[At first glance, the plot — if it can really be called a plot, she isn't sure — makes an evil sort of sense. A mist of holy water in the air, cast over a gathering of supernatural creatures where anyone who's anyone would be reveling. Of course they made for an easy target, they'd all gotten together into the same place to do it.
It's only afterward that things start making less sense from there. If it is a plot, who gains from it? Why this, why now? And furthermore, how did they get their hands on this much holy water, to even have wrought this at all?
Later. That's a question for later; for now, there's a problem in the air — quite literally — and Trevor is off and running, and Alucard needs her.]
I — yes. At least I can try — I can get most of it, if not all.
[She's not usually so unconfident about her own skills; it's not a facet of a lack of belief in herself, but rather just a sign of how distracted she is, trying to track the mist and how it's flowing.
She's just lifting her hands and starting to focus when something occurs to her.]
I can't freeze it — with the way it's passing over us, it'll get too heavy and fall down right on top of us.
[Which is worse: holy water mist, or holy water ICICLE KNIVES FALLING FROM THE SKY.]
It'll have to be wind. Alucard, I can blow it away, but it will have to go somewhere...
Wind. Blow it to the east, there's nothing on the next lot, no one will be exiting that way, all the cars are parked to the west.
[It's a snap decision. One made with all barely constrained rage because this is a boldness never attempted before. (It would not be tempted if his father was here.)]
I'm going beyond the property line. Do whatever you need, and anyone stupid enough to question you answers to me.
[The only thing Alucard does before launching off into the night is to take a pole that holds up a string of lights and snap it in two over his knee. Improvised weapon. It'll have to do, and even as the mist hovers over the festivities, Alucard cuts his way through it. His is a wolf, low enough to be clear of the mist, the pole in his mouth because that's the only way to carry anything as a wolf.
He is swift. He is certain. And by the time he is at the farthest edge of the party, Trevor is there too. Vampire Killer is in his hand. Trevor is yelling something, using his last name as currency, and they are both off into the treeline.]
[He's already long gone by the time she says it, perhaps even past the range of a wolf's hearing. But still, there's no time for sentimentality, not when she has a party to defend, and lives to preserve.
Step one does prove to be ice, after all, but not of the fog itself. Instead, to the north, she raises a high wall of ice, hoping to barricade off the fog from wherever it's coming from, forcing it to run into the frozen expanse and hopefully condense into liquid again before it has a chance to blow past it.
The rest of it is more difficult, and requires her full and deliberate focus. She spreads her hands wide, eyes focused on the fog, then brings them together with flat hands angled vertically. In the air around them, the fog collapses inward, growing denser and denser albeit in a much smaller area as she compacts it together, trying to shape as much of it as she can into a cube.
It's somewhere around here, as the skies begin to clear, that the denizens of the party start returning, chattering in wonder at their salvation overhead. A few are foolish enough to approach her, babbling some nonsense she can't afford to focus on right now; even so, her control slips slightly from the distraction, and some of the mist escapes, leaving her to curse under her breath and refocus to corral it again.
(She kicks that one in the shins. It's a shame she's not wearing her shoes, she thinks; it would've hurt more.)
But soon enough, she's got as much of it together as she can, and slowly she starts to push it to the east, a swirling cloudy mass of a thing in cube form that leaves her gritting her teeth from the concentration of holding it together, trying to get it far enough away that she can release it without risking it scattering and coming back.]
[Vampire Killer is not quite as effective on humans as it is on vampires, and using it in a forest is a difficult thing, even with the full moon hanging high above the trees. That's fine, because there's only 5 hunters, and the red hot second they see a flash of the Belmont crest is the second that all of them stop.
(There is a mage in their number. He is further back, swearing a storm up as he encounters Sypha's icewall and cannot find a way around it. Alucard drags him over to the other four, so that they can be addressed as a group. There's a tremble in the man's step (not a man, he's maybe sixteen.)
No need for the improvised weapon then. Alucard throws it aside.]
By rights, and by expectation, I ought to destroy all five of you. My father would not give you even this much of his time.
