Things haven't been great gestures wildly at the world but wrote this and that. This is a story I thought to try, channeling some Castlevania series feels. Please consider the tags before deciding to read. There's a callback to my oneshot 'One of them' in this chapter concerning what happened between Trevor and Alucard before they reached the castle. It's not needed to understand this though
The title is a line from the poem 'Invictus' by William Ernest Henley.
Additional tags and Warnings: Post-Castlevania Season 2, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Fluff, Trephacard, Grief/Mourning, Mental Anguish, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, POV Alternating, Bonding, Friendship, Polyamory (you see where this is going), F/M/M, M/M, F/M, More tags coming
Sypha never imagined this place could be as immense as it is; she's traveled the country far and wide during her brief life, but never did her eyes fall on such a structure blatantly ignoring the laws of physics and architecture. A sleepy behemoth of iron and stone, breathing magic like a dragon does scalding smoke. It weighs on her shoulders, frizzes her hair, makes her head ache, worms its way through her flesh like needling static. It becomes too much to block sometimes, adding to a mounting exhaustion where she is still replenishing her resources and nursing her wounds.
Wounds they all carry: some fresh, others gained long ago, their bleeding staunched haphazardly in the waters of time, their hurt spread thin over the years.
Padding on her wooden-soled sandals through the draughty halls away from the castle entrance, she can still hear Trevor chopping away at firewood outside, because 'it wouldn't do if we offed Dracula only to kick the bucket from a damn cold.' The dumbest end to a heroic quest, he'd said, a mark of the amateurish. Nobody laughed, and Alucard had turned and left without a word.
Alucard, whom Sypha is currently seeking, who'd not spoken to them, either of them, since the completion of their task. Since, with his father's blood still drying on his clothes, he silently worked with them to clear the castle floors of enemy corpses.
They spent the last two evenings together, Sypha and Trevor huddled in a corner on an unscathed settee in one surprisingly intact chamber, watching Alucard stoking a fire in the hearth — for them, after Sypha mentioned her freezing feet. He then lounged in a long, crimson armchair, hair a tangle of knots, clothes a mess and eyes rimmed red. He'd sigh, smile like his mouth was curved upward against his will when Sypha or Trevor tried to engage him, and stare into the flames.
Always the flames; haunting, purifying heralds of change but also of misery.
It rankles. It's not fair, any of it, but despite her belief in the powers of the self and how much strength can be siphoned through sheer determination and a will to live, Sypha knows better than to ask why; why ones undeserving experience loss and hardship; why some struggle an entire lifetime only to fall imprisoned by their own aging body until Death becomes a savior, plucking another soul to its bony breast. For all the learning accumulated in her apprenticeship, life had ceased making sense a long, long time ago. Those we love are never here to stay, not forever, and such is their kind; which made Dracula's end that much heavier on Alucard to conceive and accept, as one intrinsically exempt from humanity's descent towards old age and the inescapable dominion of death.
Sypha knew his struggle, had sensed it on him the closer they came to their goal. She remembers all too well those nights spent in their poorly patched cart, curled close from a need to stay warm. And though Alucard always maintained he 'did not feel the chill as they do,' he'd wrap his arms around her and stay near, his cold nose hidden in her neck, like any exhausted, homeless youth seeking shelter and reprieve.
The Speaker walks onward with the memory yet burning in her chest as she crosses a flight of bloodstained stairs, turns a left. A warm wind breathes through the open windows, sending her shawl billowing and her robes dancing about her feet.
She looks up as a sparrow flutters high above her head, then another, thinking she should tell Alucard to finally shutter the windows, lest he wants a slew of forest birds making their nests in his alcoves and domes.
Sypha shakes her head at the benign idea. But maybe, the proof that life finds this place a suitable enough home means it's ready to become one again? She's one to fall into bouts of daydreaming easily enough, but even the dreamer inside discards the thought; too soon, too soon.
Her mind wanders to days of their recent past, to fingers twined with hers in the night; to an evening when both Trevor and Alucard thought she was asleep while she twisted and turned, sapped of strength after a brutal encounter, but unable to rest.
When she'd heard their hissed whispers, heard Alucard's misery, and the silence that followed. Sypha had risen slowly from her sleeping place in the cart to find them entwined on the ground by their low fire and nearly jumped out of her skin with worry, magic sizzling at her fingertips, before noticing the tremor to Alucard's shoulders; his hands were in Trevor's hair, not around his neck.
They'd not spoken of it after.
