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The place is a mess.
There really is no better way to put it. By the time the fight is over, and all the vampires and their monster pets are dead, and Dracula is a miserable pile of ash on the floor of Alucard's childhood bedroom, there’s really nothing left but rubble and collapsed walls, torn carpets and scorched tapestries.
Trevor and Sypha walk through the castle, just to make sure there's nothing left to kill, and to assess the damage. The inner mechanism of the castle has been pretty much melted to nothing, something that Trevor doesn’t fail to point out to Sypha.
She, of course, conveniently deflects his point. Trevor laughs quietly at that, at the way her pretty brow wrinkles and her chin tilts up in defiance as she thoroughly rejects the notion. After this, they fall silent again. Trevor doesn’t really feel like talking in this place. The silence is thick, swallowing up their words.
When all three of them gather at the castle’s expansive main hall, the sun’s already hovering above the mountain peaks in the east. Pale light floods the torn up hall, casts shadows on the piles of fallen stone and the half-burned portraits that are scattered on the floor. The sky beyond the tall entrance is painted in reds and golds, pinks and ambers, and the birds hidden in trees beyond the castle are twittering cheerfully into the approaching dawn.
It’s somehow the bleakest sunrise Trevor has ever seen.
It doesn’t feel triumphant. It should have, but it doesn’t. The fight was tough, and they gave it their all, and they bloody won, but Trevor doesn’t feel like celebrating. Their victory rings hollow, like the empty and frozen castle they’re currently standing in.
Alucard, too, is quiet, barely speaking a word. The morning light paints the side of his face golden and catches in the highlights in his blonde hair, but his complexion is deathly pale, his eyes dark and downcast. He looks like a man already dead, and, really, who can blame him? Trevor’s no stranger to grief. He’s had his fair share of it when his family was killed, when his home was burnt before his eyes. He remembers the numbness and the shock, the pain that followed, the anger— it’s all part of it, isn’t it? This tumult of emotion, this tangled up thread that has a beginning but no end. It’s a menace, if Trevor has anything to say about it, and it dogs him to this day.
But Alucard… he’s different. There is hardly any emotion on his face, his eyes glide over the space, over them, without really seeing them. He’s a tough nut to crack, and an impossible bastard to read, and Trevor finds himself standing there awkwardly, not knowing what to say. Sypha once said that Alucard’s sadness is bottomless, like a deep well; if Trevor drops a pebble in it, he’s not sure he’ll ever hear it landing.
Still, he wants to try. He wants to drop the bloody pebble, he wants to shake him— but he doesn’t know how.
Alucard speaks, breaking the silence that has fallen amongst them.
“I can’t leave,” he says, his even baritone echoing through the dusty hall. “It’d be nothing but a grave to be looted.” He pauses for a moment, as if considering his words. “So let it be my grave,” he finally whispers.
Alucard’s golden eyes meet Sypha's, then his, and Trevor’s heart squeezes into something small and tight. He shakes it off with a snort and a roll of his eyes.
“The tragic prince act doesn’t suit you, Alucard,” he says, walking over to him with confident strides. “Not as much as you think.” He drops his hand on Alucard’s shoulder, and feels a small shiver running over the man's skin underneath his shirt. “Make the Belmont Hold and the castle your home. Not your grave.”
Alucard gazes at him in surprise for a moment, eyes widening ever so slightly. Then, he smiles —a small quirk of the lip, really, but a smile nonetheless— and nods. Trevor smiles back, keeping his hand on his shoulder a moment longer than perhaps he should before he lets it fall.
It’s not the perfect solution, Trevor knows that well. There is no perfect solution, not after everything that’s happened. But it’s something. It’s a start.
Is it?
Trevor frowns at the silent question, trying his best to ignore the doubt that lingers in its wake.
Belmont and Sypha are leaving together. Adrian knows that, before they say a word. He knows, and he understands.
He wouldn’t have wanted to be there either, if he were them. But he isn’t, so he stays, haunting the dark corridors like a ghost. A fitting image, he thinks, as he helps them haul their few belongings and all the food he was happy to part with.
They spent most of the day cleaning up whatever they could —Belmont helped him fix the shattered hinges of the main entrance, and Sypha's magic swept most of the rubble out— and then they prepared the carriage. The day was already old when they’d started, and now the sun is setting, its amber light falling upon them all, upon the living and the dead.
Anorher fitting image. The world is full of clever ironies like this, isn’t it? he muses, and stands back to watch them get on the carriage. Sypha’s hand is warm inside his own when he helps her up.