[Alucard knows that Trevor does not like talk of Dracula. It's a different kind of family pain fron Alucard's, and it comes out when Dracula is mentioned not as Alucard's father, but as a vampire power that has survived the centuries in spite of the Belmonts' best effort. He will apologize for it later. For now, he has to use the word as a weapon, because these five, they are here not because of their own skill. They're not local either, because they didn't know that there's a Belmont in the city.
Curious.
But he lets Trevor do the questions for the first few minutes. Listens. Then takes over himself, because the threat of Belmont does nothing to get the information they really need. Son of Dracula though? That tends to loosen lips.
"A...we got a letter, a copy of the invitation, left on our door..."
[Back at the party, now that the immediate threat of burning by holy mist has been alleviated, the vampires are quickly growing restless. It's a powder keg of immortals just waiting to be ignited by one rabblerouser's careless words, and even as exhausted as she is by the effort she's just expended, Sypha can see immediately that if she allows this to go unchecked, it won't be long before the party turns into a mob.
Even now, there are rumblings. Shouted questions of who could be behind such a thing, murmurs of holy water and blessed things that eventually coalesce into the natural conclusion: hunters. Humans.
It doesn't escape Sypha's notice, either, that she is a human among the vampires, herself.
And yet oddly, she's not afraid. If anything, she's affronted — not just the thought of them behaving like this, but at the trouble it would make for Alucard if they were to get out of hand, and how tired he would be if he had to bring them all to heel and remind them to stay in line and behave —
Oh, no. Not on her watch.]
No one leaves!
[Each word comes sharp and biting.]
No one is leaving. You will stay, all of you, until this has been sorted out.
[Oy, and what if we don't care to stay? one of the younger, upstart vampires sneers. You can't keep us here! Just what do you think you can do about it, anyway?]
If it is trouble you want, then try it, and find out.
[Their host, a woman who moved far south from New England back when the word of the day was witchcraft mixed with endless land disputes and who herself goes only by the name of Theodora, picks the exact moment that someone is fool enough to question Sypha's own authority in order to supplement it. She was a witch once, a vampire now, she threatens to be a ghost if someone gets lucky enough to kill her.
Anyone who steps foot off property when we're ignorant of particulars is well and dead to this house and my kin. She has brood, they live not only in the city but further on west. Hospitality is their greatest trait, and for those who need to travel, such blessings can be life or death. The Speaker's words are that of sense. Wait.
The last word is nearly a dip into vampiric compulsion. Enough to make it clear how serious she is. And with that she walks past Sypha with head held high, and a softer I'll see what's about because unless the hunters are actually Belmont level, they have been caught now.
(It is not unremarked upon by most that Alucard's ethics are very different from that of his father. In so much that he has them at all. It is not beyond the realm of possibility to think that some delay is happening because of those very ethics.)
But no. The delay is based in questions, and Alucard's shoulders are heavy by the time his host actually makes her way out to the new party in the woods. The hunters are well and truly unnerved because of Alucard's calmness, his ability to coax answers from them, and with Theodora now there, he says the worst words of all.]
They interrupted your party. I won't have death, but warn the world as you see fit.
[The hunters are aware, perhaps, that the arrival of yet another vampire is in no way a change for the better, for them. It also becomes immediately clear when Alucard speaks that they would have been much, much better off to have the son of Dracula adjudicating their fates than this, and in that moment anxiety breaks into abject terror — for one of them, at least.
It's the mage, the boy not yet even a man. He's nowhere close to prepared to look danger in the eye, not at this age (not when his last name isn't Belmont). Like a fool, he's already trying to run before he's even managed to push himself to his feet, stumbling and scrabbling as he heaves himself up and tries to make a break for the deeper cover of the trees.]
[Alucard sighs. He and Trevor offer Theodora the twin tired glance of let that one go. Not out of hope of mercy, but because Trevor has some Opinions on doing much more than what is required, and Alucard can't imagine that what their host has in mind can be any worse than what that boy just dreamed up in is head.
