As Trevor really should've been able to predict, nothing happens because since when is Alucard good for interesting, or smart, or helpful. Alucard just trails behind them with his gait subtly dragging in the manner of someone tired, either doing a stunning impression of not wanting to bite anyone or actually not being interested.

Possibly this was what he was getting at about vampires being limited by their stomachs, it's like how getting stabbed doesn't make people immediately want to stuff roast goose in their mouths.

And sometimes they don't at all and you have to shove goose between their teeth before they take the hint.

Trevor says, "You said your keep didn't connect to this. How about your giant fuckup of gears, is there a secret passageway between the two?"

"...yes..." Alucard says.

And there's that big hole in the ceiling between that area and his one with the coffin and the blood. "You should probably check on all that too," Trevor declares. "What with it all breaking because you're only good at lecturing other people on how things go."

"...yes..."

Does Alucard want that secret passageway, the one that would let someone bypass whatever traps his stair maze has, to remain secret? Well, he's shown them the others, and asking like Trevor thinks Alucard has a reason to want Trevor not to know is going to sound suspicious. If Alucard isn't already worried Trevor is planning on sneaking back down here to murder him when this is all done, Trevor sure as fuck isn't going to plant the idea. Bad enough Trevor has to jump at every shadow, he's not going to do that to somebody else.

Though. Would Alucard care if he thought Trevor was going to do that? Ugh, that sure puts showing off the ways down in a different light.

But no, he said he believes Trevor now about them not coming back here. That's why he's not hiding anything.

Alucard pauses and reaches for one of the sconces on the wall. Trevor expects him to pull the whole thing like it's a lever - that's how these kind of secret passages are supposed to work, you know? But instead Alucard presses against one of the small bits of iron at the back that looks like it's attaching the sconce to the stone but apparently not because it's just slid away with a click. Vampires! Nothing the right size, everything tiny fiddly bits or a dozen castles piled together. And indeed, an unnecessarily massive chunk of the wall glides aside to reveal more fucking stairs.

"More fucking stairs!" Trevor announces. "Well, that is great. Unfortunately, I'm beat. I plan on actually sleeping this night, and doing it above ground because, full offense, I fucking hate underground Gresit even more than I hate regular Gresit. I must reluctantly pass on going with you and hearing your excuses every time something collapses explosively that it was meant to collapse explosively."

Sypha looks at him curiously. "Will things be fine tonight, really?"

"Yeah, we either got all the demons or whatever's left flew home with tails tucked between their legs. Even on the road out, we only run across some heading for Argo, and that's not for days because you won't fucking leave."

She glances back to Alucard, who makes no argument. Probably just because Trevor's very right.

Back to the point he's trying to make. "Sypha, since she's a human who also sleeps unlike you, should do the same. If any evil owl shows up she can burn my tongue out before I tell whoever you're worried about that as it can plainly see we're still in Gresit," Trevor continues. "And the Speakers are going to be busy with everyone tomorrow and since that's why Sypha insists we stay, she'll be busy with that."

"And what a good decision that was," Sypha says. Trevor's stomach lurches and then his thoughts jump to her off the cuff lie earlier about contagious curses, because it can't happen the same way since he knows but it can't not happen because it's Hell and so then will it be her fingers blackening and the red climbing up her arms like strangling vines and. But would that be worse. There wouldn't be anything he could do. Anything she could demand of him. So. Barely bad at all. "They would have died if we'd just left!" Sypha insists.

Right, they died and turns out that's his fault.

"I... I would suggest you not get your hopes up," Alucard says after a moment. "I'm sorry, but it's very likely they'll still die."

Huh. No, that kind of makes sense, right? Because Alucard didn't talk about his mother until after they left, so he didn't know there was anything Alucard could've done. Trevor fucked up in the first place by letting any of it happen. Why should it've been on anybody else to clean up his mess?

Alright, yeah, God, that's fair.

"I think there is a very good chance it will work," Sypha retorts. "We do have some little experience with infections."

Alucard says, "You're trying to counter magically induced sepsis by feeding people onion soup."

"Raw onion," she corrects.

"Worse."

"There were complaints. But better than dying of a curse."

"I meant," Alucard huffs, and Trevor interrupts with, "Just because Dracula didn't like onion on his food doesn't mean it doesn't work. Speakers know what they're doing."

Sypha elaborates, "Onion poultices are awful to make, you know. We wouldn't do it if they did nothing. They really do help. "

"Probably just by repelling flies," Alucard dismisses.

