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Trevor returned in the middle of a thunderstorm.
Alucard was about to retire upstairs when he heard footsteps dragging against the stone. He spun, fangs out, ready for a fight.
He was not expecting to see Trevor standing there, dripping wet and pale and clearly favoring his right side, his face pinched with pain.
"Trevor?" Alucard took half a step forward; he may have been hallucinating. "What the hell are you doing here? You look terrible."
"Oh, thank fuck," Trevor said, and collapsed.
Alucard ran to him, suddenly petrified that Trevor had simply died right in the middle of the front hall. But no, he was still breathing, albeit shallowly.
Alucard checked him over and found a poorly bandaged gash on his right side, the fabric over it dark with old blood. His own ran cold.
His mother's laboratory. It hadn't been near the scene of the fights. It should still be stocked. No matter how bad his father had gotten, Alucard couldn't imagine him letting anything happen to it.
He gathered Trevor in his arms and ran.
***
The laboratory was indeed the least-harmed room in the entire castle, and Alucard took a moment to thank anyone who was listening for that bit of luck. He set Trevor on the table and shoved off his cloak, then peeled back his shirt to check the wound in a better light.
Trevor grunted. "Had no idea you wanted to get my clothes off."
"Will you shut up?" Alucard snapped. "Someone has apparently tried to remove your intestines. I'm trying to make sure they stay in the right place."
Trevor took a breath like he was about to say something else, but it dissolved into a harsh cough. "Oh, fuck, that hurts."
"Yes, I imagine it does." Alucard darted around the room, gathering what he would need. Water. Soap. Bandages. Disinfectant. A needle and thread. "Now I need you to be quiet and stay still."
That Trevor did told him more about how injured he was than anything else. Alucard set his things on the table and started cleaning the wound. "Where's Sypha?" he asked, dreading the answer. "Is she—"
"She wasn't with me," Trevor said.
"Thank God for small mercies," Alucard murmured.
It was a miracle the wound hadn't gotten infected, as he had little faith in Trevor's ability to properly clean the damn thing. Alucard did so now, and let out a sigh of relief as cleaning revealed that it wasn't quite as bad as he'd thought.
He threaded the needle. "This may sting a bit."
Trevor's mouth twitched like he was trying to smile, but he didn't open his eyes. "Can't imagine it'll hurt worse than getting my fucking side ripped open."
"Your ability to be crude in this situation is astonishing," Alucard said, and commenced sewing the wound shut.
Trevor hissed and stiffened at the needle, but otherwise didn't move or complain.
Alucard moved a lantern closer and focused mostly on keeping his hands steady.
When he finished and leaned back, he saw Trevor watching him with half-lidded eyes. "What?"
"How'd you learn that?" Trevor asked. "Your mother?"
Alucard put aside the needle and thread and grabbed a bandage to cover the wound again. "Yes. And my father. Much of what she learned, she learned from him."
"Huh," Trevor said, and his eyes fell closed again.
Alucard finished with the clean bandage and then turned his attention to the rest of Trevor's body. That injury had been the most obvious, but that didn't mean there weren't others.
He pulled off Trevor's boots and set them aside.
Trevor jerked his head up. "What're you doing?"
"Your clothes are soaked, and I need to make sure you aren't injured anywhere else," Alucard said.
Trevor dropped his head back to the table with a quiet groan.
Accepting that tacit consent, Alucard stripped his trousers off and set them aside, checking over Trevor's legs. Old scars, yes, and a few newer bruises, but no injuries that needed tending.
He fully removed Trevor's shirt and tunic next—Trevor grimaced, but didn't argue or open his eyes as Alucard moved him around—and satisfied himself that the single bandaged wound was the only one Trevor had taken on the upper part of his body. More old scars here, too, and Alucard very deliberately did not look too closely at them.
Trevor shivered. "'S fucking cold."
"Hush." Alucard found a dry, dusty blanket on one of the shelves and laid it over him. "I'm checking your head now."
"M'head's fine."
Alucard scoffed. "I highly doubt that."
