no need. He places his hands not on Alucard, but on the floor. ]
Tell me about the last time this place had a family in its walls.
[ He's never really asked. It was never proper, really. Even if he were to ask in good faith, a Belmont is a Belmont, and anything about Dracula - about Alucard's family, about his family now, at least as much as the speakers were, and maybe more so for events of the past - anything Alucard could say would only ever be intelligence. Something for him to scour for signs of weaknesses, for anything that could be turned upon his father.
He should ask. He should know. Dracula is a part of Alucard just as much as questionable filing methods and overfondness for wolfsbane and mistletoe and dogs called Dog are a part of him. He should listen, and he should listen while not tearing every word apart in search of hidden information and maybe now he's finally, finally capable of it. ]
...he sits there for a moment, stunned into silence. It's enough to hear Sypha stir from her spot. Over the years, Alucard has given bits and pieces of that information. Enough to get a laugh (when floating first came to me, I got stuck much too high once. Middle of the day, my father was asleep. Cried myself hoarse because my mother couldn't reach me), or in more somber moments when we did that too provided comfort.
But the whole of it. What it was like, beyond happy, beyond safe, he has never articulated.]
There was, after I was born, a host of unknowns. What I would need as far as nourishment, if I could be exposed to the sun at all, if I would even survive because I ran much too cold and much too warm for either of them to truly gauage if I was well. The first thing, that's why I cook. I need to balance these things. The second, my mother spoke of when I was older. In the dying rays of sunlight, my father still shrouded in the shadows, they had to test it, and it could not be taken as a science experiment no matter how they lied to themselves. It was fine, of course, but infant mortality is still infant mortality. All parents have that fear. The third...that was actual science, they charted it for a few days and were satisfied.
[To answer the question means to begin at the real beginning.]
That uncertainty made us cling to each other as I grew. Perhaps no moreso than any other family, but it was a foundation that no other would have.
[ He nods, and he listens, and he tries to imagine Dracula (Vlad Tepes) as just a man. It's strange, and it goes against every instinct he has (you cannot be trained from birth to kill a man and also believe him to be as human as you are. it does not work that way. Perhaps Leon would have regretted that things turned out that way). But he does it. Just a mother and father, worrying themselves to shadows over a child who seems sickly.
It's the most normal, human thing in the world.
He listens and he does not touch and he does not speak because this is not a conversation. There might be time for that later, if he ever particularly feels the need to discuss Dracula as a man, and if Alucard ever particularly feels the need to let him. ]
It's why princeling rankled me so much back when it had the air of insult, you know. Because I knew about that initial terror.
[Now it's affectionate, bordering on a promise of things to come. He's glad for it. Never would want it to stop. But it is worth noting all the same.
He moves on.]
I'm not going to belabor the parts that you both know from passing mentions. I was a terror if only because I was unknown. In the unknown, there was only affection and delight, because when that terror turned out to be better than expected, what else could there be but love?
[This is not an easy discussion. Not this part, at least.]
There were times that my father sat back and only watched. You'd not trust it, but we did, because he smiled to see all of it. Even alone in the study, if one of us went past the open door, it was there. And it was...easier, when I was smaller, in many ways. My personality was developing, and all the brightness and inquiry in the world was enough to lash us together beyond just being bound by love and by blood.
[Sometimes though, the details are important.][Never any Belmonts though. No nightmares about things hunting Dracula's only son.]
Belaboring the point, I think. Being older was harder in many ways, because you relate to your parents in new and stranger ways. I understood what I learned from them both, but I was at the age I wanted to apply it more, and...
[No. This isn't the right order of explanation.]
Being older made them more worried, I think. My mother wanted us to both go out into the world, but again, there was that fear of the unknown. So protectiveness manifested itself in new ways. Gresit was such a thing, for I understood much of the castle and wanted to apply it. That's how we began to relate to each other again, after all that temporary teenage awkwardness. There were days one was away or the other, but to be truly alone was rare.
[On that note, he smiles very softly.]
That is my understanding of how things were elsewhere too.
[ He doesn't scoff at the idea of Dracula being human. Being kind. Being a loving father. He did, five years ago. But even if it weren't the rules of this game (and that's why he's using this game to ask, as a promise that he won't throw this back in Alucard's face) there are things that he needs to consider and accept
Mathias Conqvist had become a monster for love, he had known this all his life. He could accept, then, surely, that Vlad Dracula Tepes had become a man for it.
And then a monster again, and then a little of both in the end.
