miraclewhip | (for cryptsleeper)

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(for cryptsleeper)

[ He remembers- maybe about half of what happened last night. A little more, perhaps. He remembers the comments that initiated the fight. Vaguely remembers being dragged back to the inn. Remembers throwing cold water on his face to wake himself up to do the terrible fucking job of stitching himself back up that he found himself with this morning (if there was ever a chance to keep that fucking cut from scarring, well, he's gone and botched it).

And he remembers telling the fucking vampire things that he probably should not have told the fucking vampire. He doesn't remember the specifics but he knows that he said too much. More than he's told anyone in a decade maybe. All for the sake of a petty victory that he doesn't even remember if he achieved.

He's uncharacteristically quiet today, even for being as hungover as he is. He forces the almost-solid porridge down his throat when it's pushed in front of him. He drinks half the water that he was using to wash himself last night and pours the other half over his head to wake himself up after maybe an hour of sleep. He only interrupts Sypha's long, long 'discussion' when she stares at him for an indication that he's still awake. It's after that that he's dismissed to the back of the wagon, either because Sypha can't stand his presence right now or because she doesn't trust him not to fall off and end up tangled under its wheels.

(Can't blame her, being tangled up under the wheels of a wagon sounds better than being in his own head right now, even without the throbbing pain.)

He doesn't sleep, mostly because he's been told not to and he is, even more uncharacteristically, on his best behavior right now. The day is mostly uneventful until sometime in the afternoon, when a particularly foolish highwayman sees a wagon driven by a single speaker woman and tries to take advantage of the situation. He's driven off within moments, of course, harmlessly to both them and himself, and the worst that happens is that the horses are startled by Sypha's display and the wagon lurches to one side, knocking Trevor onto his side against the wooden floor. It's only after everything has been confirmed okay, once the horses are calm and they're moving again, that he places a hand to his lower chest. ]

Fuck.

[ It's warm. And damp. He's gone and opened his shitty stitches, hasn't he? ]

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How organized would dealing with the fall out have been? Realistically, I mean, not in terms of just elaborate planning.

[Trevor's still in his chair, so Alucard can only stand. He dismisses the mirror in full, and it only reflects the room back at them.]

Realistically-

[ He sighs. He knows the plans, but guessing how it would have gone realistically- ]

-realistically, it was always going to be kind of shit. We had a few vampiric allies- ones who had been turned unwillingly, usually, we turned away those who wanted your father gone to further their own station. [ They would have likely been no kinder, and that they could not defeat Dracula themselves meant they would also be less useful for maintaining order. ] None strong enough to take his place. But they would have helped us to choose the best candidate to support.

There were a few candidates. Ones who were more vain than paranoid, so they would keep a court that our allies could be installed in. Ones who thought humans were below being turned and wouldn't permit it in Wallachia. If all else failed, though- ugh.

[ He stops there, because this is going to get really upsetting, really fast. ]

[Alucard's quiet. That means he's listening. Really listening. The mirror shifts, showing a more pleasant scene. A quiet forest somewhere else in the world, all stillness and light and gentle breeze that makes the room feel less dark. This room's lack of windows always makes it harder.

He takes Trevor's chair since Trevor is in his. (Ass goes onto Enid's notes for a hot second, and then there's a muttered apology to the dead.]

Politics is what it would have become, in the end. Not hunting.

[Which is very strange indeed. House Belmont, vampiric king makers. Hell of a thought to wrap one's head around.]

And you'd have to retain that control through generations. Hunting less. Controlling more.

The ideal, we'd have installed a leader who would have protected Wallachia. That would never have happened. At best, it would have been one who didn't allow turning and who wouldn't make war, one who might have been convinced over the years into finding a way to exist without fucking anything over for anyone. One who doesn't allow turning but does make war, that was probably the most likely- a long, long battle of attrition and a slow end to vampires in Europe.

[ And he sighs, because it's time for Alucard's favorite thing. ]

At worst- At worst there was the incense. It was only ever been meant to be used willingly, but if it was that or allow vampire struggles to consume Europe-

Centuries of work again. [Alucard sighs. None of this is easy, this is still a part of who he is. A fucked up part of heritage, but still. He wouldn't be himself without it, and there are moments where these conversations are hard. This is one of them.] And once all the vampires were gone, what then? The rest of the complex ecosystem of all the night things?

