miraclewhip | Inbox

Why are you so — why do you think that's even okay?

[Except...maybe he already sort of knows why he thinks that's okay, doesn't he? Part of it is clearly just that Trevor Belmont is an unhinged, deranged maniac. But how had Alucard put it, when they'd talked about him?

A man full of flaws, who has grown up hated and despised by his own people. Misery was the only thing he really knew well for a time.

And isn't that almost like how Alucard had acted himself, when he'd first gotten here? Determined to just go to sleep and wait for death. Brushing off the idea that anyone might care, until he'd had it hammered through his thick skull. It's not identical, not by any means, but damn if it's not close enough to make him stop and think a minute.

So is everyone from Dark Ages Wallachia like this, he wonders? Or does he just have a knack for running into all the people who are completely blind to the value of their own lives?

Or maybe it's him. Maybe he's the one oversensitive to it, after Kakyoin. After everything.]

I don't care if you'll come back. Your life isn't a fucking means to an end. If that's the only thing you can think of, then you do what you want, but don't expect me to help you.

[ He's ready to argue. Of course he's ready to argue. There are very few times when he isn't ready to argue with anyone about anything. ]

Fine.

[ But he doesn't. He huffs again, as if he's just been told that he can't have dessert rather than that he can't get his skull taken away. Because nobody's ever told him that his life isn't a means to an end. It's not true, of course. But it catches him off-guard, and that's enough to shut him up. Even if it wasn't, it's not like he can drag his own skull back to town. ]

Still leaves us with the problem of finding a skull.

Is that how you used to do it in Wallachia? Just go find a cemetery and dig one up? No wonder he named the raccoon —

[...Wait a minute. The raccoon. Alucard's raccoon. Trevor the Raccoon.

What had he said about it? I used a charm from the shop and it brought me a raccoon. That guy Lumi has stuff like that, doesn't he? Those orbs and whatever, the charms. He'd used the one at Christmas to get his guitar from home.

...And there aren't any skulls here, but there clearly are in Wallachia...]

Did you have a skull like that, back home? Like in your family's hold, maybe?

Probably? I don't remember if we ever needed to go looking for one. I've never really had a reason to. Doesn't often come up, making medicine for vampires.

[ He considers it, for just a moment. Probably not. He doesn't like to think of his family as graverobbers. But he doesn't like the alternative either, that they'd have used their influence to convince town officials to hand over the bodies of criminals. He just shrugs. ]

We'd have had the ingredients on hand. You'd be able to find just about anything in the hold, I'd think.

Then I know how we can get it.

[Well. How Trevor can get it, at least. Probably. Maybe. It's a wild, out-there solution, but it's at least not as crazy as killing Trevor and harvesting his skull after he's stolen something.]

There's this guy, Lumi. He sells...weird shit. The kind you don't find in stores. One of the things he sells is this orb, you can use it to get stuff from where you came from and bring it here.

So if it's in your hold, one of those orbs could probably get it here.

[amazing how literally no one has yet questioned the merits of RUBBING THIEF SKULL POWDER ONTO VAMPIRE BURNS TO TREAT WOUNDS but that is neither here nor there]

So I go find a guy and pay him to steal shit from myself.

[ Look, his plan involved talking to less people and thus was the superior plan. But he huffs. At least this version of things means that Alucard doesn't need to find out he was involved. He'd probably want to know what the fuck happened if he died. Maybe. ]

Yeah, sure. I'll go looking for him once we're back.

Technically from your family back home, but sure.

[And thus the graverobbing plan gets amended into the time-traveling graverobbing plan, but you know, sometimes you just have to be flexible like that when your life is a bizarre adventure.]

Is there anything else in there that might be useful? Might want to think about grabbing that, too.

[ Oh. Awkward. He doesn't know, does he? ]

Technically, technically from Alucard. His basement full of trash now.

[ He brings a hand to his face, to one eyebrow, feeling at the bone beneath it. Perfectly good skull, right there. Heck, they were playing fast and loose with bones when they were trying to figure out if crystals would work. Maybe he could just lop off a hand and try that. ]

I'll think about it. Most of the shit down there was for- you know. The other thing. We didn't have that many vampire allies.

