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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I've slept just fine.

[ It's honestly mostly true. Nightmares aside, tonight has been his only truly sleepless night since they first got the message. For all the parts of him that are self-destructive, his concern takes the form of something more constructive. Eating, sleeping- he doesn't discard them the way that Sypha does when she works herself to a thread, he just sees them as tools that he needs as much as he does his whip.

His first reaction is to play off his own injuries. They're insubstantial enough to be nothing compared to Alucard's, after all, and it's ridiculous that the man should be concerned about him at a time like this. More than that, Alucard needs to feed. And Alucard is a stupid noble piece of shit who won't do that if he thinks there's any chance at all that he's in any less than perfect condition.

But then, that's also a decent reason to be honest. Because if he gives the man the slightest inkling that he's hiding something, then this is going to become vastly more difficult. ]

Bruised ribs, maybe fractured. Hit by a few more swords than I'd like. Got a pair of teeth in my arm- doubt they wanted to turn me, but I'll need you to be on alert for the smell of bad blood. Nothing worse than my average night of drinking.

Mm. Good.

[Bruised ribs, that's probably from falling through the mirror. Alucard catches himself considering that again, and it feels like a miracle in and of itself. Of all the things in the Hold that were used, that damned necklace was the worst. It kept him...tame. It didn't allow for him to think about what next steps to take, how to minimize his exposure to the rest of the things that bound him, just. Just stupid and docile and too easy to use as bait.

There's new spots of pain blossoming as he lies there, the colors of it hazy and horrifying to feel. He's got enough wit about him to clamp down on the very real screams he wants to let out (they are guests right now, and most of the crew is probably just waking up, it is improper).

One thought does manage to hiss out though, not feral but an all too near thing as Alucard tries to shift and accommodate the new sources of agony.]

Carmilla's head goes into the Hold. Place of honor.

[All those other skulls, they had been covered by Alucard one of his first days alone in the hold. A simple blanket draped over each shelf. Dignity while not disturbing the Belmont's cataloging system. Looking at the index later, a few of those skulls had been people Alucard's father knew. All the better to return their dignity in death.]

[ It's ironic, that the worst of the items was the one that was never meant to be used on foes. But then, that was why it was only used for allies, for turned family members who could not be saved, or for those unwilling monsters who were desperately afraid of doing harm. Subverting someone's will, that was never a Belmont thing. It was a line they did not cross - one of fewer lines than Trevor would like, having seen some of the worst of what Alucard found in the Hold. ]

I'll document it, if you like. I don't think your language is colorful enough.

[ He combs his fingers softly through Alucard's hair as he speaks. He is relieved. So relieved. This is far from over, they are far from safe, but he's awake and breathing and furious and-. And that has to be enough for now, because everything has always been unfair. ]

A translation. Dignified to...[It hurts so much to try and laugh but he does it anyway because fuck it, there's no other good description.] Belmont.

[The margin notes in the Index and in the books themselves were a treasure trove of family bullshit that proved every single Belmont was pretty much like this. Leon appeared to be the exception, but...Alucard did not like reading his work. It seems to look back at him through the centuries and recognize him for what he was. Son of Dracula. Violating a space that no vampire or half-vampire ought to ever enter.

In better moments, more lucid moments where Alucard's attention wasn't fixated solely on restraint, he'd mutter something about his hair being an absolute mess. Which it was, not just unwashed but covered in blood and viscera and all the other little horrible things that were in that cell with him. He knows it's a mess, just like he knows the fingers going through it are the most comforting thing in the world right now.]

She doesn't deserve dignified.

[ He only ever knew a few of the Belmont line, compared to the many, many of them who have written in the archives. But yes. He can pretty much confirm that they're all like this. The ones who think themselves Noble Warriors never lasted long, either dying early or going the standard Belmont flavor of just a little mad. His father had carried a bag of rice on his person at all times and swore by its power to consume anything evil with the desire to count it when really most were probably just confused by having a handful of rice tossed in their face. His eldest sister had been the least superstitious that a monster hunter could be, and had had at least one argument with a pair of werewolves because she refused to believe that they were not just men in fur coats. His youngest sister, training to take on the job of archivist from an uncle, had tried to bring the bones of her favorite dog into the hold for cataloging because he was 'the most good boy'. His mother seemed sane enough, save for that she had willingly married into this circus and encouraged all of it.

