Chapter Text
It happened in flashes. They had been ambushed and it had all too quickly fallen to shit. They were all exhausted from prior battles; Sypha was waning quickly, magic fairly spent from fighting and healing the major wounds dealt to him, a gash on her temple still steadily bleeding. Alucard needed to feed and, despite their arguments, refused to feed from either him or Sypha while they were still injured. As for Trevor, he was dealing with a pained chest and shallow breathing, likely from some sort of fracture to his ribs, from a few too many hits that he wouldn’t allow Sypha to heal just yet. All he had wanted to do was sit his ass in front of a merry fire with Sypha and Alucard next to him and sleep until all his hurts had lessened.
Instead, here they were, weary and drawn thin, fighting another group of Carmilla’s lackies for the third time that night. She’d been growing more and more irritated with them as time went on and they disposed of every soldier and hell beast she sent after them. At first, Trevor thought it was some sort of fucked up test, but now… now, whatever usefulness they might have had to her was squashed under her desire to remove them from the land of the living.
It is a symphony of the clattering of swords and vampiric snarls and the crackle of Sypha’s magic. Trevor is caught in the whirlwind, lashing out with the Morning Star, arm shaking with exertion. He ducks and dodges and moves together with Alucard and Sypha in a mockery of a dance. Shrieks echo into the night as his whip meets flesh, as magical fire wraps around them like chains, as a silver sword slices and stabs.
Trevor isn’t sure how long they’d been fighting when his vision starts blurring. He feels a blow coming towards him and dodges too slowly, catching it on the side of his forehead, in the same place Sypha had just a few hours earlier. He’s disoriented, blood rushing in his ears and pouring down his face. The Morning Star is thrown from his grip and his breath catches as he pulls his short sword it’s sheath, lunging at the creature. It goes down screaming as he slices into it.
Just as they start thinning the crowd, Trevor dripping with sweat and viscera and exhaustion, another wave appears and he curses loudly. Despite his failing vision, he can see Sypha faltering, can see Alucard’s unnatural paleness and the shaking in his hands. It hits him, then, like jumping into a river in the middle of winter. It chills him to the bone and makes his heart clench with an emotion he does not want to name. He fights with a renewed vigor, if only to make time.
He’s starting to lose it, lose time, lose himself to the repetition of slashing and slicing and stabbing. Trevor is running on instinct, now, to protect the only two he could call his friends, his partners, something more than that, something they have yet to speak aloud.
No matter how many they cut down or burn to an ash, more keep coming, and it’s too much.
“Go!” He finally shouts, as their backs brush against each other, “I’ll cover, just get out of here!”
Alucard snarls, not even forming words as he lashes out to bring down the monsters in front of him. Sypha is screaming as she conjures more flames, more ice shards, weaker than before.
“We are not leaving you!”
Trevor’s sight darkens and blurs and he yells as claws or a sword catches him in the abdomen. He’s sent stumbling, trying to right himself only to pitch forward as something hard hits the back of his head. The ground comes flying toward his face and, like the dumbass he is, he tries to stop himself with his hands rather than rolling into the blow. Pain lances up his wrist and into his forearm and he knows he’s fractured something. Vertigo and nausea pull at him. The world tilts and he retches despite not having eaten for more than a day, now. He scrambles up after expelling the remainder of his stomach bile, switching his short sword to his uninjured hand and moves.
He slashes out, bisecting the palm of the creature reaching out towards him. It gives an otherworldly wail and Trevor bares down on it, stabbing forward and drawing the sword through its torso.
Time is acting strangely, in retrospect, but Trevor keeps fighting. He continues getting littered with scratches and cuts from creatures he does not remember getting close, and they appear to be getting wounds that he does not remember causing. Trevor can hear Alucard’s pained hisses and see the aftereffect of red eyes and viscera smeared fangs, of bloodstained claws. Sypha is shouting words that keep cutting off, words that his mind cannot seem to process despite knowing the languages.
He turns, trying to find the words to shout back at them and he is caught by a solid blow to his face and his vision goes black.
Trevor’s head is swimming. He barely feels the throbbing pain in his side as he collapses onto the hard ground. It’s nearly impossible to claw his way back up and the hell creatures take advantage when he gets halfway up. Something hard connects with the back of his knee and he falls, once again. He dry heaves after his head hits the earth with too much force, agony rushing through his side.
Someone’s snarl rips through the air and Trevor is not sure if it’s Alucard’s or one of the beasts. Honestly, Trevor is too busy trying not to lose his guts or die to really pay much attention. He can feel himself getting colder, something both Sypha and Alucard would attribute to how much blood he’s lost. That does not explain why the ground beneath him and the area as a whole seems to be gaining a chill.
His senses are completely shot. The earth beneath his hands seem to be changing between warm, bloodsoaked dirt and cold, sharp twigs and leaves. His hearing fades from harsh battle to silence, a terrifying juxtaposition. He tries to call out when he hears the sharp clang of a sword on claws, tries to bring the creatures attention to him so that Alucard and Sypha can get out while they still can.
It works, God help him. Trevor can hear the beasts coming toward him, can hear their snorting and snuffling. He can almost make out Alucard’s raised voice before one of the creatures digs its claws into his clothes, into his skin, and tosses him directly into a tree. Trying to muffle his shout of pain is pointless, now, so he doesn’t. He hits the tree chest first and he feels the fracture in one of his ribs snap. Trevor chokes on his breath as he lands on his back and tries his best not to curl into himself. He’s gotten enough lectures from Alucard to know not to risk puncturing his lung.
He is not sure how long it takes him to realize he’s in the silence again. His eyes are hazed by pain and exhaustion and his own blood, but he can still just barely make out the head of spun gold coming toward him, the moonlight above casting a halo onto Alucard-- no, Adrian. Best he can tell, they’re alone, and Trevor always did hate keeping up pretenses. Alucard with monsters and Adrian when it was just the three of them. Carmilla would dig her claws into any advantage she could get, and he was not about to hand one out that easily.
Adrian is approaching him, his shadow tall and imposing and Trevor feels cold and numb and angry. Sypha isn’t with him. Sypha isn’t with him. He tries to catch his breath to speak but ends up coughing, body rocking with searing pain.
All the same, he manages to gasp out his words through the pounding in his head. “Go back. Please. Please, you have to. Sypha… Please, go back. Go back for Sypha, damn you. Leave me, get her, please.”
He stops before him and it’s all Trevor can do not to let a sob escape. Why was Adrian doing this? Why would he leave Sypha and take him? Trevor knew he was self sacrificial, but Sypha was more important, especially now. But, no, Adrian is standing several paces from him, not coming closer, not saying anything.
Trevor moves his good hand to his wound, gripping it to feel something. Anger and pain are making tears spill down his face and he grits his teeth. His thoughts are swirling and clouded and he feels his grasp on consciousness begin to clip and fade.
“Fuck,” He rasps and wheezes, “Go! Find Sypha!”
It’s too much. Sensory overload, he hears Adrian tell him, that one night months ago. It is an overload, the pain and the cold and the emotions all wrapped up into one.
Adrian takes a step forward, an angelic figure cut by moonlight, but his shadow stops him from moving any closer. His lips part and, “Who is Sypha?”