Four hundred years of sacrifices, recent as a few years before his own birth. Four hundred years of men and women taken into the crypt before they hit thirty. Of names carved in stone because the bodies couldn't be recovered. Four hundred years of his kin bleeding and dying in the rooms of this very castle - and he knows that if he continues to work his way through it then he'll eventually find the bones. All because his family had believed Dracula beyond hope. And in the end what almost made him human again, what didn't bring him low but did make him safe, was a knife striking his front door. It's been a bitter thing to accept for a long time.
Which was why 'Princeling' had had the tone of insult in the first place, really.
That is the whole of it, I suppose. Things were strained because to grow up always brings that strain, but everything comes back together once there are new ways found to bond. Ordinary, so much as anything could be given the unique circumstances.
[The same love as any other family would have.]
They tended to pile atop each other though. That probably explains...quite a few things, when I reflect on it.
[There's a very soft laugh. Fond. Wistful. Lost in a much happier memory, because his parents were ridiculous with shows of affection. The other two would never believe Alucard if he said he was low key in comparison.]
The rest you know.
[The rest all of Wallachia knows. How that tiny scrap of recovered humanity had been lit ablaze with his mother and scattered to the winds. Alucard did not wonder about regret his father had, it had been so clear in the last moments of his life. It was what kept him up for nights after the deed was done and the two were gone: could his father have been recovered?
But that is not the question. That is not the scar being discussed. It is what love left in this place.]
[ And that is the end of it, isn't it? The rest he knows.
He places his hands back onto the ground for a moment, and then reaches them forward to take Alucard's. ]
It's important to know who your family is.
[ It's offered as a statement. As an explanation for why he asked, because it isn't the Belmont way to forget those who went before you. And now, unavoidably, Dracula and Lisa are both those who went before. But it's also an instruction of sorts. Because what Alucard described just then, that is what his family is. Far more than what his mother was was in death and what Dracula was at his worst. ]
[He gives the hands freely. Squeezes Trevor's gently, because there's warmth there and the floor, while heated, is still not as warm as either of them.]
Yes. Yours is easier to know.
[The Hold is, after all, full of Belmonts. What they have chronicled often eclipses the real details (Leon, as they have since learned, is the worst offender here), but they are known. The ones who had a higher and loftier view like Leon. The ones who just threw rice at people. All the ones in between.
What his parents have left behind misses the same details. Scientists. Their notes dispassionate unless you know where to look. Alucard does, but only because he grew up around them both and can translate all their little ways just from the text in front of him.]
Well enough to call it fair to judge them by what they've left behind here.
[ Which is. An attempt to be nice about Dracula. Because here is not the outside world. Here is not even Belmont lands. Here is where what Dracula has left behind is knowledge of all the wonderful things that people have forgotten. Here is where what he has left behind is his son, and to judge anyone as half of Alucard is to judge them favorably. ]
[That's more than enough for Alucard's ears. He squeezes Trevor's hands again. Thank you. He'll never demand peace or acceptance of his father. Not from himself not from Wallachia, not from the world, but most of all, not from a Belmont. There are 400 years of deaths there, and things cannot be forgiven. Peace, perhaps, but that is only peace.
The smile that flicks across Alucard's face is very still. Very soft. It reflects a deeper contemplation.]
I shall take that. And for all the inventions that live in this home, I am glad to have you contribute to them.
I nailed cloth to a wooden frame, and I needed his guidance to do that much. Don't try to make a big deal of it.
[ He chuckles, and it's lighter than any sound he's made over the last two weeks. Maybe he'll even sleep in tomorrow. Maybe he'll even take meals with the other two. Maybe he'll spend the entire fucking day lying on the sofa with his head on Sypha's lap as she reads, plotting with her ways to make Alucard paranoid that they're trying to take a peek at his sewing. ]
[He laughs finally, warm against the cold of the night outside. Keeps Trevor's hands where they are, although for the life of him all he wants to do is scoop Trevor up and carry him to bed.
(Practice for a month from now.)]
On that, you're right. So the invention gets recorded and then left to gather dust.
'Sit down half-naked and grab the vampire in an entirely appropriate way'.
[ The last round of the stupid game is over, then. Whatever they need to get out from here on, they do they normal way. He shuffles over rather than standing properly, moving over to Alucard but not leaning against him or anything of the like.
Because the vampire probably has his own fucking plan. ]
For some reason this hadn't actually occurred to him (the need to practice part especially. Fuck. Is Alucard going to carry him back up to their room like a blushing bride? How is that even going to work with three of them? Will he have to carry Sypha and then Alucard carries them both?) and he thinks for a moment before standing. ]
That's going to be shitty practice, unless getting married involves a lot more sitting on the floor than I think it does.
