They had just set up camp for the night after a long day full of traveling towards the Belmont Hold and Sypha found herself blessed with the rare experience that was peace and quiet. Trevor and Alucard weren't fighting, no night creatures were attacking them, only the sound of the singing crickets and the bubbling creek echoed in the night. It was nice. The Speaker basked in it.
Perhaps the reason why the two weren't fighting was because Trevor was passed out drunk in a bed of filthy leaves a few feet away. It was always quieter when he wasn't awake, although the few times he snored, there was enough noise to think he was awake and doing it on purpose.
Alucard was leaning against a nearby oak, fully absorbed in the act of polishing his sword. Sypha hadn't seen him look up once since he glanced to see what Trevor was doing when he stumbled to "bed". That was nearly half an hour now.
While her little spitfire boys were busy doing that, though, Sypha decided to busy herself by reading a book she had purchased from the last town they visited. It was about religions from days long gone and their followers and she found it quite interesting to learn about how different things were from the modern ways of the churches in Wallachia.
Sypha heard Alucard shift; it was the first time he had moved since he took up the job he tasked himself to, so of course Sypha peeked up over the top of her book so that she could see what the dhampir was doing. She didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved when it turned out that he was just, in fact, changing the position of his legs, but those fighting feelings were quickly forgotten as the red-head saw a couple strands of pale, golden hair slip from behind Alucard's ear and into his face, quickly followed by a few more.
Alucard took a moment to pause his actions so that he could brush the hairs back to their rightful place, and, without sparing Sypha a single glance, went back to polishing his sword.
You'd think it'd be shiny enough already... The Speaker thought. But apparently not.
Sypha continued to watch as the strands of hair repeatedly kept falling, only managing to read the first paragraph on the page of her book over and over again. She stopped trying to focus mere minutes later, instead pondering on the length of Alucard's hair. Why did he keep it so long? It must've been such a pain. It was too much of a hassle for Sypha to take care of when she was younger, chopping it off when she got sick of it. Knowing the annoyance long hair was, she was quite surprised that Alucard, especially since he was a fighter, would keep it that long. All other people she saw who fought chose to keep their hair short so it couldn't be grabbed easily. There must've been a reason for it.
It was then, Alucard's polishing slowing and another chunk of hair falling into his face, that Sypha came up with the idea. Her grandfather always used to braid her hair when it was longer to keep it out of her face. It was rather useful for the road. Perhaps Alucard would find it equally useful.
But maybe he hated having his hair up. Sypha pouted. That would throw a wrench in things. But maybe he had never tried it and just thought he hated it. Best way to find out...braid his hair while he was asleep! Even though she didn't know how exactly to braid, it couldn't be that hard, could it? She smiled to herself. Nah, she'd just learn as she went.
So wrapped up in her thoughts, she didn't notice Alucard watching her, having sheathed his sword already.
"What's gotten you so happy?" he asked.
Sypha startled, book falling out of her fingers onto her lap. "O-oh, nothing! It's nothing! Just part of my book, that's all."
"I see."
They sat in silence for a few moments, Sypha not bothering to pick up her book to read again.
Alucard had his eyes closed and arms crossed, mouth seemingly glued shut before he broke the silence. "I believe I'll retire for the night. You should do the same; we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow."
Sypha nodded in reply, but he was already up and at the wagon behind her, retrieving a blanket to sleep on. Unlike Trevor, he did not enjoy sleeping on dirt. Within moments, his sleeping area was set up and he was already asleep on his side.
Sypha stayed up for a while longer, taking a few minutes at the beginning to make sure Alucard was truly asleep before crawling forward to kneel behind his head. Her book was abandoned by her previous spot.
And now, finally in front of that rebellious head of hair she was determined to tame, she...had no clue how to start. Did she just start twisting it like a rope? Was there a specific pattern she had to follow? How many parts did she have to have anyway? In the end, she just shrugged. No way it could turn out that bad, she was sure.
Giving a determined nod to herself, Sypha started the process, gathering up five uneven bundles of hair before winding them around each other.