There's nothing he wants more than to hold Alucard close to him, but he can't. Not right now. So he keeps stoking his hair. They were gone too long. They should have gone home. They should have been there. And now home isn't there anymore. Alucard almost wasn't there anymore. They should have stopped after Dracula, the selfish part of him that was happy to let Wallachia reap what it had sewn before decides. They had won. They had done more than anyone could have rightly asked of any of them. They could have been happy. ]

You ought to feed. Do you think you can?

She ought to be a footnote for this, but you gave me this Hold.

[So I abide by the conditions. I will take care of all the things there, the things meant for my father, for other vampires, for all the night things that humanity fears because they have a purpose as does your family's work. It was a vow never said, a promise never uttered, but Alucard abided regardless. The organization was a two edged sword at the best of times. It had just nearly taken his head this time.

Maybe it's better that they turn from Carmilla for just a moment. When they reclaim that house, when they see to it that all the things that are theirs are returned, there will be a horrifying moment where Alucard resembles no man but his father. Impalement was one of the first things he thought about when he was captured, before some idiot found something that could read his thoughts and that was a horrid few hours.]

No. I forbid this.

I asked if you can. Not if you want to.

[ He's half-regretting not just saying that he was fine. It's unbelievable, that he would emerge from that mess entirely unharmed, but no more unbelievable than that they emerged from it at all. Maybe Alucard would have been more willing to be a normal fucking vampire then. Probably not. This has only been needed once or twice before, and never this badly, and he has always been like this.

He stops stroking, not because the argument has made him any less fond, but because there's every chance that this may end with him having to cut his hand and stuff it into Alucard's mouth and that's going to be even more ridiculous if it happens after he's been petting his hair for the last ten minutes. He lays his hand lightly on his chest instead. ]

Belmont, moving my jaw is agony, the basic answer is no, and the advanced answer is I cannot promise my self control.

[They're spat out words. Over the years, Alucard had always taken care to not let either of them see the part of him that required blood and how it looked when he took that nutrition. He always returned with a deer or a boar, and that animal would have a mangled throat. The work of a wolf, and of no man or vampire. They all knew he required blood, but there was a difference between knowing it intellectually and seeing the act performed.

Human blood was...minimal. And it was uncertain at the start of his life how much blood he would need and how much it must be human. A perilous few weeks according to his mother's journals, for while Alucard refused to read her pregnancy notebook, the initial notes after his birth were something else. There was so much love written onto every page, and it was a comfort in navigating the grief, just as it was a reminder that neither one of his parents knew how he would grow.

And yet.

He isn't healing. Not like he should, and time is their enemy right now. More than ever. Dracula and the night hoard, that was one thing, his father did not hunt them as dogs. Carmilla was her own breed of evil, and she was persistent in her way. Blood would speed things along. And if there is nothing else Alucard is, it is willing to accept the horrifying.]

A cup. A pint of it, nothing else, and you give no more for a month. Minimum. We are all well, or we all die.

Do you think I give a shit about your self control?

[ He did, once. He watched Alucard's every move, gauged every word for the sound that something in him might break and turn into something terrible. And he never did stop watching, but his reasons changed.

He sighs, but agreement is agreement. And a pint is- a lot, if he thinks about it. About twice as much as would fit in the small bottle that had held the profaned wine. Which will do as well as a vessel as anything, and the dregs of remaining wine can only help. ]

Half a pint now. Another half after I've eaten and rested. And a third once you're on your feet. Then no more for a month. All from a bottle, and I take your side if Sypha gets it into her head to contribute for herself.

[ This is the weirdest fucking haggling ever. ]

I refuse to kill you because I lost the last scrap of myself.

[Human blood eventually became a choice and a way to retain his half-humanity. A matter of course, a way to respect his mother's love of life, for all humans, and it was so much easier to navigate the world when you did not look at the sea of humanity around you and think omnomnom.