His head was fine in that Alucard did not find any injuries there, but his hair was matted with mud and demon blood. "What the hell did you fight?" Alucard asked.
Trevor didn't respond.
For one heart-stopping second, Alucard was convinced the man had died on the table. But no, he was still breathing, and more easily than he had been when he'd collapsed at the front door.
He was asleep.
Alucard sighed and went to wash his hands, and then gathered Trevor's sodden things to launder.
It seemed like he might not get much sleep tonight.
***
To his surprise, Trevor awoke less than an hour later, not long after Alucard had finished hanging his clothes to dry. He sat up with a groan. "Where the fuck am I?"
"You're in my mother's laboratory," Alucard answered. "Or I suppose infirmary might be a more apt word at the moment."
Trevor jerked around to him, and then cursed and grabbed his side.
"Careful," Alucard said. "I don't know what you fought, but you're lucky it didn't take more than a chunk out of you."
"Who fucking cares what it was," Trevor said.
He sounded so bone-deep exhausted that Alucard stopped working on his inventory of the laboratory and turned to him. "Trevor—"
"Don't suppose you have a bed around here?" Trevor asked hopefully.
Alucard sighed. "Yes, a large one, but I'm not letting you in it until I've at least washed your hair."
Trevor choked. "What, yours?"
Alucard nodded to his wound. "You're still injured. I don't want to leave you alone and discover you've ripped off the bandage and bled to death in the morning."
"I'm not going to rip off the bandage. What kind of a fucking idiot do you take me for?" Trevor said, scratching at it.
Alucard stalked across the room and swatted his hand away from the bandage with a pointed look.
Trevor glanced away and mumbled, "It itches."
"Since you ended up on my front doorstep in need of help," Alucard said, "I am going to do my best to ensure you survive. It's what my mother would want."
Trevor eyed him skeptically. "Your mother would want you to help me?"
"She always had a soft spot for dark-haired idiots." An affection I have apparently inherited. Alucard gathered his things. "Your clothes are still drying. I'll bring you something else to wear so you don't freeze."
He was already out the door when Trevor shouted, "Did you just compare me to fucking Dracula?!"
***
Finding clothes that Trevor could wear proved more difficult than Alucard had anticipated; his trousers would be far too tight and his father's were so large even a belt wouldn't keep them up, so he ended up just bringing down one of his father's shirts and hoping Trevor wouldn't ask.
Thankfully, the only reaction he got was a raised eyebrow, and then Trevor shrugged the shirt on without any other comment.
Alucard ignored Trevor's protestations that he could walk and carried him up to the bedchambers. There were enough stairs between the infirmary and the beds that Alucard didn't want to risk the wound opening up again, and Trevor was, frankly, in no fit state to put up much of a physical fight.
"This is fucking ridiculous," Trevor muttered. "I'm not a child. I can walk myself."
"I'll stop treating you like a child the moment I'm convinced you won't act like one with your wound," Alucard said. "If we didn't have to go up three flights of stairs, then I would let you walk, but alas."
"Not going to use your super vampire speed to get us there faster?" Trevor asked.
"If you'd like to raise the risk of your wound opening again, I certainly can," Alucard said. "But since I feel compelled to keep you alive for reasons that currently escape me, I'm going to walk at a normal speed."
Trevor crossed his arms over his chest and refused to meet Alucard's eyes, but there was a dull red flush on his cheeks. Hm. Perhaps he didn't mind this as much as he pretended to.
Which, well. The feeling was mutual, in that case. Walking was safer than running, but Alucard could privately admit that he wanted to hold Trevor as long as he could. He'd been alone for a while and he'd thought Trevor had died twice since he'd shown up at the castle doors; Alucard thought he could be forgiven for being a bit paranoid at the moment.
"Where is Sypha?" Alucard asked. "Were you separated, or—"
Trevor shrugged. "Probably still at the tavern, telling anyone who will listen about Belnades and Belmont."
There was a bitterness in his voice that Alucard had not anticipated, and taken with everything else tonight, he wondered just what the hell had happened to Trevor over the last few weeks. At least it sounded like Sypha was all right, wherever she was.