Right. His castle and your basement, wasn't it?

[Which. Reminds him that maybe it's time he showed a little more of his hand, since they're now tentative allies instead of bastards at odds. He hasn't forgotten the reaction Trevor'd had to the things he'd said in the grocery store; clearly the events of Back Home™ are a hot-button topic for this Belmont.

Maybe it's stupid. But hell, if this goes bad, he can always just make Trevor walk home. Asshole.]

He talked about you and Sypha, before you got here. What you all did. And I saw — Dracula. How that went.

[He waves a hand at the sky, vaguely.]

Moon bullshit, for that one.

He asked me not to talk about Dracula. Sorry. I take that shit seriously.

[ Promises, he means. And maybe Dracula. There's not a lot he takes seriously, but they made a deal. He's not going to be an asshole about Alucard's father and Alucard won't be an asshole about his drinking. ]

I believe him. When he says that he knew a man worth mourning. That's all I'll say.

Yeah. I'm not surprised.

[At being asked not to talk about it, he means. Whatever Trevor Belmont's feelings are on vampires — and he'd had a taste of those already, the day with the turnips — they're probably even more abundantly so about Dracula himself.

And the Wallachians had called him the opposite of Dracula. Not even his own identity, separate from his father's. Just, what Dracula wasn't.]

You don't get to pick the family you're born into. What the people before you did. Sometimes you get stuck with it because of what they did.

[Sometimes a vampire wants to kill you for no other reason than what your last name is. Sometimes the first time you ever lay eyes on him is also the last time you ever lay eyes on him.]

C'mon. If you want a ride back, let's get going.

...Yeah.

[ Jotaro gets it. And that's- that's a strange thing. Even Alucard and Sypha have never just understood like that.

He climbs back onto the bike, sitting behind him. Sighing. ]

He didn't tell you, did he? Why he got stuck with a runt who never finished his training.

He said there was some kind of legend. A hunter, a magician, and some bastard who slept a lot. He was the last one, obviously.

[There's a particular knack for saying the word "bastard" like it's a term of affection and camaraderie. He's good at saying it that way; Polnareff is that kind of a bastard. So was Kakyoin. So is Alucard. The kind of bastard who's your bastard, who you'll shit on every hour of the day but god help the third party who says even the slightest word against him in your presence.]

I know he was asleep, and you and Sypha found him. ...How he got the scar, too.

[They're not talking about Dracula, so he doesn't elaborate. He gets the bike started instead, pulling back out onto the road that leads back to the city.]

Not that why. Why it was me who was his bullshit hunter, not someone who didn't need to hide behind a fucking fledgling.

[ Not that that's what Alucard is, really. But the point stands. Alucard shouldn't have needed to be there. ]

There havn't been Belmonts. Not for a long time.

...Just you.

[He has such an odd relationship with that simple two-word phrase. Such a connection to being the last one left, the only remaining hope. It makes you the one everybody is counting on, because there isn't anyone else.

It's you or nothing. It's on you if you fuck it up.]

Was it vampires?

[He knows, from things that Alucard has said, that it probably wasn't. But he's not about to betray Alucard by suggesting that he told him, not now.]

People. Just- people.

[ It's easier to talk like this, unable to see Jotaro's face. If he was looking at him, he'd start to wonder why he was saying anything. Jotaro never asked. He doesn't need to know. He's just here volunteering information because someone told him his life was worth more than a mission.

which is wrong. It isn't. He's a Belmont. He dies and if he's lucky it achieves something. But it doesn't mean it's not nice to hear for the first time in his life. ]

I think it's why he doesn't use my fucking name. He wanted a Belmont. A real one. Needed one. If he'd had one he wouldn't have had to do the job himself.

[ No, Trevor, it's just because he's tsun. ]

People.

[But he already knew that, to some degree, didn't he? Something something Trevor Belmont is a man who's spent his life being hated and rejected by everyone. Of course he doesn't know all the ugly details, but he doesn't have to, not for this much of a conclusion.

But he's not going to mention it. Not when the opportunity to talk about Alucard is on the table, and given how agitated he is right now about the dhampir, that's a much preferable subject in his mind for the moment.]

