[And there in that moment, Alucard puts his lips to the Belmont's forehead. There. It's affectionate without transgressing promises made to Sypha. He rests his hands on Trevor's cheeks, then moves them down slowly down the column of Trevor's neck, to his shoulders, then down his chest.]
[ He's still, almost entirely so, even breathing as shallowly as he can so not to break whatever this is with too sudden a movement. Just staring at Alucard, like a man hopelessly lost and staring at stars for guidance.
His lodestar.
Slowly, he brings his hands up to Alucard's face. ]
Will that change? If you learn something you don't like?
[ His fingers are soft. This shape never really had much chance for its fingers to develop the sort of calluses that living as he does ought to have left him with. He’s delicate as he touches Alucard. More delicate than he looks capable of. ]
Humour me, though?
[ He needs to hear this. Needs to know that at least one person here doesn’t fear the answers that Alucard’s seeking out more than anything else. ]
[ He kisses back, for maybe a millisecond. And it's nice. Something tiny and precious and so, so far beyond what he ever thought he'd ever have.
Nothing changes, and everything changes. It feels like the world's shifted, somehow, like everything's subtly different. But the spell isn't broken, not like it should be. The stone of the vines that lance through him, at least, ought to be gone. It isn't. That curse ought to be broken by love and yet it isn't.
He doesn't care. He'll be stone once again at dawn, but this is enough. He doesn't' move away when the kiss is broken, just speaks with his face against Alucard's. It makes the whole thing feel secret, even in a place where they're always alone. Conspiratorial. Theirs. ]
I trust you. I still don't like this, I don't know what you're going to find. But I trust you.
[Alucard never expected the spell to be broken like this, he's too raised around Dracula for that. But when he pulls away and sees the stones lancing through the Belmont, he understands that time is so very precious.]
Thank you.
[One more brief kiss for good measure, and then:]
Let's head upstairs for now. Get Sypha to bed and just...sit for a while. I can come down here and do the work alone when morning comes.
[ And he lets his north star lead him, guide him through a place he doesn’t know. Whatever one is supposed to do about being kissed, however one is meant to respond - he can just let Alucard decide that for him. ]
[So they go back to where they were. Alucard takes care of all his duties owed to Sypha, and then just sits next to Trevor in front of the fireplace, quiet and saying not much at all. Fingers carding through his hair. Holding him close.
There's a disgusting amount of guilt when morning comes, and the Belmont is no longer a Belmont but...god. He doesn't know why this curse functions like this now. Why it'd just turn him to stone instead of a bear again.
But it happens and Alucard adds caring for the Belmont to his duties along with caring for Sypha. He has the library now. So it goes.
He splits his attention between curses and Belmont enemies and genealogy. The latter feels easier, because there's fewer books and the last time they were updated is easier. There are notes on everything, and the Hold soon becomes a bastion of research. Alucard can't bring Sypha and Trevor with him, but they're debriefed every day. Alucard works the garden in the morning and...yes. That's a problem. He's growing hungrier day by day.
But names. He thinks he finds what he's looking for just before the new moon, and he carries the book up to the statues. It's a long shot, if giving a name will fix everything, but he'll try.]
I found the most up to date list of births. [His hands are holding a thing bound in pale calfskin, all too thin.]
The last date is from only twenty odd years ago. Four siblings. [Alucard breathes out.]
[ There is no response. As always, Alucard reads to an audience of stone. As always, he receives no answer. Not until he sleeps.
His heart is racing, and the tiny precious things in his arms won’t stop wriggling and screaming and something is very, very wrong. He runs and he trips and twists in the air to land on his back and avoid hurting the screaming things in his arms and picks himself up and keeps running.
And then he sees it. Safety is a tall man in black robes with a white collar, with a soft voice and kind eyes. Safety is the man who he has said confession to for things as petty as sneezing during prayer and as damning as noticing how the smith’s daughter’s dress hangs differently from her body this month. The man who taught him to read latin. He’s too afraid to be proud, and he clings to the priest’s robes, burying his face there. The priest speaks in a soft voice, and his nephews stop wailing.
The priest leads him to the fireplace. The big one, where they burn people’s clothes when they get covered in vampire blood. It smells of roses. It always smells of roses, because that’s what you use to try to lessen the effects of the blood.
Hide here and you’ll be safe, the priest says in his soft voice, and he closes the great iron doors. ]
What did you say?