Of course, darling.
Because that's what she calls everyone. And because she is a witch, she is much more creative than any vampire might be with the right kind of response for this is. Any vampire might just shred and claw and mark. Witches can curse and doom and make life far more difficult than a vampire can.
(Trevor is still fucking uncomfortable with it. He doesn't say it until they're out of hearing range, and Alucard nods in exhausted agreement. It's a too complicated web they weave of alliances. Makes it look like Belmonts turning on other hunters. Big problem.)
And when they meet the ice wall, Alucard knocks on it twice. Polite as can be.]
[Really, she has half a mind to turn the whole thing to water and flood out all the restless guests, but that would also involve flooding Theodora's house and there are some courtesies one does not unwisely spit on.
It's actually rather beautiful how the wall falls away; she's been practicing, clearly, and it goes from a solid figure at first to one fractured and etched like cut glass, before eventually shattering softly in key structural places that make it tumble to the ground like a chandelier falling, contained shards of crystal that make a beautiful noise when they crash down in cascade yet never once stray from the boundary lines she's set for them.]
Yes, of course.
[And there in the yard, she stands, a tiny barefoot thing amidst a crowd of cowed vampires, regent of her small and ephemeral kingdom.]
[It's a very beautiful sight indeed. Alucard's smiling by the time all of the water has fallen away to allow himself and Trevor (and Theodora, she's got a good hustle) to re-enter the property and the party. A real smile, the kind he reserves for when he sees something wonderful and new and inspiring - so the kind that Sypha's magic so often pulls from him.
They're a strange sight on the other side of the ice. Alucard in the middle, his hair windswept but suit otherwise fine. Trevor (The Belmont) still looking just barely presentable, Vampire Killer in hand. Theodora with no blood on her or her all too beautiful dark purple dress, satisfaction on her face. They pass into the party proper, and Alucard doesn't stop until he's at Sypha's side.
It is so magnificent just seeing here there, barefooted and having just prevented a riot of sorts, and when they're home he'll confide all these things. For now, there is business.]
As it stands, we have dealt with the problem. Five hunters from well beyond the city limits who had one of the invitations here slipped under their door. They were unaware of the city's current balance, and thought their attack wise.
[He's calm and cool, speaking with authority.]
They've been seen to. But this combined with what I have heard from many of you confirms that there are those beyond our norms who seek us harm. It is being looked into, and that threat shall be stamped out with no mercy given.
You all know how to get in touch with me, and my doors are open.
[And with that, Theodora decides that tonight is perhaps best concluded. There's no relief on Alucard's face, but inside he nearly collapses with it.]
[She gravitates backwards just a fraction when Alucard starts to speak, just enough to subtly put him at the forefront of the picture they make while she settles back in support, like ceding the imaginary podium to him while the partygoers look on. The explanation of what had happened is as much news to her as it is to the vampires, and she can't help but cast a surreptitious glance at Trevor in quiet astonishment.
That the hunters encroached on the city isn't the bizarre part. It's not even the part about how they somehow missed that there was a Belmont already here. It's the fact that they were invited to come and raid by someone taking a covert hand in this attack, and while they may have caught the instrument of chaos in the form of the hunters, they've missed the influence that spurred them on to do it in the first place.
Still, things wrap up quickly. The festivities are over, and Sypha is half tempted to just abandon her shoes to the parlor and retrieve them later, except that it occurs to her that she'll need them to drive, so she has to go back and get them. When she returns, she's tugging them on one by one, making a little face as they start to press uncomfortably on her sore feet again.]
I will drive us home, unless you think that driving would settle your nerves.
[So she says, quietly enough that even in a room full of vampires, it's for Alucard's ears only.]
[It is not good news to deliver. Alucard already knows what will be thought. "No one would do this if Dracula was still here." "If whoever's responsible is a vampire, maybe we're better off." "God, he didn't kill them, did he?"