“Take care of yourself, alright?” she asks, her eyes gliding softly over his features.
Adrian gazes at them both for a long moment, at the warm blue of Sypha's eyes, at the fiery blaze of the winter sunset that catches in the chestnut highlights in Belmont's hair, and something wild and desperate claws at his chest. The words stir in him, rise to his throat.
Don't go, he wants to say. Stay for a moment; only for a little while.
Sypha tilts her head to the side in question at his long silence.
“You, too,” Adrian finally says, more lightly than he feels. Belmont raises his hand for a final goodbye, and Adrian flips him off, and they all laugh. For a moment, it’s almost as if time has wound back, as if they’re all ready to depart for a brand new adventure.
Instead, he stares after the carriage as it draws away, stands there until he sees it disappearing down the curve of the road.
The castle feels colder than it did a moment ago when he steps in. The door closes behind him, and he drifts through the corridors. He walks past his father’s library, his study, his laboratory. This entire place is his, Dracula’s; his presence is overwhelming, as if he’s still there. Adrian fancies that if he turns the corner, he’ll see him there, looming over him, wrapped up in his black cloak, his crimson eyes dark and thoughtful.
Adrian’s never felt smaller, more alone than he does now.
He sits in his father’s chair, by the fireplace his father used to sit, gazing at his mother’s portrait, like his father used to, and on his shoulders an impossible weight rests. A realisation he can no longer ignore.
All this time, from the moment he locked himself up in the tomb under Gresit, he had told himself, over and over, that Dracula was not his father. Not anymore.
It had been the only way to make himself do what he had to do: if he made himself believe, if only for moment, if only long enough to put a stake through his heart, that this man was a stranger. That it was some hidden, forgotten, suppressed part of the legendary horror that was once Dracula, which had finally broken through; that he had lost his mind entirely.
That this madman that was preparing to unleash his fury upon the world, that had made blood rain over cities and towns, was not the man Adrian once knew. He was not the man his mother had fallen in love with. He was not the man that had taught Adrian his letters, that had helped him practice his swordwork, that had read to him from his countless books while Adrian sat on his knee.
That man, who had raised his hand against his own son, who had left Adrian to grieve for his mother alone, was not his father.
Only it was.
In those final moments, just before Adrian staked him through the heart, just before Dracula collapsed in a pile of ashes at his feet, Adrian saw his father. He saw him, as he used to be. He was there, sorrow and regret writ clear across his features, reaching for him—
And then he was gone. Just like his mother was.
The tears are hot as they run down Adrian’s cheeks. There, in the empty castle, amidst the dust and ruin, next to his mother’s portrait, he grieves. He grieves for both of them, for all of them, for everything that was, everything that could have been, everything that will never again be.
The blood of the night creature stains the snow crimson, its ashes melting into the damp ground. Sypha sighs and brushes the back of her hand over her brow, where the fallen snowflakes are melting.
“Should we set up camp here, Alu—” she starts, and stops herself mid-sentence. It is the force of habit that makes her ask; Alucard was always picky with their camp spots, his nose wrinkling in faint disgust at their most obvious choices. Sypha misses that quiet disdain of his now, the sharp and wry jokes that infuriated Trevor, and often sparked an amused smile from her. It’s only been a day, but already his absence is eating away at whatever joy she might have felt for the adventures she’d longed to go on.
“Did you say something?” Trevor asks, gathering his whip chain.
"Nothing." Sypha shakes her head and forces a smile. “I’ll get the fire going for dinner.”
The bread is tough and tasteless, even after they toast it, and the goat jerky is salted to the heavens, but Sypha’s had worse — and less— to eat. She chews silently, gazing at the fire, and Trevor does, too. It is dark now, and the only sounds between them are the wind that rustles through the leaves, the crackling of the logs, the animals slithering through the undergrowth.
They haven’t spoken that much, ever since leaving Dracula’s castle. Or perhaps they have, but it was only to fill the silence. After the initial excitement wore off, they simply watched as the narrow dirt road twisted before them like a serpent. She doesn’t want to admit it —she’s sure Trevor doesn’t want to, either— but she knows there’s something missing. Something that can’t be replaced.
It just isn’t the same, when Alucard’s not there. The thought of him alone in that dark castle, where only ghosts and memories linger, is enough to make her stomach twist. She puts down her humble meal, at the exact moment that Trevor turns his head to look at her, lips parted as if to speak.