[ Trevor is above Alucard when he wakes, fleshy and whole as he ever is. ]
[Alucard, to his credit, doesn't jump when Trevor is above him. It's simply unsurprising and it feels...right...for Trevor. But then Alucard tries to remember what phase of the moon they're in. If it matters now, because at least Trevor is flesh again.
Alucard sits up slowly. Looks at him quietly, then blinks.]
Your name.
[He says the two words with all the gravity he's got.]
[ He doesn't sound entirely certain about that, but he looks up. He's noticed the tears by now, but he doesn't know why they're happening or how to make them stop. They keep falling, and somewhere behind them in the room, soft footsteps shuffle about. Cloth drags along the floor. ]
I know what's in there. And I think I know what I am. I don't know the word for it, but I know-
Moroi. [ The voice is sharp and weary, but not angry. Warm in the way that spent coals are warm. Behind Trevor stands the speaker, delicate and fleshy. ]
[Alucard places his hand on Trevor's thigh, in case he wants something else to hold. But then another voice enters the room and Alucard thinks he could be forgiven for thinking it a figment of imagination.]
A spirit that...dwells in a bear. [There's the undertone of duh and he understands. The Belmonts were accused witches and murdered. This all makes sense.]
The only question is what triggered such a thing - it isn't as if this is a natural occura--
[Wait.
There's three sets of breaths in the room.
Alucard looks over his shoulder and then nearly falls over.]
[ She stretches before sitting with them, bringing her knees up to her chest, and looks at Trevor with a soft sigh. ]
You’ve loved me for a long time, haven’t you? It just never worked, because it needed to be ‘someone’ who loved, and you never thought of yourself as someone until this very moment. And you-
[ She looks at Alucard now. ]
You could never have loved me truly enough for it to count, for the spell. You don’t know who I am, not really. We’ll be having dinner together and you’ll be making that right. [ And she smiles. ] Just in case this happens again, so you can love me properly.
[ And now she’s done claiming ownership of two boys, which was of course a matter of pressing concern. ]
[Alucard just. Sits there for a few moments. Just letting his stupid mouth hang open and trying to make sense of just about all of it. That Trevor needed to view himself as a person that...that makes sense.
As does the part where Alucard couldn't properly love Sypha because being turned into stone makes it hard.]
Wait.
[Alucard brings his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose.]
This doesn't mean the entire curse is lifted, does it? It's just most of them.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[It's confident. Certain even if nothing is in truth.]
Look at me for a moment?
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I go with you.
[ The words feel uncomfortable leaving his mouth, like speaking them might make them broken in some way. ]
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Good.
[Alucard doesn't move though. Not yet.]
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His lodestar.
Slowly, he brings his hands up to Alucard's face. ]
Will that change? If you learn something you don't like?
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[He's just saying. Even as he leans into Trevor's touch.]
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[ His fingers are soft. This shape never really had much chance for its fingers to develop the sort of calluses that living as he does ought to have left him with. He’s delicate as he touches Alucard. More delicate than he looks capable of. ]
Humour me, though?
[ He needs to hear this. Needs to know that at least one person here doesn’t fear the answers that Alucard’s seeking out more than anything else. ]
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[Alucard's smile is soft.]
If I kiss you, does that offend any other promise made?
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[ Oh. Oh. Kissing. That is a thing he knows 0 things about but suddenly wants to know more things about so, so desperately. ]
-if you can still love here, I don’t think so. Are you going to- Do you want to-?
[ ?????? ]
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[Which feels like permission to just lean in and chastely smooch the Belmont.]
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Nothing changes, and everything changes. It feels like the world's shifted, somehow, like everything's subtly different. But the spell isn't broken, not like it should be. The stone of the vines that lance through him, at least, ought to be gone. It isn't. That curse ought to be broken by love and yet it isn't.
He doesn't care. He'll be stone once again at dawn, but this is enough. He doesn't' move away when the kiss is broken, just speaks with his face against Alucard's. It makes the whole thing feel secret, even in a place where they're always alone. Conspiratorial. Theirs. ]
I trust you. I still don't like this, I don't know what you're going to find. But I trust you.
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Thank you.
[One more brief kiss for good measure, and then:]
Let's head upstairs for now. Get Sypha to bed and just...sit for a while. I can come down here and do the work alone when morning comes.
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I’ll be back. After another month, I’ll be back.
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There's a disgusting amount of guilt when morning comes, and the Belmont is no longer a Belmont but...god. He doesn't know why this curse functions like this now. Why it'd just turn him to stone instead of a bear again.
But it happens and Alucard adds caring for the Belmont to his duties along with caring for Sypha. He has the library now. So it goes.