He can sit with those thoughts later. There are farewells to take care of first, and apologies to their host to deliver who takes it all with grace. (Darling, Godbrand showed up with a land boat back in 1809 in Quebec, please don't worry about bad party endings.) Alucard's glad that she takes it so easily, but no one else has such a mood.
There are only a few others left by the time Sypha finds them again. Alucard's surveying the damage.]
[She says, as she links her arm through his, which is and always will be her right even if right now it's as much about comfort as it is about status. The only time she'll let go, and even then only for a moment, is to pay her own respects to their host on the way out — no sense in not being polite, after all.]
Come, then. Let's go home.
[And when they get to the car, she'll curl up with Trevor, letting Alucard have his space to drive and get himself sorted as he needs, so that he'll be ready to talk by the time they get home, if not sooner.]
[Alucard helps Sypha into the car first. Trevor's go bag is sprawled out on the lawn and must be repacked, so there's just enough time to press a soft kiss to her lips by way of an apology for a truly rotten night. Trevor's in the car soon enough, and home it is.
There is silence from Alucard as they go over country roads, going ever closer to the estate. His father's home is safer after tonight. Better defended. Only a Belmont would dare to approach, and right now, there's one living there. All the wards, all the protections, they respond only to Tepes blood. A fortress.
Quiet continues as the garage door opens. Trevor's out the passenger door first, and he's there to help Sypha down while Alucard goes over and unlocks the door that leads from garage to the house itself.]
Does anyone need food or water before we head upstairs?
[Sypha needs to get out of that terribly heavy dress. Trevor's probably going to claw out of that suit soon. Alucard would really, really like to be in a pair of PJ pants.]
Water for me, please. Or I'll have a headache in the morning.
[Ever helpful, she's already got Trevor pulled down by the lapels so that she can start un-knotting his tie for him. She knows how this goes. Her shoes have already, yet again, been abandoned somewhere — probably kicked into a corner, where they stand a chance of being overlooked by Alucard until the morning.]
[Trevor's also shed his suitjacket. And the vest. And is working on the shirt because he needs to be freed. Alucard doesn't even comment that he's just thrown everything on the hallway floor. No point, they're all exhausted. He just goes for the kitchen and assembles everything: three glasses, a tray, the carafe filled with ice cold water because they really need it.]
[She slaps at Trevor's hands, preventing him from doing something ridiculous like ripping the buttons straight off of his shirt in his haste to get out of his suit, and starts to deftly undo them herself — a course of action she probably only gets away with because it's actually sort of hot, how expertly she's getting Trevor out of his clothes. The fact that she wastes no time slipping her hands inside his opened shirt and running her palms over his chest is just icing on the cake, really.
She manages to make it last just long enough for Alucard to return, permitting him an eyeful of an absolutely disheveled Trevor with Sypha blatantly feeling him up, and once he's had his look she crosses over immediately to give him the same treatment — albeit more respectfully of his clothes, opening the fastenings while still leaving them technically on his body so that he can sort it out when they get upstairs.]
That is in fact a very nice thing to walk in on. By a lot. Because Trevor's chest is a total damn weak point that is now pretty much the height of hilarity (Trevor's literally just shoved Alucard's face into his own chest several times when the vampire's looked out of sorts, it's worked.) And Sypha in that dress doing just about anything is bound to hit both of them a little too hard.
Yet for all of that Alucard still blushes like well. Like only he can, because god sometimes they all just need one on one time.
There's just enough time for Alucard to set the tray down. No one's having any fun if he drops it, getting water and glass all over the floor.
Sypha's hands feel wonderful. Warm. And he's still plenty red.]
Treffy is so impatient. But you're so very good for me.
[She delicately works his tie free, leaving the ends hanging around his neck as she starts undoing the buttons of his shirt one by one, working from the one at the throat down.]
You'll hold still and let me do this properly, won't you, my Alucard? Because you know how to behave.
[Is she laying it on a little thick? Perhaps. But Alucard has been forced into day after day of being in control, being dominant, being authoritative. All she's doing is taking up the reins, and making it clear that if she's got them, then he doesn't have to keep them himself.]