[ LOOK, THAT'S MORE FLORR THAN EVEN HE'S OKAY WITH. He smirks, looking down at Alucard. ]
Stand up and say something nice so that I can swoon at you. That seems more appropriate.
[There's gonna be a lot of musical chairs, but the chairs are people.]
My understanding is that your preference is always going to be for the floor, so I can't argue myself blue.
[Fine. He stands, because he'll pay good money to even try and make the Belmont swoon.]
And even if I had to spend my whole wedding night on the floor, I'd happily have every scrape on my knee and let you break both my wrists for the pleasure of it.
[That's his kindof drama. And Trevor's an easy catch, because vampire strength can take all the drama like this. Just like vampire strength can scoop up the Belmont handily.]
At least try to come up with something nicer for the day of. Else I'll just sling you and Sypha both over my shoulders instead.
[ It's- the last time Alucard held him like this was the day he recovered, wasn't it? Or maybe one of those half-remembered days spent fighting off infection in his weakened state, not entirely capable of walking from place to place on his own. Was it when he got stuck in the hold?
Either way, it's been the better part of a year, and not necessarily for a happy reason.
[He laughs. He laughs and presses kisses to the top of Trevor's head because he can and he can do so joyfully now instead of for the need to reassure Trevor that he is here. Recovery had been marked by those little reminders that he was there or that Sypha was there. Arms around him, kisses gentle. Dragging him out of the Hold had just been a lot of sighing.
He places Trevor down on the bed. In the middle, because that's where he should be tonight. Sypha puts her book aside, and Alucard brings the blankets over all three of them.
[ He slings an arm over Alucard's shoulder, pulling himself closer. This is- strange, when there's no necessity behind it. He's usually the one to pick up and move about the others, regardless of Alucard being the strongest of them by far. It's nice. It'll be nicer given a little more time between it and the discussion of the last time this happened.
By all accounts, he's been likely to lose his place in the middle this year, with winter stretching on so long. And also because he's been burying himself in his work, and there's no way to get out from the middle without disturbing Sypha's rest. It'll be summer before long, and unless it's also unseasonably cold then that'll be time for Alucard to go there. So it's something of a rare treat lately to lie here, Sypha's arms around his shoulders to reach for Alucard and her legs coiled around his own, Alucard cool against his chest, warming slowly like stone in the sun.
He misses out on a lot when he keeps himself from feeling. ]
I'm sure you'll manage. Consider this permission to be fucking ridiculous and sappy with it.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cryptsleeper) wrote2018-11-10 11:26 pm
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Maybe he was wrong. But at the end of the day he owes the world nothing, and he owes the only two people who would have suffered from it the world.
Alucard kisses his forehead. Frees him. And he shakes his head. ]
One last round.
[ This is going to be the last time they do this, isn't it? The last time in a long time, at least. Because none of them will let any of this happen again. There'll be no need. He places his hands not on Alucard, but on the floor. ]
Tell me about the last time this place had a family in its walls.
[ He's never really asked. It was never proper, really. Even if he were to ask in good faith, a Belmont is a Belmont, and anything about Dracula - about Alucard's family, about his family now, at least as much as the speakers were, and maybe more so for events of the past - anything Alucard could say would only ever be intelligence. Something for him to scour for signs of weaknesses, for anything that could be turned upon his father.
He should ask. He should know. Dracula is a part of Alucard just as much as questionable filing methods and overfondness for wolfsbane and mistletoe and dogs called Dog are a part of him. He should listen, and he should listen while not tearing every word apart in search of hidden information and maybe now he's finally, finally capable of it. ]
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...he sits there for a moment, stunned into silence. It's enough to hear Sypha stir from her spot. Over the years, Alucard has given bits and pieces of that information. Enough to get a laugh (when floating first came to me, I got stuck much too high once. Middle of the day, my father was asleep. Cried myself hoarse because my mother couldn't reach me), or in more somber moments when we did that too provided comfort.
But the whole of it. What it was like, beyond happy, beyond safe, he has never articulated.]
There was, after I was born, a host of unknowns. What I would need as far as nourishment, if I could be exposed to the sun at all, if I would even survive because I ran much too cold and much too warm for either of them to truly gauage if I was well. The first thing, that's why I cook. I need to balance these things. The second, my mother spoke of when I was older. In the dying rays of sunlight, my father still shrouded in the shadows, they had to test it, and it could not be taken as a science experiment no matter how they lied to themselves. It was fine, of course, but infant mortality is still infant mortality. All parents have that fear. The third...that was actual science, they charted it for a few days and were satisfied.