He hates this. But he can't argue either, and for the first time in a very, very long time, all Alucard wants to do is go back to sleep under Gresit.]

...Fine.

[This is the worst fucking thing ever.]

You wouldn't.

[ He says it with absolute confidence, but a deal is a deal. He finds what he needs - cloth to press against the wound to stop the bleeding afterwards, the smallest of his knives (or 'the sharp little fucker', as Alucard and Sypha may well know it by. His least favourite for the number of times he's caught himself with it when using it to peel fruits) and the bottle that had held the wine before.

It's barely a pinprick. A pinprick into the vein on the inside of his left arm (he's not sure if that is the best place for this, but this conversation is only going to get more awkward if he has to ask Alucard for instructions), but a pinprick nonetheless. He holds the bottle over the wound and waits.

It isn't long before the bottle is filled, and he presses the folded bandage down over the cut. The bottle is on the small table next to them. ]

Should I look away? I know- [ He trails off there, because he knows how Alucard feeds normally, at least enough to know the pains he takes to never do so as a man and to never be seen by him or Sypha. A deer with its throat torn out and no other damage is worth looking into, after all. But just saying that he knows that Alucard doesn't like them to know how he feeds is. In itself an indication that he knows. In the end he just goes quiet, pressing down on the cut. ]

[The confidence is reassuring, a testament to the thing between the three of them. Years in the future he still won't have the right vocabulary for what the three of them are (nothing fits, they don't do the pet names so many others in love do), but to hear those two words is what he needs in this moment that he has taken great pains to avoid.

He catches the smell of blood, and there's something inside him that stirs. Cuts through the pain, and there is such a deep hunger in him that it is only because of the agony that he doesn't pounce. He's spent a lot of time comparing Trevor to a feral cat in his mind.

Tables turn.]

Please. [Alucard forces himself upright with all the energy inside him because he will be twice damned as a patricide before he forces Trevor to fucking hold him while forcing blood into his mouth. Alucard's fingers wrap around the bottle, again this is energy he should be saving but fuck it, this situation is already unacceptable he will not make this a greater torture.]

Apologies to those ancestors who have tolerated me in the Hold.

[The place is alive, of course. Alucard doesn't see the memories, the little ghosts of rememberance that haunt the castle, but he can feel something otherworldly that seems to watch. It is a natural conclusion that they are the Belmonts who have not moved beyond the human concept of purgatory (again, how the fuck a God answers to a Church of men is something Alucard fails to understand), and there are a few that do not mind him.

He's scouring that good will. Not that it probably exists anymore, since he let the Hold fall.

The blood goes down in one fell swoop, a reminder of what Alucard is and an indicator of how much healing is left to do. His insides are a mess, silver exorcism having created new damage to repair. There's a moment of bonelessness too, and Alucard flops back down, eyes closed not for rest but in real self-loathing.]

[ He looks away. No matter how close they grow, there will always be these things - things that are not for the other two to pry into or interfere with. Sypha has her family. He has his faith. And Alucard- Alucard has a list a mile long, but this is one of them. It's only when he hears Alucard flop back against the bed that he turns back.

Gently, he unwraps Alucard's fingers from the neck of the empty bottle, taking it from him and placing it back where it was. He looks at it for a long time, before giving a bitter laugh. ]

We're both of us violating our principles all over the place today, aren't we?

I've never been a bigger disappointment.

[He can only half joke. Because this is disappointment, in himself (these things that he has taken such great care to avoid), from so much of his father (the castle is fallen into enemy hands and he has been held prisoner within the family's own walls), from what spirits in that Hold tolerated him (enough said), and all the other little things. He found peace with disappointing his father in so many ways, refusing to allow the night hoards to take Wallachia, living as a man, letting a Belmont come in and out of the castle as it pleased. He found peace with disappointing his mother, always Alucard now, no longer Adrian, homebound rather than seeing the world and traveling as a man, having had to destroy Dracula for the sake of the world. (She would be so happy for the love in his life though, that was what he meant years ago by highest heights. Lisa would have adored Sypha. Trevor? Still rude. And then so very welcome.)