Mmm. And there.
[She finishes with his shirt, unfastens the button of his trousers for good measure, and steps back to admire her handiwork with a satisfied grin.]
[He very much would like to point out that all three of them are still. in. the hallway. It's a fact that's being telegraphed across his face for all of five seconds, and Trevor catches it. And he is nearly cracking up for it because the vampire is being absolutely covered in thick affection and all he can think about is the damn hallway floor. It's...so very him, and it's a terribly funny contrast some nights.
But the rest of Alucard would very much just like to melt under Sypha's hands, and he nearly does. There's enough suit undone that he's just standing there a little embarrassed by how quickly he's fallen into all those wonderful touches, and there's the rest of him that's pretty sure that just a single carafe of water is not going to be enough.
(Duh. Ice mage. It's a non-issue.)
Then Trevor laughs again and nudges Sypha pointedly. We should go upstairs before he swoons.]
[She looks the two of them over with a critical eye, appraising their relative level of disheveled undress, and then with a satisfied nod makes sure they're both watching as she reaches up and behind her neck to find the fastening that's holding the halter closed.
She holds there a minute, smiling slightly, and then pushes the pearl button through its loop and lets it free, leaving the top half of her dress held up by gravity and prayer alone.]
There. Now we can go upstairs.
[And she will lead the way, not least of which because it means the boys will only be able to see her back the whole way up, because sometimes a tease is in order and after the night they've all had, they deserve it.]
[Well that's the hottest thing Alucard's seen in the past few days. There's a very tiny choked whimper that gets let out in the slowest possible way, and Trevor has to elbow Alucard to make sure that the vampire's even there.
He seems to be. Enough in his mind that he still grabs the tray with the carafe and water glasses because he's still Alucard even if he's about to forget even that for the night, and Trevor's just shaking his head with endless fondness for this entire damn situation.
It has been a very long and tiring night for all the wrong reasons. At least that much can now be put to rights.]
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no subject
It's only afterward that things start making less sense from there. If it is a plot, who gains from it? Why this, why now? And furthermore, how did they get their hands on this much holy water, to even have wrought this at all?
Later. That's a question for later; for now, there's a problem in the air — quite literally — and Trevor is off and running, and Alucard needs her.]
I — yes. At least I can try — I can get most of it, if not all.
[She's not usually so unconfident about her own skills; it's not a facet of a lack of belief in herself, but rather just a sign of how distracted she is, trying to track the mist and how it's flowing.
She's just lifting her hands and starting to focus when something occurs to her.]
I can't freeze it — with the way it's passing over us, it'll get too heavy and fall down right on top of us.
[Which is worse: holy water mist, or holy water ICICLE KNIVES FALLING FROM THE SKY.]
It'll have to be wind. Alucard, I can blow it away, but it will have to go somewhere...
no subject
[It's a snap decision. One made with all barely constrained rage because this is a boldness never attempted before. (It would not be tempted if his father was here.)]
I'm going beyond the property line. Do whatever you need, and anyone stupid enough to question you answers to me.
[The only thing Alucard does before launching off into the night is to take a pole that holds up a string of lights and snap it in two over his knee. Improvised weapon. It'll have to do, and even as the mist hovers over the festivities, Alucard cuts his way through it. His is a wolf, low enough to be clear of the mist, the pole in his mouth because that's the only way to carry anything as a wolf.
He is swift. He is certain. And by the time he is at the farthest edge of the party, Trevor is there too. Vampire Killer is in his hand. Trevor is yelling something, using his last name as currency, and they are both off into the treeline.]
no subject
[He's already long gone by the time she says it, perhaps even past the range of a wolf's hearing. But still, there's no time for sentimentality, not when she has a party to defend, and lives to preserve.
Step one does prove to be ice, after all, but not of the fog itself. Instead, to the north, she raises a high wall of ice, hoping to barricade off the fog from wherever it's coming from, forcing it to run into the frozen expanse and hopefully condense into liquid again before it has a chance to blow past it.