“Do you think we made the right choice,” she asks quietly, speaking first, “leaving the castle? Leaving... him?”
Trevor blinks at her, closing his mouth. He considers his words, the flames dancing in his eyes. “If he wanted us to stay, wouldn’t he have asked?”
No, she thinks with sudden clarity. The quiet that settles between them once more is evidence enough that Trevor is thinking the same.
“I think,” she whispers, “that sometimes, the hardest things to ask for are those we need the most.”
The bottle of wine is half empty in Adrian’s lap. It's been days since Sypha and Belmont left; he hasn't even bothered to count how many. The night is still dark beyond his window, the dawn only a sword’s edge on the horizon, and the embers of the fire are glowing in the hearth.
He doesn’t expect the sounds. His ears twitch when they catch the distant echo of a carriage stopping outside the castle’s door, the horses neighing softly as their reins are pulled taut. He sets the bottle down and reaches for his sword. Whoever it is, they’re not welcome; not here.
He’s halfway down the stairs when the doors creak open, and he stops there, gazing at the two figures that stand at the threshold, waiting.
No. That’s his first thought. It can’t be, is his second. Hope stirs in his chest, but the shadows are too stark for him to grasp it. It’s a trick of his weary mind, surely: Belmont and Sypha must be far away from the castle by now, somewhere he can’t possibly reach them.
“Are you just going to stand there, staring at us?” Belmont says, and Adrian can almost hear the smile in his voice when it rings clearly through the hall. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost; we haven’t been gone that long, have we?”
Adrian’s eyes are burning beneath his eyelids when the sword slips through his fingers, falling on the floor with a clatter. He glides down the stairs and crosses the distance between them as if in a dream— and it should be a dream. They shouldn’t be there, gazing at him with so much fondness he aches, the cold wind that blows in through the open door ruffling their hair, their cloaks whispering about their feet.
They shouldn’t be there, but they are. They are.
Sypha takes a step forward, her arms coming around his neck to pull him close. Her warm, clean scent of lavender soap and woodsmoke reaches his nostrils and he inhales deeply as he hugs her back, letting it fill his lungs.
“You’re back,” he whispers through the lump in his throat, and is only a little embarrassed at the tears that are quick to return, at his voice that trembles. “You’re back.”
“Yes,” she says, her breath warm by his ear. "We are." She rises up on her tip toes, her fingers threading through his hair. The cold tip of her nose brushes his own momentarily, the single beat of a butterfly's wings— and then her lips are on his, soft and warm and just a little chapped from the cold. It is everything he needs, everything he has been missing. With a trembling sigh he pulls her close, surrendering to their kiss, drinking her in as if he's a man in the desert and she's the bread for his hunger, the water for his thirst.
He takes a breath and blinks as she edges back to look at him, her eyes gleaming just like his own must be, her lips rosy and glistening. She smiles, her cheeks flushing. "We're home."
"But... how?" he asks quietly. "Why?"
Belmont returns Adrian's astonishment with a smile. “Figured you’d need some help fixing this place up. It really needs some work. Besides, I couldn't well leave my legacy at the hands of a sulky half-vampire bastard, could I?”
"Is that really the reason why you came back?"
"That," Belmont chuckles, a low throaty sound, "and something else." He reaches up to push a lock of hair behind Adrian's ear, leaning in to press his lips against his own, just as Sypha did. He tastes of whiskey and honey, and Adrian can almost smell the sweet musk of his skin now that they're so close, and it's all he can do to keep his balance and not let his knees buckle.
Belmont's hand is a firm, reassuring pressure on the small of Adrian's back after he pulls back just a little, his other arm wrapping around Sypha’s waist to hold her near as they both look at him with expectation in their eyes. "So," he says with a small smile. “Think you can spare a bedroom or two?”
Adrian laughs softly, brushing his wet cheeks with the back of his hand. Relief floods him, at the same time that the rays of the early morning sun peak over the distant mountain range to burn the mist away. The light touches his skin, warming him, and it sends their elongated shadows trailing along the floor behind them, so closely intertwined that he can’t tell them apart.
In another life, he might have never met them, or they might have never returned. In another life, he might have kept them out and faced the endless darkness that falls after every sunset alone, fought on his own the demons that linger in the shadows.
In this life, though, he has them. And in this life, the sun always rises after it has set.
“Yes,” Adrian whispers as he leans into their embrace once more, closing his eyes. "Always."