It didn't start out that bad, looking semi-decent, almost like it could be worn by one of the townsfolk they'd passed by.
Two minutes later it was starting to look like a child had started playing with it—golden hairs knotting into their neighbors and entangling into sections of pre-done braid.
And once Sypha had finished, nearly ten minutes since she had begun, it looked like a proper bird's nest. There were no smooth sections to be found, some overly loose with stray hairs peeking out of their bindings, others too tight, almost flat compared to the rest. All of it was coated in knots. It had started curving upwards near the end, perhaps by some strange mechanisms the Speaker had created out of the twists and turns of the hair, she didn't know.
She clucked her tongue, brows furrowed as she pondered what went wrong. Coming to no conclusive answer, she just decided to redo the whole thing.
But that didn't go as planned.
While trying to do so, she ended up making things worse. Before, one could at least see the sections of the braid, but now, it just looked like a big, disastrous ball at the back of his head. There was no way she could fix this.
I'm so sorry, Alucard, she thought as she snuck away to get her own bedding. Please don't kill me in the morning.
It was hard to fall asleep that night, plagued by anxiety over the coming morning. She never should have tried to braid his hair.
—
As the sun peeked from the treetops, Alucard woke up with a few flutters of his eyelids. Straight away, it was apparent that something was off. Sitting up, a quick scan of the trio's campsite and the woods surrounding it revealed nothing. No enemies, no wild creatures, just complete silence and tranquility. The sort that normally came with the morning.
But then, twisting his head to look over to his right, he felt it. His head seemed like it was twisted around pins buried deep into his skull, pulling and pushing each and every time he turned his head a little too far.
He brought up a hand to the back of his head, placing it carefully against his hair, anticipating...something. A giant spider, some weird horn, a magical injury, he didn't know. But whatever he was expecting wasn't what he got. His hand touched not the smooth back of a spider, nor a protruding appendage, not even a bloody gash, but instead...just hair.
It was not how he had it the night previously, however. It formed a rather huge mound at the back of his head and felt as if someone had made a spider's web out of it repeatedly.
His brows furrowed and he got up, dashing to the creek he knew was nearby.
Alucard knelt beside it, staring at his reflection in the gurgling water.
And screeched.
He rushed back to camp, eyes blown wide and jaw locked, and stumbled—quite literally—over Trevor who groaned at the foot that jammed itself into his shoulder.
He wasn't even completely upright, still rubbing sleep from his eyes, when Alucard barked, "Belmont! What the hell did you do to my hair?!" It couldn't have been Sypha. She would not sink so low as to pull such a prank on him.
Trevor blinked a few times, making sure the sight in front of him wasn't some weird hallucination his brain churned up. Seeing that the very angry, very disheveled Alucard in front of him was real, the Belmont cracked up in laughter.
He held his sides and fell backwards on the ground. Pricking the corners of his closed eyes were tears and when he opened them, they leaked out along with a fresh batch of laughter as he saw Alucard's sour expression and screwed up hair looking down at him.
The dhampir's heeled boot colliding with his lower leg killed that laughter, turning it into a yelp of pain.
"What. The fuck. Did you do to my hair?" Alucard slammed his foot on Trevor's leg with each seething emphasis.
"Owowow!" Trevor rolled away from the offending foot before rubbing it when he got to his feet an arm's reach away. "The fuck! I didn't do anything to your damn hair, princess!"
Within a blink, Alucard was right in his face with a death grip on his collar, fangs bared and eyes wild.
"Cease your lies!"
"I'm not lying!" Trevor reached for his whip at his side, but before he could, Sypha's voice struck through the camp.
"Boys! What on earth are you doing? Stop this!"
Alucard's head snapped towards her, hand going up to gesture wildly at his hair. "Look what he did!"
"I didn't do it, you damn vampire!"
Sypha became very uncomfortable, very quickly. Her skin paled as her eyes beheld her own monstrous creation. It looked even worse in the light. She stammered, trying to find an excuse for it all. For all her words, she had none at that particular moment.