[That was one of the reasons vampires were needed. They controlled all manner of other things, after all.

And then that goddamn fucking thing comes up, and he hisses out of instinct.]

I didn't need that detail.

If it came to it, yes.

[ It's hard for all of this to not feel like an accusation. Which is probably how Alucard feels about literally everything to do wit vampire hunting. ]

You said realistically. Would you rather I pretend that the situation wouldn't be dire enough and we could never be driven to abandon our principles?

[The way Alucard backs off means that he can concede the point, as painful as it may be. He props his elbow up on the arm of the chair and holds his forehead in his hand, the other gesturing to dismiss the thought.]

No, no. You're right. [He hates it, because of course he does, but still.]

But that ignores my concern about all the deeper complexities about what removing one species does to the entire world around it. That's where I've been trying to find balance in this work.

We never had that concern.

[ It's an awful thing to say, but it's the truth. Alucard asked for his family's plans, and they had none for that eventuality. ]

If the complete extinction of vampires was what was necessary to stop more people from being turned or fed upon, then that would have been what was necessary. And the consequences of that- perhaps would have made more things necessary, and we would have done those as well. You wanted my family's solution, not a good solution.

Edited 2018-12-10 04:26 (UTC)

[This is the place for that kind of honesty mixed with bitter brutality. This room. Only this room.]

You're right. That's what I asked. [So he can't be angry at an answer. Even if he hates the answer a lot. But after a few moments of silence, there's a much softer:] Ugh.

[It isn't directed at Trevor of the responses or anything else but the floor.]

[ Alucard had asked about what his family's actual plan was, not what they would have done in this situation, and that, at least, is a blessing. Because he knows what his family would have done in this situation. He knows it and he hates it. ]

I don't know that there is a good solution.

Ignoring it all didn't work.

[That's how Carmilla happened. And...fuck it. There's the gaze of his mother's eyes down on Alucard that perhaps compel, or else it's the nearing anniversary of the thing that brought them together, or the thought that's been running around his head for weeks.]

And I don't want to be my father.

I know.

[ It would be the cleanest solution. The easiest. The worst. The one his family, the one lost in fire, would have wanted. The one his family, this little family of three, would never stand for. ]

I would never have loved someone who did.

[What does it say that Alucard doesn't even react to that statement off the bat? He is instead still thinking, because that path is still so very possible. After Trevor and Sypha are gone, what then?

Having Trevor help with this, it's been...not that. But that will only last for so long.

His goddamn fucking silences.]

[ The silence is too long. He waits for the stupid cheesy thing he said to sink in. For Alucard to react to this. For this to be over, because if there's any way to get the vampire out of his Moods it's to lure him out of them with affection. The second he started talking about becoming his father, it was clear that this had stopped being productive and started being a way for Alucard to torment himself. Trevor's had enough experience with stupid ways to torture oneself that they're not hard to recognize.

The silence stretches on. He reaches out a hand, placing it on top of Alucard's head. Softly, but with intent behind it, as if they were playing that stupid scar game again. ]

Tell me.

Mm. It's been a while, hasn't it?

[Alucard knows what that touch means. And he's grateful for it, even if this has nothing to do with the incident that demanded this thing's creation to begin with. He waits for the hand to withdraw, then leans back a little bit in the chair.

Name the thing. Pin it down. Then deal with it. That's all the logic was in the end, and how very Trevor it was.]

There are no good solutions, as you said. The natural one falls to me, and none of us want that. What the role requires, really requires is fundamentally against how I have been raised. [One hand gestures to his mother's portrait. Enough said.] Even if I took it on with all of my usual opinions, it is a lifetime appointment. This is the kind of work that drags one down. We all know that.

But I cannot abide the complete destruction of my father's people either. There are still parts of the Hold that I avoid or actively do not catalog, you know that's why. [Why all the vampire skulls have long been covered up with simple cloths.] And they keep so many other equally worse things at bay too, and that fact cannot be discounted.

[He crosses one leg over the other.]

So I ask about other solutions under the rather stupid idea that there will be some magic words said that creates a balance of what I wish to do, which is have nothing more than a quiet life with you both, versus what is best for this country, what is my responsibility for contributing to the current situation, and bluntly, a birthright and expectation. Not that the last two parts were ever in place or even articulated, my father's death was never anticipated that I was so prepared for the work.

