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A prolonged "hm", Trevor had decided, was not the sound you wanted your wife to make after unwinding the bandages covering a very serious wound, particularly if the wound was to your eye – thus rendering you unable to see her face as she made her very articulate assessment.
"Was that a pleased sound or am I still half blind?" He asked, posture kept straight and unmoving on the sofa as her gentle fingers tilted his chin this way and that.
"That was an 'I don't quite know how to go about this' sound." Sypha’s voice was much closer than it had been while peeling off the eyepatch and pulling away the soiled linen. The scent of rosewater washed over him as it had her hair the night before. Now that she was closer, he could also detect the faint smell of rain-drenched earth that clung to her, an indication of her magic only discernible to him because of exposure.
He scowled. "What do you mean you don't quite know?"
She pulled back and he could imagine her hands on her hips as she let out a scoff. "You married a witch, not a nurse. I don't know where to start." A pause, her skirts rustling against his legs as she straightened her back. "Can you see the light behind your eyelids when I do this?"
The sight of deep red immediately registered behind his eyes, like tilting his face to the sun. "I could already see light–"
The glow vanished, taking with it the rustling of Sypha's skirts. Across the room, a familiar screech of metal marked the curtains being drawn.
"Only confirming. But we shouldn’t have these open, in case you're still sensitive to the light. T'would be unfortunate to blind you again."
He chuckled. "Imagine that, the first man to lose the same eye twice."
The rustling returned and her voice was close again. "Stranger things have happened with magic involved, love, I'm sure you wouldn't be the first. Tilt your head for me?"
He dipped his head as she took his face in her hands and guided his line of sight downwards. Whatever necklaces she was wearing clinked against the metal eyelets of her corset as she sat before him.
She took a breath. "Would you prefer a countdown or…?"
The huntsman considered. "How bright is it?"
"I drew the thin curtains, not the heavy ones. I'd say it's roughly about as bright as a cloudy day. Not as dark as you're used to, but enough that it shouldn't be a shock." She set a hand on one of his legs. "You're also aimed at the floor, so."
"Mm." He paused. "I think I'm ready."
"If it's still… bad…” She paused in that way that meant she was worrying her bottom lip. “I can try something else. Some other magic.”
Trevor frowned at the implication. “Isn’t yours a very give-and-take system?”
“There must be something‒”
“If this hasn’t worked,” he interrupted, reaching out and finding her shoulder, “I’ll just have to find a nicer looking eyepatch.”
She huffed a laugh. “You would look more intimidating, I suppose.”
He gave a twisted smile. “How bad does it look on its own?”
“The injury?”
“Aye.”
“Tis a good thing I find scarring attractive,” came her cheeky reply.
He grinned. “I must be a regular Adonis in your eyes, then.”
“The one you gained from falling down the stairs does cost you some points.”
“I’ll have to get better scars, then.”
She swatted his arm and he could imagine the warning finger she was pointing at him. “Don’t you dare.”
He wasn’t overly nervous, but part of him was hesitant to feel hopeful. He believed in Sypha and her abilities completely, but even she had said she didn’t know whether this would work. Granted, she had a habit of insecurity, so he also knew to take her doubts with a grain of salt and assurances he wouldn’t feel let down should this not work.
And it was easier to avoid any actual disappointment if he didn’t let his hopes grow too high.
Still, he was hesitant. Enough to stall, anyway. He wondered sometimes if she could read his mind, the way that on occasion she seemed to know exactly what he was thinking.
“You know, if we do have to fix a nicer dressing for the wound,” she hummed, brushing his cheek, “I could embroider some very nice patches for you.”
He chuckled softly. “I’m certain that would negate the intimidation.”
“People would think you the prettiest vampire killer there ever was.”
“Eh, only when I’m not standing next to you.”
The flick she gave him was light. “Flatterer,” she accused him with a fond voice.
They fell into a few seconds of silence before he drew a breath.
“I think I’m ready.”
She took his face in her hands again, exhaling. “Open them slowly. Tell me if you start feeling turnsick.”
He obeyed, pushing away the hesitance as he opened his eyes. His breath caught. He hadn’t realized what a strange sight full color, untouched by the inky darkness of a midnight-deep room or the cloudy white of a split iris, would be after three quarters of a year. His vision was still off , slightly skewed at the edges like looking through the sides of a glass, but it was far more than the white nothing he’d grown accustomed to.
“Give yourself a moment to adjust,” came his wife’s cautionary voice after a moment spent watching him.