The rest of it is more difficult, and requires her full and deliberate focus. She spreads her hands wide, eyes focused on the fog, then brings them together with flat hands angled vertically. In the air around them, the fog collapses inward, growing denser and denser albeit in a much smaller area as she compacts it together, trying to shape as much of it as she can into a cube.
It's somewhere around here, as the skies begin to clear, that the denizens of the party start returning, chattering in wonder at their salvation overhead. A few are foolish enough to approach her, babbling some nonsense she can't afford to focus on right now; even so, her control slips slightly from the distraction, and some of the mist escapes, leaving her to curse under her breath and refocus to corral it again.
(She kicks that one in the shins. It's a shame she's not wearing her shoes, she thinks; it would've hurt more.)
But soon enough, she's got as much of it together as she can, and slowly she starts to push it to the east, a swirling cloudy mass of a thing in cube form that leaves her gritting her teeth from the concentration of holding it together, trying to get it far enough away that she can release it without risking it scattering and coming back.]
no subject
(There is a mage in their number. He is further back, swearing a storm up as he encounters Sypha's icewall and cannot find a way around it. Alucard drags him over to the other four, so that they can be addressed as a group. There's a tremble in the man's step (not a man, he's maybe sixteen.)
No need for the improvised weapon then. Alucard throws it aside.]
By rights, and by expectation, I ought to destroy all five of you. My father would not give you even this much of his time.
[Alucard knows that Trevor does not like talk of Dracula. It's a different kind of family pain fron Alucard's, and it comes out when Dracula is mentioned not as Alucard's father, but as a vampire power that has survived the centuries in spite of the Belmonts' best effort. He will apologize for it later. For now, he has to use the word as a weapon, because these five, they are here not because of their own skill. They're not local either, because they didn't know that there's a Belmont in the city.
Curious.
But he lets Trevor do the questions for the first few minutes. Listens. Then takes over himself, because the threat of Belmont does nothing to get the information they really need. Son of Dracula though? That tends to loosen lips.
"A...we got a letter, a copy of the invitation, left on our door..."
Interference.
Alucard hisses at that.]
no subject
Even now, there are rumblings. Shouted questions of who could be behind such a thing, murmurs of holy water and blessed things that eventually coalesce into the natural conclusion: hunters. Humans.
It doesn't escape Sypha's notice, either, that she is a human among the vampires, herself.
And yet oddly, she's not afraid. If anything, she's affronted — not just the thought of them behaving like this, but at the trouble it would make for Alucard if they were to get out of hand, and how tired he would be if he had to bring them all to heel and remind them to stay in line and behave —
Oh, no. Not on her watch.]
No one leaves!
[Each word comes sharp and biting.]
No one is leaving. You will stay, all of you, until this has been sorted out.
[Oy, and what if we don't care to stay? one of the younger, upstart vampires sneers. You can't keep us here! Just what do you think you can do about it, anyway?]
If it is trouble you want, then try it, and find out.
no subject
Anyone who steps foot off property when we're ignorant of particulars is well and dead to this house and my kin. She has brood, they live not only in the city but further on west. Hospitality is their greatest trait, and for those who need to travel, such blessings can be life or death. The Speaker's words are that of sense. Wait.
The last word is nearly a dip into vampiric compulsion. Enough to make it clear how serious she is. And with that she walks past Sypha with head held high, and a softer I'll see what's about because unless the hunters are actually Belmont level, they have been caught now.
(It is not unremarked upon by most that Alucard's ethics are very different from that of his father. In so much that he has them at all. It is not beyond the realm of possibility to think that some delay is happening because of those very ethics.)
But no. The delay is based in questions, and Alucard's shoulders are heavy by the time his host actually makes her way out to the new party in the woods. The hunters are well and truly unnerved because of Alucard's calmness, his ability to coax answers from them, and with Theodora now there, he says the worst words of all.]
