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Trevor both loved and hated that they had called the village around the Castle and the Hold Belmont. He hated the name because it felt egotistical to be a Belmont living in Belmont. He felt like a poverty-stricken Lord of the manor. But he also loved it. After his family had been excommunicated and executed, it was nice to have a piece of recognition for all their sacrifices over the generations. Wallachia should remember the Belmont’s.
He couldn’t believe Alucard had gone through with the naming. However, he thanked any deity that would listen that they hadn’t ended up calling the place ‘Treffy’. The asshole vampire bastard had let that joke run on for far too long.
The village had mushroomed over the last few months. Trevor wasn’t sure if that was down to the fact that Sypha could organise any rabble into a workforce in mere seconds. Or that when a job turned up that usually needed six healthy men, Alucard could manage it by himself. Or the strange machines Alucard kept producing whenever an awkward job came up which immediately made the awkward job less awkward.
Probably a combination of all three.
The strange machines, much like the name of the town, left Trevor feeling conflicted. He did not regret killing Dracula, he couldn’t regret it. He’d seen the devastation that the man had caused. But he had understood Dracula’s motivations. He knew the pain of losing his family and he knew that if tiny Trevor been able to unleash an army of darkness unto the world when his family were killed, he probably would have.
He’d heard Sypha and Alucard both talk about the good Dracula could have done. How he had been getting better, how he had been becoming a potential force for good in a world that desperately needed it. At least until humanity fucked it up.
But it wasn’t until Trevor saw Alucard’s machines that he really understood what they meant. Suddenly, everything in life was easier. The nights were brighter; the work was lighter, people had more time to just be people. The village children were reading because they didn’t have to toil endlessly just to survive. They had time to learn, time to read and build and be better. Dracula could have brought that to the world and his wife had been slowly making that potential a reality.
Trevor finally understood what a fucking tragedy losing Lisa and subsequently Dracula had been. He was probably the only Belmont to mourn the loss of that gigantic vampire asshole.
So, when Sypha had pulled him aside one early February morning and floated her intention to him, he had agreed. More than agreed, he’d built on the idea.
“You’re a sweet man, Trevor Belmont.” Sypha had kissed his cheek and pushed him out of their little home.
“What?” Trevor stumbled, but managed not to fall. For a heavily pregnant woman, Sypha was strong.
“I’ll let you tell him.” Sypha was smiling, but her eyes were hard. There would be no arguing with her.
And so began one of the most awkward days of Trevor Belmont’s life.
In the morning, Alucard taught some of the older children. Trevor tried to listen intently as he was sure on some level the subject was interesting, but he soon nodded off, only to wake up when the children started prodding him.
Late morning saw Alucard making lunch for himself and Greta. It smelled wonderful and Trevor planned to make his escape soon to find his own food.
“You might as well join us,” Alucard said, putting out and filling three plates. Greta looked confused. “I seem to have developed a stalker.”
“I’m not a stalker.” Trevor came into the kitchen properly. “I just need to speak with you.”
“Then use your words.” Alucard sat, and Trevor did likewise.
“I will when I figure out what they are.” Trevor started forking food into his face and paused. This was fantastic. “Who taught you to do this?” The skin around Alucard’s eyes tightened.
“Like most children, my parents taught me.”
“Your mother was a wonderful cook, then.”
“No, she was not. She burned almost everything.” Trevor was quiet after that.
The afternoon saw Trevor following Alucard around the small village. The vampire carried out the odd manual task and seemed to do some maintenance on the machines, in-between playing with children. Trevor tried to stay out of sight mostly, but every so often, Alucard would turn and stare at him before going back to the task at hand.
Trevor eventually gave up on magically figuring out how to broach the topic with Alucard and retreated to his favourite place. The pub. The village had built a small pub shortly after Trevor and Sypha had decided to stay, though Trevor repeatedly insisted that the timing was completely coincidental.
Trevor was sipping beer when Alucard came in and kicked his chair.
“What is going on?”
“I don’t know what you mean?” Trevor took a small sip of beer, just for something to do with his hands.
“You’ve been following me around most of the day and it’s getting annoying.” Alucard sat next to him. “You said you had something to say to me, so bloody well say it.”
“Well… um… fuck.” Trevor trailed off.