Keeping his face turned down lasted less than a second. There was so much to look at. Instinct was encouraging him to let his gaze dart around wildly, hungrily, across the room, to look at everything there was to be seen, so much clearer and brighter even with the overlaid shadows of the window, of gray clouds and slight sun cut off by linen. Instinct was to go find something green because he hadn’t seen anything that was a vibrant green in months and he liked green, instinct was to walk up the goddamn stairs in less than ten minutes or without help, and stare out the window and look at a tree, and the clouds, and‒ wait, but more pressing a matter:
Eyes wide and focused now on the face‒ God, he’d missed looking at her face in the light ‒ of the woman sitting in front of him, her lips pursed and her chest pushed up with the same held breath he was contending with, he met her eyes.
“Your hair looks really nice when it’s down.” He said, voice made soft by lack of breath.
Her brow furrowed‒ he’d missed her full range of expressions, too, about as much as the wild hand gestures when she was talking about something she had a passion for‒ and then all at once she collided with him, tackling him in an embrace. He wrapped an arm around her waist before they could fall off the edge of the sofa, his other arm joining the first in squeezing her against his body once they weren’t at risk of tumbling down.
Supporting her weight as she clung to his shoulders, he buried his face in her neck and let out a laugh that was just a little tinged with emotion. She pulled away suddenly, the hands that flew to his face so light on his skin they may as well have been hovering, and he quickly settled his weight against the cushion to keep her from falling backwards off his lap.
“How is it? Is it clear?” She started, somehow already working herself into the anxious barrage of questioning he’d thought would come after at least another few minutes. “You’re able to see full color, right? Because if you can’t, I can‒”
Trevor reached up, calloused, delicate fingertips brushing her cheek. He was more enraptured than was probably necessary considering he’d still seen her with half his vision. He’d kept his good eye open the whole wedding, and for the whole week after, before the realization that the strain and headaches were far worse, far more in number, the longer he let in light. In the following months, he’d seen glimpses of her in the light; the quick flash of red hair glinting like copper in the dying sun as she closed a window. A glance at pale skin dusted with freckles when he’d forgotten himself and cracked his eyes open in the early morning that had become indulgent staring faster than he’d like to admit.
He’d seen more and less of her in the dark. Less could he perceive in the dark, but more often could he afford to open his eyes than in the day. Full scenes of movement that he could discern with a little effort as opposed to detailed paintings, static images but full of depth. The usually inherent ability of sight had become something he’d had to measure, the choice of clarity with the condition of brevity weighed against length with the condition of obscurity. And either way, there was only so long he could go without pain.
Within the last month or so of whatever Sypha had been doing‒ he didn’t know the details of the spell or the painkillers but he trusted her, and he wouldn’t have known what to make of the information anyway‒ the pain had started waning. At first he thought the painkillers were just stronger, but he had put together (perhaps after a little longer than it should have taken him) that she wasn’t simply restoring his sight, because that would be difficult to ask of an eye that had been ruined so thoroughly by a well-aimed claw. She was healing the eye and the whole area, patching it together, willing the flesh to knit itself and regenerate as much as it could, as much as her magic could force it to. The pain had started waning because it was healing .
All this to come to the conclusion that for the first time in months, he didn’t have to weigh anything now.
“Trevor?” She asked, expression concerned. He didn’t know exactly how long he’d been staring at her, but it was long enough to get her more worried that she’d fouled the healing.
“I’m fine.” He swallowed, glancing away only to turn his eyes back at her immediately.
“How is it?” Her voice was smaller than he thought it ought to be for someone who’d just reversed blindness , and then it occurred to him he hadn’t said a single thing since his first remark and oh, yeah, that would be concerning.
Quickly, he closed his right eye, scanning the room with only the repaired one. He grinned, meeting her gaze. “Slightly blurred but not enough that I couldn’t read.”
She lit up, visibly, and the fact he could say that - visibly, visibly - made him almost giddy. She let out an elated laugh as the realizations started, flooding in alongside relief.
“You can see? Both eyes, fine?” She asked, already the picture of excitement but ensuring it nonetheless.
“Both eyes, fine.” He grinned, holding her waist.
She let out another gleeful laugh, looking him over like she didn’t quite know what to do until she met his eyes, at which point she squeezed his shoulders and practically vibrated with excitement. She made a sound that was a mix of laughter, cheering, and screaming that he couldn’t quite place‒ not that it mattered, though, because before he could comment on the welcome, frankly endearing sight ( sight! ) of his wife giddy like a child, the exhilarated laughter was cut off by her enthusiastically tugging his shirt forward and crushing her lips to his.