Her sandals strike too loud an echo on the stone floors as Sypha reaches another vast corridor. She recognizes the kitchen ahead, and with great relief, steers her steps towards the door left ajar.
"Alucard?" she calls, stepping inside, slipping over the smooth chequered tiles. This place is larger than any kitchen she'd ever been in — though in all fairness, she hadn't been in that many — and stocked with more utensils than three people would ever need.
She freezes on the last thought.
Three people. A wish, a selfish wish, she knows; whatever they do now, wherever they turn, it makes no difference what she wants. It depends solely on Alucard.
She sees him there, his back turned, head bowed and shoulders slumped; preparing something?
Sypha catches the lit stove bursting with heat, feels the settling warmth as it spreads. She nears Alucard, who yet stands there, seemingly pondering. The evening clashes with the castle in a lengthening shade, and the dying light spears the room in beams of orange and gold.
"Hi," she says, her glance falling to Alucard's hands. He'd gazed into that hopeful sunrise with her after it was done, all the while looking as if the world had crashed down upon him; and it had.
His fingers are wrapped around an empty, ornate mug, the edges trimmed with blue. The kettle hisses impatiently on the stove, clearly boiling over.
"Hi."
His voice is toneless, and Alucard apparently doesn't feel compelled to look her way.
Her throat tightens. Ever since they'd known each other and became friends, ever since they'd become so much more, she and Alucard always met in a delicate balance of understanding and affinity, had opened to each other despite the lingering differences between them. Sypha had reached maturity surrounded by her community, by voices and personalities too many to count who'd influenced her learning and way of thinking. She had their love, their support, and a nurtured sense of belonging. She had the freedom to roam far and wide, to find herself and hone her gifts.
And then there was Alucard. One who boasted the unsought honor of being born out of the singular hope that two traditionally opposed strains of life could not only coexist but thrive. And while he'd known the love of his parents, hiding his nature among humans had been ingrained in him since childhood. His unasked for status as the sole child of an infamous vampire lord brought its own shackles. His wisdom spanned as far as his own travels and the knowledge gained from his parents, but nothing had prepared him for this.
Sypha swallows, remembering, again, how her flames had wiped the world clear of his last living kin. How Alucard had taken a step back and watched, stained with misery and guilt.
If only he would look at her.
The kettle is still hissing, and she goes to remove it from the fire, bringing it back and placing it close to Alucard and his mugs.
"What are you making?" Sypha asks.
"Belmont keeps complaining of a sore throat," he says. "And I found some dried herbs in the pantry."
His other hand is tightened into a fist on the counter; trembling, the knuckles bone-white. Sypha bites her lip, and without thought reaches to curl her own fingers over it. Long into the silence, she hears a sigh.
"He was your father," Sypha blurts, staring at him imploringly, hoping he'll meet her eyes. So many times, so many times Alucard had saved her life, and now she must watch him drowning in guilt, watch it hold him down and choke him.
"Yes. He was."
Still avoiding her gaze, Alucard retrieves his hand from her hold and reaches for the kettle. He fills both mugs with steaming, fragrant liquid, then turns away.
"Will you... will you join us outside?" she tries.
There is the sound of a container being placed back on the stovetop, and the metallic creak of hinges as Alucard douses the fire; then silence; and a door being shut.
She wants to rush after him, to hound his steps until he does something, shows something, anything. The sting of rejection flaring, Sypha stands still and listens to his retreating footsteps.
He needs time. We all do, says a reasonable voice within, but the truth of it brings no succor, no rest to the turmoil. Sypha stares at the brewed tea, inhales the rings of steam scented with chamomile and horehound. There's something peculiar about it, being here with a purpose other than fighting to stay alive. We'll take it slowly, she decides. Nothing else to do, she takes a mug in each hand and walks out of the empty kitchen, seeking Trevor.
Trevor looks up, wiping his forehead with his sleeve as he stares at the broken arc of the former residence gate. His home.
His cries and childhood prayers had struck these timeworn stones, his feet had trampled this earth, ran through its glades until no corner was left unturned. Once, he raced the halls with the chastising warnings of the servants behind him, and now he takes slow steps among charred remains and blackened stone, a fitting representation of his own mind.
Thirteen years gone and here he stands, returned to the place of his birth, the place of his memories where the foundation of his learning was laid, the only time in this life he remembers cast in a semblance of normalcy; the place it all fell apart.