I knew your name before you ever told it to me. Had to hear it somewhere.

[A beat passes.]

He calls you Trevor when you're not around to hear it. So you know.

The fuck am I supposed to do with that information.

[ It's not a question, not really. Because he knows the answer and the answer is 'mind his own fucking business'. Because if anything it's part of a larger question, about that the fuck is he supposed to do with any information about Alucard. A question that's been hanging over him ever since Alucard first said he wanted them both to stay. ]

He does that. One minute he's telling me my family were witches, that we deserved it. The next he's saying I should have figured out that meant that he wanted me around.

[ It's a dangerous topic with Jotaro, he knows. But if anyone knows what the fuck is going on with Alucard, it's him. ]

Like when I'm around, he can't get rid of me fast enough. And when I'm gone, he gets upset that I'm letting him be.

You can do whatever the fuck you want with it. Or don't do anything. You said he does a thing, I told you something else he does. Now you know two things about him instead of just one.

[He pauses a minute, reminding himself that this isn't an invitation for a fight. Trevor isn't even picking a fight (yet) but it's worth reminding himself anyway, they have a cease fire right now for a reason.

And besides, apparently Alucard declared a subject off-limits, and Trevor is respecting that, even when Alucard isn't around to hear it anyway. That's something. That's a lot, probably.]

You know, you never asked how I met him. Why we are the way we are now. None of your business, or you don't care, or what?

Not really my business. I was- fuck. I was worried, at first. When he told me what the moon does. Too close to compulsion for my liking. Thought that someone might take advantage of it. I'd have wanted to be sure that wasn't the case, if we'd met any other way.

[ Because getting punched by a turnip man is exactly the proof you need that said turnip man is trustworthy. ]

You're not going to hurt him. Wouldn't have come along for this stupid idea if you were. So unless you want to tell me, I don't need to know a thing.

[Interesting. I was worried, he says, and it quickly becomes apparent that he means worried about Alucard. It's not that it's surprising; it's just a good thing to hear. He approves of people worrying about Alucard. People don't worry unless they care.]

His plan was to make himself a coffin and go sleep in it. Just...sleep. Forever. And that would be it.

It pissed me off, so I started hassling him. Dragging him out. Making him do things. I guess trying to convince him not to just...go.

[...]

He doesn't know. He doesn't know unless you beat it into his head that he matters. He didn't think it mattered if he disappeared or not. He didn't know why anyone would care.

He thinks he can figure it out on his own. Fucks with you to see what you'll do and then just decides for himself. He doesn't know when he's wrong unless you hit him in the face with it. That's what he does.

Of course that was his fucking plan.

[ He huffs, letting his forehead fall against Jotaro's back because he needs to hit his head against something and that's the only thing that's there. Of course Alucard was going to stuff himself in a box. ]

He told me about that. The coffin thing, a few days ago. He said he was going to have it lined with velvet which just sounds really fucking uncomfortable.

[ 'Eventually I found reasons not to.', he said. ]

Thanks. For being there for him. I never know if I fucking like him, but he's- you know. There's two people in the world who wouldn't kill me, eat me, turn me into a trophy or sell me out to the church the second it was convenient for them, and he's one of them. Important. That's the word I'm looking for. Probably.

He did have it lined with velvet.

[When did he become so indulgent, he wonders, that he can get into a discussion about his vampire boyfriend's coffin upholstery choices and he's ready to go to the mat defending said boyfriend's aesthetic, no matter how objectively right Trevor might be?

Fuck, he misses Alucard. Fuck.]

...

You'd kill someone who hurt him. Wouldn't you?

The fuck kind of question is that?

[ The kind that he doesn't want to answer, and that his refusal to answer is maybe an answer to in itself. ]

Of course I would. I mean- fuck, there'd be a queue, but I'd be in it.

I figured.

[He's quiet a minute, himself.]

All right, well. I guess, because of that, I won't beat your ass so bad the next time we fight in a fucking grocery store.

[And he wonders, all of a sudden, if he's said enough. If the trail is there. If Trevor will have figured out by now to look past what he says, and into the spaces where what he means is lurking.]

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