His eyes widened and he gave a surprised hum before melting into her, burying a hand in her hair. They broke it when she stopped being able to resist grinning and it progressed into smiling too hard for a kiss to be feasible. He started cracking at that, huffing against her mouth and following her into the shared bubble of delight and laughter.
She was still beaming when they broke apart, her cheeks red. “It’s really that good?”
“Good enough to see your bangs have grown far too long.” His thumb brushed the strands that had fallen over her eyes out of the way as he gave her a lopsided smile. “Are you sure I’m the one who hasn’t been able to see?”
She made what he imagined was meant to be an exasperated huff, but it lost the effect when paired with her wide smile. “You remember what they looked like when we met, and I needed your help to shorten them once the whole ordeal was done. I wasn’t about to hand the half-blind man a pair of scissors and have him hack at my hair in the dark.”
“You know, you could have had me do it while my eyes were closed and my arm was broken and it still would have looked better than what it was when we met.”
She giggled softly, a bit breathless, and shook her head. “Very lucky for you that I can tell you don’t mean that, or I’d be tempted to give you those scars you were considering.”
“Mm, well, you are lucky I like you too much to tell you genuinely how awful your bangs used to look.”
She smirked dryly. “Yes, and your lack of actual pants was very fashionable.”
“You still like me even when I’m not wearing pants.”
“The longer you tease me about my hair, the more I begin to think I only like you when you’re not wearing pants.”
“Oi‒” She hurried off the couch before he could trap her in an embrace that would likely end in some combination of tickling and an assault of kisses, only for him to grab her hand and tug her in. With her back pressed to his front and his arm wound around her waist to keep her in place, he pressed his face to the crook of her neck with a wide, roguish grin.
Fighting a smile, she tilted her head and tried to give him a warning look. “Trevor Belmont, don’t you dare‒”
He blew a raspberry into her skin, delighting in the shriek of laughter it earned.
The moment he’d taken his mouth off her neck, she managed to get out the jaw-clenched grunt of, “Your armor was stupid! ” that immediately led to him doing it again.
“My armor was great .”
Despite her attempts to twist around and out of his arm, she had the audacity to grin. “You ass ‒”
Trevor let go of her and promptly had to grab her again to keep gravity from acting on the fact she’d been pushing forward so hard. Once she’d resettled on his lap she tilted her head up to him and promptly snorted in his face, gently bonking her head against his chin.
He folded his arms around her, embracing rather than restraining. “My armor was great and you are delusional.”
“Your armor was useless and looked just as tragic as my bangs,” she shot back.
“So, you admit your bangs were a tragedy.”
“And I admit that you are an asshole.”
He hummed again. “We’ve graduated past varlet, then.”
Sypha stuck her tongue out and he bent forward to kiss her, effectively halting the already hollow ‘argument’. She sighed against his mouth once their lips parted, settling back against his chest.
“We should celebrate,” she hummed.
“Celebrate what?” he murmured into the shell of her ear.
“The fact you aren’t half blind, for one thing.” She set her hand atop the much larger one resting on her waist.
“For another?”
“The fact I was able to make you not be half blind.”
“That is quite the accomplishment.”
“Mm.” She tilted her head, resting the side against his jaw.
He pressed a kiss to her hair. “You’re amazing.”
She pursed her lips together to hide a smile, ducking her head and making a shy little noise. Once again the giddy excitement of seeing her bubbled up in his chest.
“I mean that completely.”
“I know that you mean it completely, I’m trying not to turn red because of it.”
He chuckled. “I like it when you turn red.”
Sure enough, her freckled skin flushed and he took a moment to savor the delicate pink. He didn’t feel like thinking about all the times he’d surely missed it when they were tangled together in the dark.
“How should we celebrate?” he asked, grinning as he took pity on her.
Her face lit up again. “How much cake can I talk you into baking with me?”
He sighed. “More than I should reasonably let you get away with.”
“We’re going to need about… seven eggs.” She mused, pushing herself out of his lap and clambering to her feet.
“Dear God.”
Whatever gears were in charge of calculating the amount of each ingredient necessary for cake had already begun turning and she ignored the remark, taking his hand and tugging him along before he’d even finished standing.