[To answer the question means to begin at the real beginning.]
That uncertainty made us cling to each other as I grew. Perhaps no moreso than any other family, but it was a foundation that no other would have.
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It's the most normal, human thing in the world.
He listens and he does not touch and he does not speak because this is not a conversation. There might be time for that later, if he ever particularly feels the need to discuss Dracula as a man, and if Alucard ever particularly feels the need to let him. ]
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[Now it's affectionate, bordering on a promise of things to come. He's glad for it. Never would want it to stop. But it is worth noting all the same.
He moves on.]
I'm not going to belabor the parts that you both know from passing mentions. I was a terror if only because I was unknown. In the unknown, there was only affection and delight, because when that terror turned out to be better than expected, what else could there be but love?
[This is not an easy discussion. Not this part, at least.]
There were times that my father sat back and only watched. You'd not trust it, but we did, because he smiled to see all of it. Even alone in the study, if one of us went past the open door, it was there. And it was...easier, when I was smaller, in many ways. My personality was developing, and all the brightness and inquiry in the world was enough to lash us together beyond just being bound by love and by blood.
[Sometimes though, the details are important.][Never any Belmonts though. No nightmares about things hunting Dracula's only son.]
Belaboring the point, I think. Being older was harder in many ways, because you relate to your parents in new and stranger ways. I understood what I learned from them both, but I was at the age I wanted to apply it more, and...
[No. This isn't the right order of explanation.]
Being older made them more worried, I think. My mother wanted us to both go out into the world, but again, there was that fear of the unknown. So protectiveness manifested itself in new ways. Gresit was such a thing, for I understood much of the castle and wanted to apply it. That's how we began to relate to each other again, after all that temporary teenage awkwardness. There were days one was away or the other, but to be truly alone was rare.
[On that note, he smiles very softly.]
That is my understanding of how things were elsewhere too.
no subject
Mathias Conqvist had become a monster for love, he had known this all his life. He could accept, then, surely, that Vlad Dracula Tepes had become a man for it.
And then a monster again, and then a little of both in the end.
Four hundred years of sacrifices, recent as a few years before his own birth. Four hundred years of men and women taken into the crypt before they hit thirty. Of names carved in stone because the bodies couldn't be recovered. Four hundred years of his kin bleeding and dying in the rooms of this very castle - and he knows that if he continues to work his way through it then he'll eventually find the bones. All because his family had believed Dracula beyond hope. And in the end what almost made him human again, what didn't bring him low but did make him safe, was a knife striking his front door. It's been a bitter thing to accept for a long time.
Which was why 'Princeling' had had the tone of insult in the first place, really.
He doesn't speak, but he nods. ]
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[The same love as any other family would have.]
They tended to pile atop each other though. That probably explains...quite a few things, when I reflect on it.
[There's a very soft laugh. Fond. Wistful. Lost in a much happier memory, because his parents were ridiculous with shows of affection. The other two would never believe Alucard if he said he was low key in comparison.]
The rest you know.
[The rest all of Wallachia knows. How that tiny scrap of recovered humanity had been lit ablaze with his mother and scattered to the winds. Alucard did not wonder about regret his father had, it had been so clear in the last moments of his life. It was what kept him up for nights after the deed was done and the two were gone: could his father have been recovered?
But that is not the question. That is not the scar being discussed. It is what love left in this place.]
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He places his hands back onto the ground for a moment, and then reaches them forward to take Alucard's. ]
It's important to know who your family is.
[ It's offered as a statement. As an explanation for why he asked, because it isn't the Belmont way to forget those who went before you. And now, unavoidably, Dracula and Lisa are both those who went before. But it's also an instruction of sorts. Because what Alucard described just then, that is what his family is. Far more than what his mother was was in death and what Dracula was at his worst. ]
no subject
Yes. Yours is easier to know.
[The Hold is, after all, full of Belmonts. What they have chronicled often eclipses the real details (Leon, as they have since learned, is the worst offender here), but they are known. The ones who had a higher and loftier view like Leon. The ones who just threw rice at people. All the ones in between.
What his parents have left behind misses the same details. Scientists. Their notes dispassionate unless you know where to look. Alucard does, but only because he grew up around them both and can translate all their little ways just from the text in front of him.]
Do you feel you've met them better now?