"Are we almost there?" Trevor asked. "I'm getting a fucking crick in my neck like this."
Alucard rolled his eyes. "It's just down this corridor, you mewling infant."
"Stuck-up bastard," Trevor returned easily, but it was with a smile on his face.
Alucard had to fight to keep his own smile from showing.
His bedroom was large, with three massive windows framing the bed, and the raging storm had moved on and left a mostly full moon behind. That was good, because Alucard had only been able to find two candelabras, and they didn't do much for illumination in a room this size.
He hauled Trevor over to the table where he'd set up a basin with a pitcher and soap, and set him in the chair. "Hopefully this won't take long, but your hair is truly disgusting."
"Sorry I wasn't thinking of my hair while I was fighting for my life."
Alucard placed his hands on either side of Trevor's head. "Tip your head back."
Trevor did, resting his head on the edge of the basin, and Alucard scooped the water over his hair, rinsing out the blood and mud and whatever else the rain hadn't taken care of.
Trevor groaned. "Oh, fuck, that feels good."
"Yes, shocking how basic hygiene works like that," Alucard said dryly, and he started lathering the soap in Trevor's hair.
The noise Trevor made in response was utterly indecent.
Alucard focused very hard on what he was doing. This would ensure his own bed remained clean when he dumped Trevor into it, and that was the only reason he had for washing Trevor's hair. That every press of his fingers had Trevor positively whimpering was beside the point.
When he was absolutely certain he'd destroyed every last speck of mud, dirt, and other unidentifiable grime, Alucard carefully poured the pitcher over Trevor's head, rinsing away the soap, until he was sure Trevor's hair was cleaner than it had been in weeks, if not months.
Trevor was all but boneless in the chair, and Alucard had to hold the back of his head to keep him from bashing it in the table when he moved the basin away.
Trevor blinked up at him, eyes a bit glazed. "Th'fuck'd you do t'me?"
Alucard grabbed a towel and started drying his hair. "I washed your hair."
Trevor glared at him, but it wasn't nearly as effective as it typically was. "No. You did...something."
It was clearly costing him to make the words coherent. Alucard sighed and set the towel aside long enough to run his fingers through Trevor's wet hair a few times, making sure to scratch a little as he did. Trevor's eyelids actually fluttered shut.
"It's not magic, I assure you," Alucard said. "It's just washing your hair. Which makes sense that you wouldn't have felt it before."
"'ve washed my hair." Trevor's words slurred a little. "Never felt like that."
"Then perhaps you've never—"
Had someone else do it for you, was how Alucard intended to finish the sentence, but his mind, thankfully, caught up with his mouth before he did. Trevor likely hadn't, and he damn well knew that.
"Never what?" Trevor asked.
"Never done it properly," Alucard finished smoothly. "I think you might be clean enough now that I won't have to burn my sheets."
"You're the one putting me in your bed," Trevor grumbled, but he slowly got to his feet.
They were close enough to the bed that Alucard let him cross the room without assistance, but he kept a watchful eye out as he cleaned up the basin and table. Trevor moved slowly and stiffly, but otherwise didn't seem to have any trouble, and he crawled into the bed and let out a moan. "Oh, fuck, real pillows."
Really, the sex noises were getting out of hand. Alucard closed his eyes and thought very hard about fishing for a few minutes before he undressed for bed.
The bed was easily large enough for the both of them, but Trevor seemed content to sprawl over the whole thing. Alucard climbed into bed and kicked his legs. "Move."
"I'm injured," Trevor said, voice muffled where he'd shoved his face into a pillow.
"Your legs aren't," Alucard said. "And on that note, I need to check your bandage to make sure you didn't pull anything."
"I didn't," Trevor argued, but he rolled onto his back and pulled the shirt up high enough that Alucard could see the bandage wrapped around his middle.
The cloth was still clean, and a quick check under it showed that the stitches were still holding, so Alucard blew out the candles and lay down to sleep.
Well, he lay down. Sleep would undoubtedly be a long time coming, if it did at all, given that Trevor was less than an arm's length away from him. Almost close enough that Alucard could feel the warmth of his body.