Trevor remembers with minute detail where his brothers' rooms were, the observatory where his sisters spent their free hours, their eyes always stargazing, their fingers ever dipped in the dusty knowledge of veal bestiaries. A smirk cuts his face; they were always ahead of him in matters of lore. He sees the grand reception hall with its high, decorated ceiling, smells the pine-scented winters his family spent here, waiting and fretting for either his father or Amelia, his eldest sister. Hoping they'd return from another hunt, whole and unscathed.
That was then, and this is now. Rubble.
Trevor shivers in his sweaty tunic; the weather is wet and cold so close to the forest, and a droplet splashes his skin, followed by another, and another. He loosens the collar at his throat — why is it so freaking hot all of a sudden?
The wind stealing through the branches is a welcome reprieve, and he sucks in a steady breath of air. When Trevor opens his eyes again, he sees Sypha nearing on the path, gliding as she does, a flame emerging from the cold shade of the castle.
Right. Dracula's castle — the now-defunct lord of vampires. Trevor's still getting used to it, to seeing those towers jut out like blackened ribs towards the skies, the bridges suspended like rows of iron teeth between them; all of it a mere walking distance away. The only comfort the new state of things brings him, if Trevor dare even call it that, is that Alucard is its master, and not his father.
That trail of thought serves to promptly embitter his mood as he watches Sypha, with her robes fluttering about her tall frame and the lack of spring to her step.
It reminds the hunter why he feels suspended in a peculiar state between dream and reality, ever since that night. They've just prevented a veritable catastrophe together, he and Sypha and that assh —, and Alucard, and now they're left grappling with the aftermath. Despite walking his ancient family grounds again, Trevor's never felt as disjointed, as confused. It's like the three of them tread on a shifting, crumbling ice platform that is bound to crack beneath their feet at any moment, and each turns somewhere else instead of facing the other.
Sypha reaches him, two steaming cups in her hands, and quietly offers him one. "Careful," she warns, taking a seat onto a larger boulder bearing a fragment of the Belmont crest.
"Thanks," Trevor takes the drink, takes a sniff. He holds Sypha's gaze, both ignoring the sparse rain droplets sprinkling their faces, carried on the wind in warning. Clouds have gathered above them, dark and undecided, and the evening air is heavy with impending storms.
Sypha sketches a pale smile which compels Trevor to smile back because fuck it, they're still alive, kicking dirt on this godforsaken earth, living to fight or die another day. Her smile is genuine, but the Speaker looks no better than yesterday and worse than the day before. "What is it? Is Alucard—"
"No," Sypha murmurs, taking a slow sip of her drink.
"I took the firewood inside." Trevor runs a hand through his messy hair. "We should be set for another few days," he says.
Sypha nods, staring ahead, tracing the skeletal arches of his home with her gaze.
"Did you…" Trevor sighs. "... get anything out of him?"
The Speaker closes her eyes, shakes her head.
Typical. A part of him can't help but resent it, because the pointy-eared bastard gets a free pass wallowing in his fresh misery while they're stuck here on the outskirts, struggling to understand.
Sypha moves to make space and Trevor plops down on the same boulder, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. They sit there for a while, close together, shoulders touching; it reminds him of that one night in the Hold, huddled with her under his revolting cloak, and the elation he'd felt when she didn't turn away. "Weird thing, life. One day you're sitting in a tavern, drinking yourself to death and fighting pig-fucking peasants," he drinks, "the next you've murdered the lord of vampires and having tea among the ruins of your family home," he raises the mug by its handle, pinky up.
"Alucard made it," Sypha says absently, staring at the liquid like it crossed her.
Full of surprises, their prince of darkness. Trevor gives himself a mental slap — 'their' has no place in this damn equation.
Roiling gusts of air whistle around them, like noisy seneschals to the coming gale. "Have you... thought about it more?" Trevor looks down at his feet, at a row of ants currently migrating to an unknown location beneath stone and leaf, uncaring of the world and its worries, its petty struggles.
"... about what?" Sypha places the tea down, twines her fingers together, cracks them as she does when Trevor knows she's unsettled.
"About what you're going to do next," he says on a sigh.
Sypha stays silent for so long Trevor turns to look her way, and is taken aback by the pain crumpling her face. "Finding and rejoining my caravan is the only viable choice I see. But I…" she wavers, glancing towards the castle, now dark and megalithic in the fallen twilight. She doesn't need to go on for Trevor to know.
"I don't want to… to leave him here all by himself. Not until I know he's better."
Trevor chews on his lip, rubs at his eyes; scratches his stubble. Well, shit. But did he really expect anything else, in his heart of hearts? Knowing Sypha, did he actually think she would just...