He splits his attention between curses and Belmont enemies and genealogy. The latter feels easier, because there's fewer books and the last time they were updated is easier. There are notes on everything, and the Hold soon becomes a bastion of research. Alucard can't bring Sypha and Trevor with him, but they're debriefed every day. Alucard works the garden in the morning and...yes. That's a problem. He's growing hungrier day by day.
But names. He thinks he finds what he's looking for just before the new moon, and he carries the book up to the statues. It's a long shot, if giving a name will fix everything, but he'll try.]
I found the most up to date list of births. [His hands are holding a thing bound in pale calfskin, all too thin.]
The last date is from only twenty odd years ago. Four siblings. [Alucard breathes out.]
Trevor Christopher Belmont.
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His heart is racing, and the tiny precious things in his arms won’t stop wriggling and screaming and something is very, very wrong. He runs and he trips and twists in the air to land on his back and avoid hurting the screaming things in his arms and picks himself up and keeps running.
And then he sees it. Safety is a tall man in black robes with a white collar, with a soft voice and kind eyes. Safety is the man who he has said confession to for things as petty as sneezing during prayer and as damning as noticing how the smith’s daughter’s dress hangs differently from her body this month. The man who taught him to read latin. He’s too afraid to be proud, and he clings to the priest’s robes, burying his face there. The priest speaks in a soft voice, and his nephews stop wailing.
The priest leads him to the fireplace. The big one, where they burn people’s clothes when they get covered in vampire blood. It smells of roses. It always smells of roses, because that’s what you use to try to lessen the effects of the blood.
Hide here and you’ll be safe, the priest says in his soft voice, and he closes the great iron doors. ]
What did you say?
[ Trevor is above Alucard when he wakes, fleshy and whole as he ever is. ]
You said something. Tell me what it was.
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Alucard sits up slowly. Looks at him quietly, then blinks.]
Your name.
[He says the two words with all the gravity he's got.]
I found it. It's Trevor Christopher Belmont.
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Trevor.
[ And he repeats it. It's- it sounds familiar. Teardrops burst against the floor, but it doesn't occur to him that they're from his own eyes. ]
My name was Trevor.
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[Alucard doesn't know what to do here. So he just. Moves onto the floor next to Trevor, and sits there, so very still.]
You're here. And alive.
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[ He doesn't sound entirely certain about that, but he looks up. He's noticed the tears by now, but he doesn't know why they're happening or how to make them stop. They keep falling, and somewhere behind them in the room, soft footsteps shuffle about. Cloth drags along the floor. ]
I know what's in there. And I think I know what I am. I don't know the word for it, but I know-
Moroi. [ The voice is sharp and weary, but not angry. Warm in the way that spent coals are warm. Behind Trevor stands the speaker, delicate and fleshy. ]
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A spirit that...dwells in a bear. [There's the undertone of duh and he understands. The Belmonts were accused witches and murdered. This all makes sense.]
The only question is what triggered such a thing - it isn't as if this is a natural occura--
[Wait.
There's three sets of breaths in the room.
Alucard looks over his shoulder and then nearly falls over.]
Sypha?!
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[ She stretches before sitting with them, bringing her knees up to her chest, and looks at Trevor with a soft sigh. ]
You’ve loved me for a long time, haven’t you? It just never worked, because it needed to be ‘someone’ who loved, and you never thought of yourself as someone until this very moment. And you-
[ She looks at Alucard now. ]
You could never have loved me truly enough for it to count, for the spell. You don’t know who I am, not really. We’ll be having dinner together and you’ll be making that right. [ And she smiles. ] Just in case this happens again, so you can love me properly.
[ And now she’s done claiming ownership of two boys, which was of course a matter of pressing concern. ]
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[Alucard just. Sits there for a few moments. Just letting his stupid mouth hang open and trying to make sense of just about all of it. That Trevor needed to view himself as a person that...that makes sense.
As does the part where Alucard couldn't properly love Sypha because being turned into stone makes it hard.]
Wait.
[Alucard brings his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose.]
This doesn't mean the entire curse is lifted, does it? It's just most of them.
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[ Her face falls a little. ]
I know how to break all of this, but- another season. I want a season together, at least. Just one. I’ve barely had a chance to know you both.
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[He's...definitely going to kill the mood, but Alucard's stomach then chimes in even louder.]
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[ It’s the first Trevor’s spoken since Sypha piped up, and by the sound of it he’s just as shaken by all of this as Alucard was at first. ]
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[Fuck.]
Will you be okay alone?
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