One of Alucard's hands moves to try and reach out to Sypha. He manages to take hold of her robes, and there is finally the ability to grip which means he is recovering. The other hand finds Trevor's, closes around it gently, and there is still so much pain, but his voice no longer lets it through.]

How many days from port are we?

Two. Three, maybe, from what I could grasp. I'm not good with nautical terms in languages that I can speak.

[ It's comforting that Alucard has the strength to take his hand - still wants to - after all of this. He squeezes it softly, not really able to do much more while he's still holding the cloth to the cut. ]

I'll find a church in port. More wine, we'll burn the rest of the silver out of you. I'm guessing it'll be fucking awful, but then-

[ He cuts off. Realistically, it's going to be at least another few weeks of really fucking awful for Alucard's recovery alone, even if all else is ideal. He'll need to sleep, too, and that's going to be a hell of a thing to achieve on the run ].

-then it'll continue to be fucking awful, because that's just how things are.

[What Alucard wants most of all is for this to be over. For the two of them to have just stormed the castle, driven out Carmilla's forces en masse, and for all recovery to have been in their own bed. Squished between them, tables turned about fussing so they can't ever give Alucard lip about it again. Home and in comfort and half dead, rather than away and scared (but there is still comfort) and half dead.]

No. None of us can go ashore yet.

[They're still too close, Carmilla could track their boat and determine what port they're at. A Belmont, excommunicated, is still a Belmont which means he'll go to a church and she has humans, which means they can enter the goddamn church. Slower recovery is better than that risk.

It has to be three. Always three. If it's two, they fall apart. It's true in normal circumstances, like when Trevor takes his own leave and it's just Alucard and Sypha in the castle. They're fine together, they're happy,but it's...a not right thing.

He ought to sleep. Alucard knows it, but he doesn't want to. He could still be dragged back, torn away, this moment dearly fought for brought to a swift end.]

Wait until we are further away.

One of the sailors, then. I'll- [ He can't exactly ask. It's too important to trust to the bastard language he's crafted to speak to the sailors in. ] -I'll have Sypha ask, when she wakes up.

[ Normally he'd argue that he is perfectly capable of going on an errand. More than perfectly capable of stopping anything that can set foot in a church. And that Alucard is fussing again. He doesn't. He disagrees, but he doesn't voice it.

He's been through a lot. He deserves to be indulged this once. ]

If you think that's best. [ God, that's a sequence of words that feels uncomfortable coming out of his mouth. ]

[The last few words get a wheezy laugh and the hand that is in Trevor's squeezes once more.]

I must be on a near deathbed then.

[He knows he is. This is part one of too many parts, and something can still go so very wrong. Trevor's indulging rather than fighting back. In a better mood, Alucard would demand "if you think that's best" in writing. Maybe embroidered. (He himself would have to do it, but it'd be worth it.)]

Let me rest.

[It's not pleaded. IT is said with the weight of the world, with the totality of exhaustion pressing down on every breath. There is blood in him and the worst of the silver is gone. Right now the only recourse is to rest.]

[ He lets go, walking away. Then, then there is a scraping sound, as he pushes Sypha's cot over, so it's next to Alucard's. Better. Difficult to do with one good arm, but better.

When he returns to Alucard's side, it's to lean down and kiss him. Just to the side of the lips, because lord knows even the risk of tasting his own blood on his mouth is an emotional minefield right now. ]

Not for a year, this time. I'm not sure we're quite welcome enough to stay that long.

We don't have the luxury of time.

[It's the coldest and hardest truth. They've been hunted in their own unique ways over the years. Speaker. Excommunicate. Vampire. Never together. Never like this. A new set of circumstances, all the worse for the enemy involved.

The proximity to them both lets sleep reclaim Alucard. The kiss is the last thing he feels, and one day when they're all okay again he'll repay it to them both tenfold, arms struggling to contain them both, bitching about what a pain it is to have to alternate between them. (That's his constant complaint, having to pick one or the other to kiss when he wants to show them both the same affection.) His hand still holds onto Syhpa's robe. His other hand still tries to find Trevor's.

On deck, the sun is up and there are men moving about in their morning duties. There will be food soon, and mutters about last night, the ocean pushing them ever towards Varna.]

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