They interrupted your party. I won't have death, but warn the world as you see fit.
no subject
It's the mage, the boy not yet even a man. He's nowhere close to prepared to look danger in the eye, not at this age (not when his last name isn't Belmont). Like a fool, he's already trying to run before he's even managed to push himself to his feet, stumbling and scrabbling as he heaves himself up and tries to make a break for the deeper cover of the trees.]
no subject
Of course, darling.
Because that's what she calls everyone. And because she is a witch, she is much more creative than any vampire might be with the right kind of response for this is. Any vampire might just shred and claw and mark. Witches can curse and doom and make life far more difficult than a vampire can.
(Trevor is still fucking uncomfortable with it. He doesn't say it until they're out of hearing range, and Alucard nods in exhausted agreement. It's a too complicated web they weave of alliances. Makes it look like Belmonts turning on other hunters. Big problem.)
And when they meet the ice wall, Alucard knocks on it twice. Polite as can be.]
The matter's seen to. Sypha, if you could?
no subject
It's actually rather beautiful how the wall falls away; she's been practicing, clearly, and it goes from a solid figure at first to one fractured and etched like cut glass, before eventually shattering softly in key structural places that make it tumble to the ground like a chandelier falling, contained shards of crystal that make a beautiful noise when they crash down in cascade yet never once stray from the boundary lines she's set for them.]
Yes, of course.
[And there in the yard, she stands, a tiny barefoot thing amidst a crowd of cowed vampires, regent of her small and ephemeral kingdom.]
no subject
They're a strange sight on the other side of the ice. Alucard in the middle, his hair windswept but suit otherwise fine. Trevor (The Belmont) still looking just barely presentable, Vampire Killer in hand. Theodora with no blood on her or her all too beautiful dark purple dress, satisfaction on her face. They pass into the party proper, and Alucard doesn't stop until he's at Sypha's side.
It is so magnificent just seeing here there, barefooted and having just prevented a riot of sorts, and when they're home he'll confide all these things. For now, there is business.]
As it stands, we have dealt with the problem. Five hunters from well beyond the city limits who had one of the invitations here slipped under their door. They were unaware of the city's current balance, and thought their attack wise.
[He's calm and cool, speaking with authority.]
They've been seen to. But this combined with what I have heard from many of you confirms that there are those beyond our norms who seek us harm. It is being looked into, and that threat shall be stamped out with no mercy given.
You all know how to get in touch with me, and my doors are open.
[And with that, Theodora decides that tonight is perhaps best concluded. There's no relief on Alucard's face, but inside he nearly collapses with it.]
no subject
That the hunters encroached on the city isn't the bizarre part. It's not even the part about how they somehow missed that there was a Belmont already here. It's the fact that they were invited to come and raid by someone taking a covert hand in this attack, and while they may have caught the instrument of chaos in the form of the hunters, they've missed the influence that spurred them on to do it in the first place.
Still, things wrap up quickly. The festivities are over, and Sypha is half tempted to just abandon her shoes to the parlor and retrieve them later, except that it occurs to her that she'll need them to drive, so she has to go back and get them. When she returns, she's tugging them on one by one, making a little face as they start to press uncomfortably on her sore feet again.]
I will drive us home, unless you think that driving would settle your nerves.
[So she says, quietly enough that even in a room full of vampires, it's for Alucard's ears only.]
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He can sit with those thoughts later. There are farewells to take care of first, and apologies to their host to deliver who takes it all with grace. (Darling, Godbrand showed up with a land boat back in 1809 in Quebec, please don't worry about bad party endings.) Alucard's glad that she takes it so easily, but no one else has such a mood.
There are only a few others left by the time Sypha finds them again. Alucard's surveying the damage.]
I'll see us home.
[The drive will help.]
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[She says, as she links her arm through his, which is and always will be her right even if right now it's as much about comfort as it is about status. The only time she'll let go, and even then only for a moment, is to pay her own respects to their host on the way out — no sense in not being polite, after all.]
Come, then. Let's go home.
[And when they get to the car, she'll curl up with Trevor, letting Alucard have his space to drive and get himself sorted as he needs, so that he'll be ready to talk by the time they get home, if not sooner.]