"What do flies have to do with anything?"

Alucard stares at her like he's just been kicked in the head by an ox. After a moment he says, "Can you repeat that?"

"I said, what do flies have to do with anything?"

He looks away, then waves a hand in front of his face. "Hm."

"What?"

"It's not like I need grammar," Alucard mutters. "Aphasia isn't coordination. And a stroke can't kill me."

"What," Sypha says more decisively.

Alucard looks at them again. "Fine," he says, excessively clearly. "I will return later." And he actually seems to be waiting for a response.

"Right, fine," Trevor agrees. He waves a hand.

Alucard nods and heads down the stairs.

"That was really weird," Sypha says after a moment.

"Eh, vampires." Trevor waits to see if Alucard comes back up to be affronted they're talking about him. No so far. He shrugs and starts walking away. "Blood loss makes people loopy, it fucks up vampires as much or maybe more."

Sypha, who's perfectly smart so it must be that she just really doesn't want to get that Alucard being a vampire means he's a vampire, looks back over her shoulder and says, "Wait, but then shouldn't we not leave him alone?"

Bringing up the fact Alucard could remedy his problem of not having enough blood by passing the problem along to her is a terrible idea, counter-productive to them not killing each other and feels kind of cruel on top of that given Alucard so clearly didn't. And Alucard will definitely take it as some sort of personal slight and not just Trevor pointing out that it is, technically, a thing that could happen. And if Trevor does sort of expect it, well, it's Hell, how is he not supposed to expect something to go horribly wrong when he doesn't expect it? It's nothing personal.

Only Alucard takes everything personally. If he didn't, if he wasn't all weird about, about just everything, Trevor wouldn't have had to concern himself about talking Alucard into going off for supper in the first place.

And Trevor had barely even made comments about eating people after the first couple days!

"He's older than both of us put together, I think he can probably manage to navigate stairs. And." Trevor shrugs again. "If he can't he'll still be fine falling down all of them. Dracula punched him through half the walls of his infinite castle and Alucard was still standing at the end."

Sypha makes a mildly irritated hmmm at this, having no doubt put together that Trevor's saying tumbling down endless stairs is less dangerous than whatever stupid magic Alucard just did to put himself at risk of it. "He really wanted us to stay away from those void acolytes, didn't he?"

"Yeah."

"Is that..." Her voice drops, like she's anxious about being overheard. Nice effort, definitely futile. Ha, but what isn't. "...how he feels about the Night Horde, as well?"

Oh, yeah, Trevor can see how it'd come off. "No, he's fine with killing them. Same with the other vampires. Apparently he's just weird about these things in particular, fuck knows why." Sypha's own stairs are still floating about just fine. Trevor lightly kicks the side of the lowest step, more out of curiosity than anything, and finds he's slightly disappointed to find it doesn't shift at all. He was expecting it to be more springy. "They all look like women, I guess? Maybe that's it."

Sypha's next hmmm is a lot more irritated.

"Hey, I was fine with killing them," Trevor retorts.

"No, you weren't."

"I'm fine with them being made dead in a way that doesn't involve any of us entering the same room as them."

"Are these...like the stories about the daughters of the north wind? Is that what you were both trying so hard to keep away from?" Sypha says suspiciously. "Do they look like women wearing clothes, Belmont?"

"I feel," he says carefully, "that you are trying to find something to be mad about."

"I feel concerned that the two men I am with are afraid of naked women, and that perhaps we are doomed if any of the Night Horde have tits."

"You think prophecies get garbled? I can promise you it's way worse with these kinds of monsters. Those things don't sing, or dance, or" - he snorts - "marry, or do anything at all like the stories. They just shriek and kill anyone who gets within reach. Also, they're not actually women."

"Well...maybe not anymore, but they were, though."

"I..." Trevor sighs. "Look, what Alucard said about them not being undead, he might be right about that. It'd make sense of some things. But I also know they've got nothing to do with the person who used to be the corpse either, so he's wrong about it being a transformation like vampires. I really think he's just making shit up to cover anything he doesn't know. They mostly lure out women but they snare men sometimes too, and they all come out looking the same. Maybe they're like, like maggots are born from regular corpses and an ice spirit comes out of a frozen one. Nothing to do with the person besides using it as food."

"You know, maggots aren't really born from rotting meat," Sypha says.

"Huh. Really?"

She nods. "And you're very quick to assume Alucard's lying."