The destruction is- the aim was never destruction, always no more people turned. No more people forced to suffer that. [ He sighs. ] But achieving that would always lead to a slow doom for your father's kind. There would be no way around it. Even if there was no warring, there would still be accidents. Illness. Stupid little things. And without the turning, the number of vampires would be finite.

But with the turning, this can only ever end in tragedy. People unwillingly turned, too weak to resist the hunger and control the damage they do. People willingly turned, with bad intentions, using their new powers to harm others and stirring up conflict. One way or another, the only ways this will end are the extinction of your father's kind or the complete enslavement of your mother's, else constant war between them.

[ Even with noble intentions, there would never have been a way for his family's work not to turn darker than it already was. ]

But you don't owe Wallachia shit. You are not your father. And you're also not your mother. You don't have to be sacrificed so that stupid people can be a little less afraid of the dark.

[There's a small flinch at those last two sentences. Brutal truth stings, especially over tender spots. But Alucard follows the point, because it's about being selfish rather than being Too Self Sacrificing. He probably qualifies for that part, sacrificing too much for Wallachia as it stands.]

So the goal must always be stalemate. And for that to happen, there must be forces in control, making sure both sides keep in line.

[It's also no where what he wants to hear. This...this thing he is, straddling the line of two very different worlds. It is so very tiring.]

Always. Because the alternative- Things were shittier before your father. Much shittier. I can't say most of us had any love for him, but- The man he replaced was worse. Worlds worse. If we didn't have the history we did with him, if what happened didn't happen, keeping him in place would have been the best we could hope for.

[ He sighs. ]

You've seen little Justine, in the Hold. I know you have.

[ Or rather, he has pointedly ignored little Justine. Because Trevor's talking about that one very small vampire skull. ]

[Mathias' blood. Enid's words. Ever since he heard them, Alucard had kept an eye out for the name again within the Hold's records. The matter of Belmont and Tepes was not simple hunting, that much was now achingly clear. Yet there had been no information offered. It was being kept from him, probably for good reason.

Sypha and Trevor gave him such nonsense for being protective and possessive. They were just as bad.]

My least favorite memento mori. Yes.

[He had covered that skull first. In any world where the Belmonts had gotten word that Dracula had a child of tender years, that skull would be joined by his own. That was a simple fact.]

The fucker before Dracula used to turn children. Once they're turned, they don't grow anymore. Not in the normal way, and not- in their heads, I suppose. They're always children. They could live centuries and they'd never be capable of understanding what happened to them. He'd return them to their families once the hunger first struck, let them tear them apart. And then he'd be the only one there for them. Soldiers, near as powerful as he was, but completely reliant upon him.

Justine was the last of them. Your father took over a few years after she was turned. He forbade all of that. Any vampire who even tried, he'd find them long before the Belmonts did. We didn't care for him, but at least he had some fucking standards.

[It's pretty hard for Alucard's face to go paler than it is at the moment (these conversations have that effect), but somehow it manages to happen. There's a disgusted wrinkle of the nose, and every detail hurts to hear. There's zero relief in knowing that skull's truth.]

Horribly low one, in this case. [The words are muttered. Disgusted. There's a flicker of anger but it's drowning in that disgust.]

Always has to be a vampire, and there always has to be a Belmont, always has to be a stalemate. Otherwise, that shit happens again. Fuck.

[ Does he even know where he's going with this? Hell no he doesn't. He's explaining the Belmont perspective, and he's explaining his own, and they're not the same, and the result is this stupid rambling mess. ]

But it can't be you. My family would have had you take his place, if we'd known of you. But you'd have done a shitty job of it. You look like you're about to vomit.

And this comes back to how much we must resemble our parents for the sake of so much more than just ourselves.

[At least the vomit comment gets a hollow laugh.]

Too human, I suppose.

It can't be you anyway. There always have to be a vampire and the Belmonts in opposition. You're known to have worked with us. Even if you got rid of me now, people wouldn't just forget that.

So, I suppose don't let it cost you any sleep. You don't want to do it, I don't want you to do it and you can't fucking do it.

Oh, I think we're at the point where I'm known for more than just that detail.

[Yes. That was the Alucard version of a dirty joke. He's proud of it.]

My role as designated Heavy Thinker will try very hard to accommodate a known fact, Belmont. [Thank you.]

(for cryptsleeper)

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