He folded his arm across his chest so he wouldn't do something lunatic with it, like reach over and start petting Trevor's hair again.
"It's nice to be in a bed again," Trevor said gruffly, breaking the relative silence of the room.
"Tired of the wagon?" Alucard asked.
"Ugh, the wagon, the roads, the little creepy towns and the monsters that want to eat my guts." Trevor shifted a little. "And I know it'll shock you, but the lack of baths is a downside. Not as much as the lack of beer, but it's on the list."
Alucard tapped his thumb against his arm. "I suppose adventuring isn't all it's cracked up to be."
"Sypha loves it," Trevor said. "Can't get enough of the travel and the fights and the fucking flaming goat shit raining from the sky."
Alucard blinked. "Flaming goat shit?"
Trevor groaned. "Long story."
Alucard shuddered at the thought. "That sounds horrific."
"It was disgusting," Trevor said with the most feeling Alucard had heard from him since he'd arrived. "Just. Fucking. Flying goats! And their shit's on fire! And Sypha's laughing like an insane person because that's her idea of a good time."
Between this and his bitter comment about the tavern earlier, Alucard was beginning to put the pieces together. "But not yours."
Trevor didn't respond for a long moment. "I just want a nap and a fucking beer. Is there something wrong with that?"
It wasn't really the type of question that needed answering, but Alucard did anyway. "No, I suppose not."
"But she doesn't ever want to stop," Trevor continued. "Wants to get to the next fight, the next town, the next..." He trailed off. "I'm just fucking tired," he finished quietly.
He sounded so exhausted that Alucard was reaching for him before he caught himself. He left his hand in the space between them, just a few inches shy of the dark lump indicating Trevor's back. "It sounds tiring," he agreed, for lack of anything else. "Is that why you turned up on my front step in the middle of a thunderstorm?"
Trevor's shoulders went stiff. "I wasn't paying attention. Got ambushed. This was closer than anywhere else."
Alucard raised his eyebrows at the comment. The castle and the hold were only "close" if one was already on their way out here, but he decided against bringing that up. "So where will you go?"
"To sleep, for now," Trevor said, his voice rough. "I'll figure out the rest when my side doesn't feel like I'm being stabbed every time I breathe."
"You're welcome to stay here, if you'd like," Alucard said, doing his best to keep his voice and the offer light.
"Yeah?" Trevor sounded...oddly hopeful?
Alucard gave in and carded his fingers through Trevor's damp hair. "You gave me your home, Trevor. You can't possibly think I'd kick you out of mine."
Trevor relaxed visibly, dropping his shoulders and pressing his head back into Alucard's hand. "You sure about that? Don't mind losing your precious solitude?"
Alucard considered the two homemade dolls tucked on a shelf in the kitchen, and made a mental note to hide them before Trevor woke the morning. "Solitude is, perhaps, a bit overrated. But it is a large castle. I'm sure if I need to get away from you, I can find somewhere else to be."
"Heh. You may regret that in a few days," Trevor said.
Alucard might regret many things in a few days, but it was doubtful that Trevor being here was one of them. "Then I suppose I shall cross that bridge when I come to it. You should try to get some sleep."
"Then stop talking," Trevor said, an instruction somewhat undermined by the massive yawn he gave in the middle of it.
"I noticed you didn't ask me to stop combing your hair."
"Feels nice," Trevor mumbled. "But you can stop if you want."
Alucard did not stop; he continued exactly as he was until Trevor's breathing was deep and even and had been for several minutes. Even then, he was loath to take his hand away and even more loath to examine the reasons behind that. When he finally did, he left his hand on the pillow between them, close enough that he could stretch his fingers and brush the drying strands of Trevor's hair.
It was unusual to have someone else in his bed, the weight and the warmth and the steady noise and movement that came only from breathing. Alucard expected to find it annoying, but to his surprise, it was rather...soothing, instead. A reprieve from the ghosts of grief and regret that normally shadowed him at night. It lulled him to closing his eyes, unconsciously matching his breathing to Trevor's.
And for the first time since Alucard had come back to this castle, he slept easily and did not dream.