"Oh, come on, he lies all the time!" Trevor says. "You've seen it already. Like about sunlight, obviously it's bugging him because he acts weird every time he's outside."

Sypha turns and stares at him like he's said something very stupid.

"What? I'm right."

"So you also think he was lying when he directly told us his reasons for not wanting to come outside."

"I mean..." Trevor says, because yes does seem kind of dickish when you put it that way. "I'm not saying he does want a mob of people to come after him, nobody wants to deal with a mob, but that's got nothing to do with him acting all weird."

"I think I am starting to see why you'll be sneaking into his room and rifling through his papers trying to figure anything out," Sypha tells him.

And what the fuck does that mean.

How was he supposed to know.

How was he supposed to know Sypha didn't know Sypha thought it was fine so how, God, can that also be his fucking fault.

"And from the sounds of it still having no idea," she continues.

"Like it's so damn obvious!" And now she's not looking at him like he should know better she's looking at him like he just screamed at her and he didn't mean that and that makes him want to keep screaming which is very possibly the worst reaction he could have but then that makes sense doesn't it of course he'd just keep fucking up.

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

"Was it such a surprise you upset him earlier?"

Trevor stares at the stones below his feet. "It's not like he actually gets upset about things. He hasn't really got feelings."

"Oh boy."

"He doesn't," Trevor says. "Not because he's a vampire, because he's him. He's acting like he does but really he has one singular feeling and that's it. He might as well be a golem. A sad golem. He's going to do stuff until the words run out and then nothing more." And she is staring at him again like he's managed to disappoint her already rock-bottom expectations and, "Look, you'll - you'll get it soon. You're the one who told me first."

"That he's a golem? Odd turn of phrase for me."

"That he's like an icy well of sadness and there's shit-all that can be done about it."

"So you admit you know he's sad about what's happened and yet you can't see why that story about another dhampir would upset him."

"I mean, I could guess it would annoy him," Trevor admits. "Since he's always pissy when vampires get brought up. But he started it bringing my family into it. And it's not like there's a real reason to be upset. I wasn't accusing him of killing hundreds of people. He knows I know he's not going to kill people, he's fucking offended I don't think he'll kill people, so he knows I wasn't suggesting he was the same as it."

"You told a story where someone loses their family -"

"Their 'family' of mass murderers."

"- and kills people in revenge. Are you really going to tell me that doesn't sound anything like what's happening now?"

"Alucard's mother was an innocent person which is completely different and I even said it was fine for Alucard to kill the bishop over it if he wanted!"

"You can't possibly be this thick," Sypha says. "Dracula is doing the same thing as Ilaria did."

"Not really the same. Dracula's doing a lot better at killing tons of people," Trevor points out. At her frustrated growl, he rolls his eyes. "What do you want? Alucard agrees it's right we kill him! He kills demons with us, he kills other vampires with us, he stakes Dracula, so no I don't know why he's the one who's also going on about how yeah that cabinet of murderer skulls, those are my people- "

"You - when you said - you meant you did take trophies?" Sypha shouts at him. "Your family cut off their heads and kept them as trophies?!"

Trevor groans. "Sypha, they're not like - you'll get it when you meet actual vampires, Alucard doesn't count."

"No?" Sypha says in a tone of voice like she's already made up her mind about listening to him. "Because he certainly seems to think- "

"Is he like those demons?" Trevor snaps back. "Because that is what vampires are. Ripping people into pieces, decorating with guts for garlands, they - they fucking nest in corpses, Sypha, their idea of a nursery is a mass grave, the only thing worse than a regular vampire is a halfbreed one, so really if there's any disrespect of his people's precious traditions, it's that we made sure they were dead before we cut them up and we did it to to learn stuff instead of for the fun of it. You know the kind of stuff Dracula did even before this, everyone does! You think his castle isn't packed full of human skeletons? And worse?"

Sypha is pinching her nose dramatically. She's not getting any sympathy out of Trevor there. Whatever headache he's giving her does not hold a candle to Trevor's overall misery. He swears he's even sicker this time around than the last.

"Fine, I'm sorry Alucard is so fucking sensitive about every little thing!"

"I'm preemptively sorry either of us let you wander around there on your own," she mutters. He gags suddenly, acid in his throat. "What could I have been thinking?"

"Yeah you. Really fucked up there."

As did Trevor somehow, maybe he ate a bad apple this time around.

"Why did we go back to Dracula's castle?" Sypha asks.

"Oh you know," Trevor manages. "Visiting." And then he retches.