He thinks back to all the moments he'd seen them together, to the way Alucard looked at her, the way they slept nestled into one another, the closeness Trevor witnessed from afar that left him feeling cold and out of place; it was plain to see if you had eyes. "Honestly, Sypha, from what I've seen so far, it seems to me all Alucard wants is to be left alone."
"No!" Sypha shakes her head vigorously. "He doesn't. Nobody does; nobody should."
Trevor can't help but agree, but there's an accompanying spike of annoyance. "Have you not been here the past week—"
Sypha rises from her place, pacing around like she does when she's ruminating, thinking, weighing things over in that beautiful mind of hers. "You know what it's like to lose a family; you and I helped this man put his own kin to death, no matter the reason, and now that it's over we're just going to… to leave?"
Shouldn't we? But nowadays, Trevor knows when to shut up; it's a rare thing.
"... and he does what? Goes back to his suspended sleep, like some tool the world has no more use of?" She stares at Trevor, her hair teased by the wind like little flames licking about her face, her fist brought to her chest, and Trevor doesn't think he's ever loved her more but dearly wishes she would stop, because he can't even make heads or tails of what hurts more at this moment: that Alucard's state distresses her so deeply, or that Trevor can't help but feel the same.
"Sypha…"
Her eyebrows draw together, her shoulders are tight; the look on her face kills him. "You were actually considering dropping it all and leaving again? Just like that?"
Trevor's gaze slides back to the ruins. "Look, returning to the place where my family died and my legacy got dragged through the mud wasn't exactly at the forefront of my plans for the future. And yeah, what happened to Alucard is a horrible turn, but you know what? I've been there and he will get through it. He has to. There's no other way than to deal with it, head on."
Sypha pins him to the spot, her gaze chillier than the cold creeping up his back. "So you don't care what happens to him?"
"I didn't say—"
"I heard you that night," she raises her chin in a way that strikes him as defiant.
Trevor blinks; processing, processing. "What?" That night... that...
Oh.
Sypha suddenly looks drained, run out like a dried stream, and a twinge of guilt brims in his chest. "I heard you," she stresses. "I heard the things you told him and I saw the two of you, Trevor."
She steps in close, closer, and Trevor looks away. She takes him by the chin with those warm fingers, guides him to look up at her.
"That was… that was once," he grumbles. Alucard had been so wound up, so damn miserable and Trevor had had an unpleasant moment of clarity — plenty of those lately, how he wishes they would end — and things had spiraled into something that still ached whenever Alucard avoided his gaze now, whenever Trevor remembers the feel of him and the taste of him and—
Ugh, stop, stop-stop-stop. "And to be honest, I thought we were surely going to die. So, yeah."
"... and doesn't that tell you something?"
The pique has faded from her face. She watches him closely, patiently; like she knows, and that tenderness he sees better not be for him because God fucking dammit. "What do you want me to say, huh?" the words struggle between his teeth as Trevor rises to stand. He's the taller one and Sypha has to tilt her head to look at him, though it still feels like she's staring him down, has him by the heart and grips tightly, rattles it around in his chest. "I'm sorry, I know uh… you two are…" he makes a gesture that should mean something, receiving an amused raised eyebrow in return.
"That's not the point, and you know it," Sypha grits. "Admit it, just admit you care. That you can't leave like this," she brings an arm around his neck, "that you don't want to."
She makes his brain hurt; most of the time it's welcomed because it reminds him it works, but here he is, the last of the Belmonts. With Dracula's lair resting prettily on his front yard, stuck caring about two people he can't understand, one of which is a damned vampire. All right, I've had worse days. Still, nothing quite takes the cake as this clusterfuck of a situation and will she stop looking at him that way?
"Trevor, will you say something?"
The hunter sighs, mutters, wishes he were one of those ants scuttling away beneath the earth without care. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand again, feeling much too warm. "I…"
The downpour doesn't faze him, and he sees Sypha's hopeful, glittering eyes, sees her hair plastered to her temples from the sudden curtain of rain, her face swaying before him.
In the distance, the façade of the castle is darker than before, brightening with one solitary window that winks with light but all else drowns in smoke and the world tilts strangely. It's hot, much too hot, and Trevor thinks he hears his name, thinks he hears the music of a dancing hora in the old halls of his home, the rhythm and chants twisting into shrieks and screams and pleas for reprieve.
He smells the rain, and a strong pull draws him forward into someone's arms. There's a heartbeat, solitary, wrong; there should be more, and his sight dims until all Trevor sees is the Belmont Crest, broken asunder, the banner torn and feeding another bonfire that soars and licks higher in the night of his past, burning and burning and burning.