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[ Which is. An attempt to be nice about Dracula. Because here is not the outside world. Here is not even Belmont lands. Here is where what Dracula has left behind is knowledge of all the wonderful things that people have forgotten. Here is where what he has left behind is his son, and to judge anyone as half of Alucard is to judge them favorably. ]
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The smile that flicks across Alucard's face is very still. Very soft. It reflects a deeper contemplation.]
I shall take that. And for all the inventions that live in this home, I am glad to have you contribute to them.
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[ He chuckles, and it's lighter than any sound he's made over the last two weeks. Maybe he'll even sleep in tomorrow. Maybe he'll even take meals with the other two. Maybe he'll spend the entire fucking day lying on the sofa with his head on Sypha's lap as she reads, plotting with her ways to make Alucard paranoid that they're trying to take a peek at his sewing. ]
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[Trevor. You know what he meant. Don't be obtuse.]
Thank you.
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[ He runs his thumbs over the back of Alucard's hands softly. ]
I think I'd rather we didn't need this any more. No more poison left to drain.
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[He laughs finally, warm against the cold of the night outside. Keeps Trevor's hands where they are, although for the life of him all he wants to do is scoop Trevor up and carry him to bed.
(Practice for a month from now.)]
On that, you're right. So the invention gets recorded and then left to gather dust.
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[ Never living that down, Alucard. Never. ]
I'm going to assume that any invention that involves sitting down half-naked and grabbing a vampire gets stuck in the hold, rather than the library.
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[He fucked up, Trevor. He fucked up so bad on that, he is so sorry. He hadn't realized that he liked tiddy that much.]
I'm afraid so. But I'll keep it tasteful, if only to ensure your virtue.
[He drops Trevor's hands finally and instead gestures him over. Over in full, because all the vampire wants is his husband in his arms.]
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[ The last round of the stupid game is over, then. Whatever they need to get out from here on, they do they normal way. He shuffles over rather than standing properly, moving over to Alucard but not leaning against him or anything of the like.
Because the vampire probably has his own fucking plan. ]
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[Damnit Trevor, the entire plan was to scoop you up, and this is not working.
Fuck it.]
In my arms. I need to practice.
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Oh, right.
For some reason this hadn't actually occurred to him (the need to practice part especially. Fuck. Is Alucard going to carry him back up to their room like a blushing bride? How is that even going to work with three of them? Will he have to carry Sypha and then Alucard carries them both?) and he thinks for a moment before standing. ]
That's going to be shitty practice, unless getting married involves a lot more sitting on the floor than I think it does.
[ LOOK, THAT'S MORE FLORR THAN EVEN HE'S OKAY WITH. He smirks, looking down at Alucard. ]
Stand up and say something nice so that I can swoon at you. That seems more appropriate.
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My understanding is that your preference is always going to be for the floor, so I can't argue myself blue.
[Fine. He stands, because he'll pay good money to even try and make the Belmont swoon.]
And even if I had to spend my whole wedding night on the floor, I'd happily have every scrape on my knee and let you break both my wrists for the pleasure of it.
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[ And, very dramatically, he swoons into Alucard's arms. Very, very dramatically. ]
You weren't kidding about the fucking arm jokes, were you?
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I broke yours, you tried to eat mine. We're even.
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[ It's- the last time Alucard held him like this was the day he recovered, wasn't it? Or maybe one of those half-remembered days spent fighting off infection in his weakened state, not entirely capable of walking from place to place on his own. Was it when he got stuck in the hold?
Either way, it's been the better part of a year, and not necessarily for a happy reason.
It's much nicer when it's for a happy reason. ]
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[He laughs. He laughs and presses kisses to the top of Trevor's head because he can and he can do so joyfully now instead of for the need to reassure Trevor that he is here. Recovery had been marked by those little reminders that he was there or that Sypha was there. Arms around him, kisses gentle. Dragging him out of the Hold had just been a lot of sighing.
He places Trevor down on the bed. In the middle, because that's where he should be tonight. Sypha puts her book aside, and Alucard brings the blankets over all three of them.
They are warm and secure and snug here.]
I'll sleep on it. Find something better.
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By all accounts, he's been likely to lose his place in the middle this year, with winter stretching on so long. And also because he's been burying himself in his work, and there's no way to get out from the middle without disturbing Sypha's rest. It'll be summer before long, and unless it's also unseasonably cold then that'll be time for Alucard to go there. So it's something of a rare treat lately to lie here, Sypha's arms around his shoulders to reach for Alucard and her legs coiled around his own, Alucard cool against his chest, warming slowly like stone in the sun.
He misses out on a lot when he keeps himself from feeling. ]
I'm sure you'll manage. Consider this permission to be fucking ridiculous and sappy with it.
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