“I know we have almonds if you want to make an almond cake, but I’m not entirely sure whether we have cinnamon.” She pulled him through the doorway, chewing her bottom lip in thought. “I’m not sure how to make an almond cake, actually, but then again I wasn’t entirely sure how to heal an eye, and that feels more important.”
“Only slightly,” he chuckled, before remembering something. “How bad is the scar?”
She paused her stride and turned to face him, considering. “I don’t think it’s bad at all.”
“How prominent, then?”
“Enough that you look to be a worse fight than whatever monster gave it to you.” She offered a smile, feeling it fall when he glanced to the floor. She let out a breath and stepped towards him, running her thumb over what he’d later realize, staring in the mirror, was the bottom half of the angry pink mark slashed into his face.
Later, he would touch his fingers to the mark and smile, thinking about the added layer of affection to all the times Sypha had recently done the same. For now, it was only a fond touch, nearly as great a comfort nonetheless.
“I like it. Tis healed. It means you survived coming face to face with bloody Dracula .” She smiled.
In spite of himself, he smiled back. “You’d have been angry with me if I hadn’t.”
“Particularly so given the nature of how you got the injury, yeah.” She was still smiling, though now it was tinted by some deeper feeling that could have passed for nostalgia, had present company not been keenly aware of the look. Like nostalgia, but without longing. Getting lost in the past despite the last thing you wanted being to relive it.
“I’d do it again, you know. In a heartbeat.” He mumbled, gently taking the hand on his cheek and turning his head to kiss her palm.
“I know.” She let out a breath, brushing his cheek again. “Took you less than a heartbeat the first time. I would know, I remember I could hear mine pounding in my ears.”
“Mm. Yeah, well, being a good half second from getting your throat slashed open will do that to you.”
“Heh. Yes, I suppose.”
“We’re fine now.” He said, both to her and himself, as he squeezed her hand.
“We’re fine now.” She agreed, giving a nod that made her hair bounce a little and remind him of something.
“You think the sun’ll be out soon?”
“Hm.” She considered. “It’s been cloudy for most of the day… Sunset, maybe? Preparing everything took a while, so I’d guess it would happen…In an hour or two. I’m not great at tracking time. Why?”
“I want to eat by the window. I miss sunsets.”
“I’m sure. Truly, what is marriage even for if not to eat cake for dinner and watch the sunset?”
His brow furrowed. “Hold on, I haven’t agreed to cake for dinner .”
“Or before dinner, I suppose, if you feel like ransacking our leftovers afterwards. But you love me, so we’re having cake for dinner tonight and you won’t fight it.”
He huffed a laugh. “I can’t believe I don’t mind the fact that’s completely true.”
“I can. If you wanted cake for dinner, I’d let you talk me into it.”
“Yes, but that’s because you’re crazy and the idea of cake for dinner somehow entices you.”
“Nothing but dried meat and bacon for a meal, then, if that’s more to your liking.”
He paused, suddenly a little excited. “Would you really let me talk you into that?”
“It can’t be worse than the times you’ve pulled out salt-dried chicken from God knows where and started eating in the middle of combat. Tis only fair,” she sighed, “so, very well.”
“It’s not God knows where, I have a pocket‒”
“Don’t give me the mental image of a coat pocket full of dried meat, I won’t be able to look at you the same,” she laughed.
“Fine, alright.” He nudged her and she took his arm in hers before he could do it again. “Tonight is the much better alternative of nothing but cake.”
“Better fresh cake than a meat pocket.”
“...I am begging you to call it anything but a meat pocket. It’s really more of a satchel‒”
She paused, giving him a look.
“Sypha‒”
“So, a meat sack, then?”
He sighed. “Meat pocket is better.”
They walked off towards the kitchen, gently bickering over very important matters such as whether it was safe to keep preserved meat in a pouch with no lining, and started sorting out ingredients. Halfway through baking, Trevor had glanced at a window and caught a glint of yellow sun, and within a moment both of them were eagerly watching the sun disappear behind the trees surrounding their home. Once it had sunk low enough the only remnants of its light were sharp edges formed by the evergreen mass, gleaming behind the leaves, Trevor turned his gaze to the woman leaning on his shoulder. Her hair caught the light brilliantly, like a waterfall of fire tumbling down her back, twisting over her shoulders. Her eyes shone too, setting them alight with pale blue.
“I can feel you staring at me.” She smirked.
“I like looking at you.”
She took his hand. “Then I’m glad you’ll have the opportunity to do so for a very, very long time.”
He squeezed her fingers. “Me too.”