She blurted out the only thing that came to mind. "Uh...yes! Trevor did do it! I saw him wake up last night!"
The Belmont's loud cry of dismay caused her to cringe. This isn't going to go good...
"What the hell, Sypha! I didn't do shit! We all know that I was passed out drunk last night."
"Or were you?" Alucard glared at him, but at least he wasn't yelling anymore. Yet.
"Don't be mad at me, be mad at her!" Trevor sent a finger to Sypha's direction who jumped when the dhampir's narrowed gold eyes fell onto her. "I bet she was the one who screwed up your hair. Look, she's being all defensive!"
The two men watched as she flapped around, arms waving vigorously through the air as rushed denials escaped her lips. With how upset Alucard was, he could kill her and she did not want to be dead just yet.
But with both their doubting, suspicious gazes on her, she stopped. It was getting her nowhere. She ducked her head down and shifted her weight from foot to foot.
"Did you?" Alucard broke the silence, words coming out bitter, but quiet. He could not quite believe it. Sypha had not been out to get him in the weeks of previous travel they had spent together and yet she struck now. Panicking and defensive, she was not a good liar. It all piled up against her, despite no prior hostility towards him or his hair. He had no choice but to believe Trevor on this, even if they were just seconds away from a fight.
"Yeah," Sypha mumbled. "I didn't mean for it to be so bad, though. I'm so sorry, Alucard!"
"Then what were you trying to do, if not ruin his pretty boy visage?" Trevor asked, hand on his hip. "You caused me to get some major bruising, you know." He could feel the beginnings of them crawling up his leg. Bending it hurt.
Her cheeks flushed, eyes darting to somewhere in the trees. "I just...I just wanted to help out. I saw that your hair kept getting in your face, and Grandfather always braided my hair when it was longer, so I thought that I could fix your hair up like that too..."
"But you can't braid," Trevor finished for her, smirking.
"Oh, shut up!"
Alucard let out a heavy sigh, sitting back on his blanket. He wasn't angry anymore. Just annoyed. Sypha wasn't trying to actively do harm, despite causing it anyway, it wasn't like she deserved his anger. Neither did the Belmont, but he didn't need to hear that. It would just stroke his ego.
"Why didn't you just ask?" Alucard looked up at the red-head, fingers starting to try and unravel the mess his hair had turned into.
"I knew you wouldn't let me," Sypha replied.
"I might have. But now I certainly won't, knowing what I know now. At least not until you learn."
Sypha's face lit up at the possibility of another attempt later on.
"I definitely wouldn't," Trevor chimed in.
Sypha sent him a glare but her eyes went back to the blonde a few feet away when he grunted in annoyance and pain. His brows were bunched together in concentration as his fingers yanked knotted strands apart from each other. But somehow it just kept creating more knots.
After a few more tries, his hands left his hair with a sigh. He looked up at Sypha. "Come help undo this. It's hard when I can't see the problem spots."
"The whole goddamn thing is a problem spot," Trevor muttered, arms now crossed as he watched on from the sidelines.
The Speaker shook her head wildly. "Nonononono, that's not a wise decision. I'll just make it worse!"
"I don't think that's possible."
"Trust me, it is."
"Just do it," the Belmont said. "How hard could it possibly be?"
Sypha scoffed. "If you think it's so easy, you fix it! Show me that you can do better!" Either way, Alucard's hair would be unknotted. As long as Trevor didn't screw it up more. Which was a high possibility.
She was seriously making him unknot and rebraid it? How did she know that it wouldn't turn out as bad as hers did? But fortunately for all of them, Trevor knew what he was doing. Growing up with sisters in a vampire hunting family taught him how to do both of those things.
"Fine, I accept. Watch and learn, Speaker." He strode over to Alucard before plopping behind him and getting to work.
"I swear, Belmont. If you pull any ridiculous stunt, you will have more than just bruises." Alucard was hesitant about having the hunter anywhere near him under "fixing things" pretenses, but Sypha was rather adamant about not fixing it herself. Hopefully Trevor wouldn't mess it up even more. Given that it was, well...Trevor, Alucard wouldn't be surprised if his head lit on fire. Sypha still seemed the more responsible of the two, despite her "helping."