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There is silence from Alucard as they go over country roads, going ever closer to the estate. His father's home is safer after tonight. Better defended. Only a Belmont would dare to approach, and right now, there's one living there. All the wards, all the protections, they respond only to Tepes blood. A fortress.
Quiet continues as the garage door opens. Trevor's out the passenger door first, and he's there to help Sypha down while Alucard goes over and unlocks the door that leads from garage to the house itself.]
Does anyone need food or water before we head upstairs?
[Sypha needs to get out of that terribly heavy dress. Trevor's probably going to claw out of that suit soon. Alucard would really, really like to be in a pair of PJ pants.]
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[Ever helpful, she's already got Trevor pulled down by the lapels so that she can start un-knotting his tie for him. She knows how this goes. Her shoes have already, yet again, been abandoned somewhere — probably kicked into a corner, where they stand a chance of being overlooked by Alucard until the morning.]
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[Trevor's also shed his suitjacket. And the vest. And is working on the shirt because he needs to be freed. Alucard doesn't even comment that he's just thrown everything on the hallway floor. No point, they're all exhausted. He just goes for the kitchen and assembles everything: three glasses, a tray, the carafe filled with ice cold water because they really need it.]
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She manages to make it last just long enough for Alucard to return, permitting him an eyeful of an absolutely disheveled Trevor with Sypha blatantly feeling him up, and once he's had his look she crosses over immediately to give him the same treatment — albeit more respectfully of his clothes, opening the fastenings while still leaving them technically on his body so that he can sort it out when they get upstairs.]
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That is in fact a very nice thing to walk in on. By a lot. Because Trevor's chest is a total damn weak point that is now pretty much the height of hilarity (Trevor's literally just shoved Alucard's face into his own chest several times when the vampire's looked out of sorts, it's worked.) And Sypha in that dress doing just about anything is bound to hit both of them a little too hard.
Yet for all of that Alucard still blushes like well. Like only he can, because god sometimes they all just need one on one time.
There's just enough time for Alucard to set the tray down. No one's having any fun if he drops it, getting water and glass all over the floor.
Sypha's hands feel wonderful. Warm. And he's still plenty red.]
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[She delicately works his tie free, leaving the ends hanging around his neck as she starts undoing the buttons of his shirt one by one, working from the one at the throat down.]
You'll hold still and let me do this properly, won't you, my Alucard? Because you know how to behave.
[Is she laying it on a little thick? Perhaps. But Alucard has been forced into day after day of being in control, being dominant, being authoritative. All she's doing is taking up the reins, and making it clear that if she's got them, then he doesn't have to keep them himself.]
Mmm. And there.
[She finishes with his shirt, unfastens the button of his trousers for good measure, and steps back to admire her handiwork with a satisfied grin.]
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But the rest of Alucard would very much just like to melt under Sypha's hands, and he nearly does. There's enough suit undone that he's just standing there a little embarrassed by how quickly he's fallen into all those wonderful touches, and there's the rest of him that's pretty sure that just a single carafe of water is not going to be enough.
(Duh. Ice mage. It's a non-issue.)
Then Trevor laughs again and nudges Sypha pointedly. We should go upstairs before he swoons.]
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[She looks the two of them over with a critical eye, appraising their relative level of disheveled undress, and then with a satisfied nod makes sure they're both watching as she reaches up and behind her neck to find the fastening that's holding the halter closed.
She holds there a minute, smiling slightly, and then pushes the pearl button through its loop and lets it free, leaving the top half of her dress held up by gravity and prayer alone.]
There. Now we can go upstairs.
[And she will lead the way, not least of which because it means the boys will only be able to see her back the whole way up, because sometimes a tease is in order and after the night they've all had, they deserve it.]
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He seems to be. Enough in his mind that he still grabs the tray with the carafe and water glasses because he's still Alucard even if he's about to forget even that for the night, and Trevor's just shaking his head with endless fondness for this entire damn situation.
It has been a very long and tiring night for all the wrong reasons. At least that much can now be put to rights.]