Chapter Text
Trevor pulled the sheets off a bed in a long-empty chamber and brought them to the front entrance. He threw them over the bodies, the woman first, and then the man, so he wouldn’t have to look at them while he did his work in the dying sunlight.
Alucard found him, staring up at the shrouded corpses, trying to figure out the best way to lift them off the stakes. The half-vampire crept around the open door, a sight made comical by how huge the entranceway was, as if he could truly sneak out of it. He looked stricken when he realized what Trevor was up to.
“You shouldn’t be doing that,” Alucard said.
“You do agree they need to come down, though, right?”
“You shouldn’t be cleaning up my messes.”
Trevor looked at Alucard. He appeared less absolutely unhealthy than he had when he and Sypha had arrived, but still weary, smaller somehow. Sypha had described Alucard as an icy well. Now he seemed something equally sad but much more pathetic. A wet blanket, perhaps.
“I’m not going to be able to sleep in there with these out here,” Trevor said.
“Then I should take them down,” Alucard said.
“Not alone.”
Alucard let out a sigh, half exasperation half weariness. “I’ll go find a shovel.”
Alucard returned with two, and set to work lifting the bodies and kicking down the gore-covered stakes as Trevor started digging. As Trevor worked he saw Alucard’s face out of the corner of his eye, teeth bared in a grimace, as he lifted the second shrouded corpse in a mockery of an embrace. It came up from the stake with a sick squelch, and the rotten meat and shit smell of corpse intensified.
They worked in silence, speaking only to agree to dig one hole instead of two. Alucard’s greater strength gave him little advantage in the simple, repetitive task. They dug to nearly Trevor’s height, finishing as the sun set. Wordlessly, they carried the bodies, one and then the other, Alucard at the shoulders and Trevor at the ankles. Alucard wept as they dropped them in the grave. Trevor wouldn’t have noticed if it weren’t for the slightest hitch in his breath.
Trevor put a tentative hand to his shoulder once they had deposited their burden, but Alucard threw it off to pick up his shovel and start covering the bodies with earth.
A third quarter moon was rising as they finished their task, and Alucard wandered back to the castle to sit heavily on its front step. He was no longer crying, but he was shaking with more than the exertion of digging.
“Do you wanna…. Talk about it?” Trevor asked awkwardly.
“I want nothing but a bath, Belmont.”
For once, Trevor agreed. But Alucard made no move to stand. Trevor sat down beside him.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to say to you,” Trevor said when Alucard didn’t say anything. “Sypha and I…. We owe you an apology.”
“What?” Alucard asked, snapping his gaze toward Trevor with narrowed eyes.
“We shouldn’t have left you here by yourself. Three months alone in a giant fucking castle is enough to send anybody mad, much less someone who’s mourning his family. That would have fucked you up even if the murder twins didn’t. It was an awful thing to do to a friend and the only thing that allowed me to do it was the fact that I wasn’t really… thinking of you as human.”
Alucard huffed out a little humorless laugh. “I think that’s the worst apology I’ve ever heard. “I’m sorry we abandoned you, but I didn’t think you had feelings.’?”
“What was I supposed to think, you… Vampire Jesus?” Trevor said, his anger rising. “That you needed us? That you wanted to come with us?”
“What does it matter if I did? I’m obviously a vampire, I’d attract too much attention.”
“D’you know why I told you to guard this place? Why I gave you the Belmont hold?”
Alucard didn’t answer.
“Because you were going to dig yourself a hole somewhere beneath this castle and sleep for about a century, right?”
“That was my plan.”
“And if you did that I’d never see you again. I wanted to see you again.”
For the barest second Alucard looked touched, but then his face hardened. “So you condemn me to a lifetime of solitude all so you can occasionally condescend to grace me with your presence?”
“I didn’t think it would be this miserable for you. That’s why this is supposed to be an apology! I don’t know, all right? I can’t imagine Sypha and I staying here, and I can’t imagine you going on the road with us. I don’t know how to have you in my life, but I want you in it. And if I’d told you that three months ago, you’d probably have told me to fuck off and that I smell like a dog, because you have the same stupid compulsion I do to hurt people before they hurt you.”
“Do you know, Trevor,” Alucard said thoughtfully. “That’s actually quite perceptive. And you don’t smell like a dog.”
“Ha.”
“You smell like a corpse! And so do I. I’m going to take a bath,” he said, standing. “I suggest you do the same. Meet me in the tower room on the east wing, after? Tell Sypha too, if you find her before I do. Warm fire. Another bottle of wine? And we’ll continue trying not to push each other away.”