"Yup, yup, shut up."
Getting out the knots was harder than he thought, Sypha having really ruined the silkiness it had before, but eventually, many minutes and much painful tugging later, the giant mound that was once at the back of the blonde's head was gone, replaced by his normal river of hair that flowed down his back, leaving only a few snags and lumps that Trevor smoothed out with a few sweeps of his fingers through the locks. Sypha had sat down at his side sometime during the process.
Alucard opened his mouth, about to question why the hunter had not moved from behind him before, without a word from either of them, Trevor started sectioning his hair off and carefully twisting it together. He was rebraiding his hair, to Alucard's surprise. It was not painful, far from it, and he closed his mouth, resigning himself to the sweeps of rough fingers across his scalp and through his hair. Closing his eyes, he remembered his mother doing the same thing in his childhood. The action swept such a strong wave of nostalgia through him. He smiled.
Sypha sat, entranced by how deftly Trevor's hands worked. Occasionally he would get a section wrong and he would undo it, smoothing down the hairs there, before doing it again. She studied the pattern of the overlapping bundles, storing it in her memory for later use. Her attempt had certainly been much too complex a try for how beautifully simple it actually was.
Trevor didn't mind braiding Alucard's hair all that much. Much like Alucard being reminded of his mother, Trevor remembered the times early in the morning when his sisters would ask him to braid their hair. Apparently their parents were no good at it. Somewhere deep down there was a pang of sadness, sadness for his lost life, lost family, but he buried that in the contentedness he was feeling currently. No one was fighting, there were no Night Creatures, it was almost as if they were just a bunch of friends out on a road trip.
All too soon, the braid was finished, looking near perfect and tied off with a thick piece of string. Trevor and Sypha sat back admiring his work.
It was then that it hit Sypha.
"Why did you braid his hair?" she asked, eyes still glued to the finished product.
"You told me too, or did you forget?" Trevor replied, lips turning down in a frown. She had told him to, right?
She sighed. "I didn't, but I'm not complaining."
Trevor was just about to continue that specific discussion and what did she mean, she didn't when Alucard spoke up in front of them, sending a glance over his shoulder with wary eyes.
"How is it? As bad as yours, Sypha?"
"Hey! It wasn't that bad!" That was a lie.
"It was," both men answered.
"Well, shut up! It looks great!" She was actually a little jealous. She needed to get Trevor to teach her how to do it as well as he did eventually. "How did you even get that good?"
"I lived with sisters," Trevor explained. "Got to hone that particular skill a lot. Now where's my apology?" He sent a smirk towards his blonde companion as Alucard turned around to face him and Sypha.
"I didn't break your leg, that's apology enough," Alucard returned the smirk. "But I suppose I could buy your drink at the next town. Would you like that, little drunkard?" There was no venom in his words, but Sypha sighed anyways. Always with the jabs, those two. She got as much of a break as she would get, time to get back to normality.
"Hey! I'll take the braid back!" Trevor scratched his neck after his exclamation, muttering, "But yeah, I'd like that."
They gave a round of chuckles before getting to their feet.
"Now that that's settled," Sypha began, "let's get back on the road!"
They packed up their camp, and the wagon was filled with bickering and banter as they headed towards the next town on their way to the Belmont Hold. Despite the multiple claims Alucard made that he didn't care for the braiding Trevor did and the plentiful threats the hunter gave back about unwinding it in the blonde's sleep, Alucard kept the braid in until it got too frayed and loose.
Trevor did it anew.
A/N: So! Here's some more food for the fandom fire! Season 3 was...certainly something! I loved it and it broke my heart, so you all get fluff! I'm not the proudest of this fic, but it's done, it's short, it's sweet, it's the best it will be, at least right now. *looks at previous sentence* Dang, that's a lotta commas... But yeah, I hope this helps out any of you who are having a hard time right now, and have a good day/night!