“If something is wrong, then I need to know. If Sypha is ill then I can help or if there’s… I don’t know some kind of trouble. But I can’t do anything unless I know what it is.”
“You think something’s wrong?” Trevor leaned back.
“Of course, something’s wrong.” Alucard all but yelled. Trevor sighed loudly.
“Nothing is wrong, I just, I’m not good at having these kinds of conversations.”
“If Sypha wasn’t already pregnant, then I’d think you were trying to tell me she was.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“Well, you said it wasn’t bad news. So, it’s that or you’re trying to confess your undying love for me.” Trevor felt the heat rush to his face. “Oh god.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Trevor felt his blush intensify.
“You’ve got a wife!”
“I know I’ve got a wife, it’s not that. Jesus Christ, man.” Trevor took a deep breath and consoled himself that nothing could be more embarrassing than that. With that thought firmly in his mind, he just said it.
“Sypha wants to name the kid after your parents.” Alucard went completely still, in the way that only a vampire can. “And I want you to be the kid’s godparent, well, you and Greta.”
Alucard reached out and took Trevor’s beer. Trevor was too wide eyed to stop him. Instead, he watched, devastated, as the entire stein was knocked back.
“Wha… how?”
“I don’t need to breathe as much as you.” Alucard looked into the stein as if hoping it would magically refill. “I need more of this.”
“Uh…” Trevor gestured to the stein still in Alucard’s hand and then at the space Infront of him.
“Yes, yes, I’ll get you one too.” Alucard pulled a disgusted face. “God, this is awful stuff.”
In the time it took Alucard to get more beer, Trevor got his heartbeat to slow a bit and perked up when he was Alucard coming back with six pints, three in each hand.
“You are doing all the rounds from now on.” Trevor pulled three of the steins in front of himself and took a long swig out of one.
“I’m never drinking this swill ever again.” Alucard looked disgusted, but still knocked back most of a pint in a single long draw. “Right, one thing at a time.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Godparents? You understand what godparents are for, yes?” Trevor shrugged. “They are supposed to teach religious values.”
“Yeah, well, ignore that part. Just help the kid be a good person and if something should ever happen to Sypha and me…”
“Don’t say that.”
“Nothing will happen, but you know… if it did then I’d feel a lot happier, and Sypha too, we’d feel a lot happier, if we knew the kids were with you and Greta.”
“I am the worst person to look after a child.”
“Bullshit!” Trevor put his stein down a little too hard. “You’re great with kids. I’ve seen you playing with them, letting them give you cute names and teaching them stuff.”
“That’s different. Those are other people’s children.”
“Shut up.” Trevor finished his first stein. “Stop pretending you’re not pleased.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t pleased. I am very pleased. But I’m also terrified.” Trevor laughed.
“That’s exactly how I felt when Sypha told me she was pregnant.” He pulled another stein over. As far as he was concerned, the weirder, far more awkward conversation awaited. “Look at it this way. When the kids born, are you going to want to be involved?” Alucard nodded. “Babysit and stuff like that.”
“I suppose.”
“Then that’s all I’m asking.”
“That’s not all you're asking and you know it. You want Greta and I to look after the poor child if, or more likely, when you die.”
“Long babysitting job.”
“You’re such an ass, Belmont.”
“Will you do it?”
“I’ll talk with Greta. But yes. I think we probably will. Thank you for thinking of us. I’d say I’m honoured, but right now I’m just overwhelmed.”
“Good. All done then.”
“I don’t think so.” Alucard tipped back the rest of his first stein and moved onto the second. “What the hell do you mean Sypha wants to name the kid after my parents?”
“Well not name, name.” Trevor squirmed in his seat. “But… well, if the kids are a boy, we’re going to name him Fredric, or maybe Simon. Mary or Ann, if it’s a girl.”
“Ok, not terrible choices.”
“Wow, thanks.” Trevor punched Alucard’s shoulder. “But if it’s a girl, then we’d like her middle name to be Lisa.”
“Oh.” Alucard’s voice caught. “And if… If it’s a boy.”
“Vlad would make a nice middle name.”
Alucard said nothing. Instead, he reached out and practically poured the last two steins down his throat, one after the other.
“I see…” he stopped to burp loudly. “I see why you struggled to talk to me about this.”
“Fucking awkward, isn’t it?”
“No, yes, I’m not sure.”
“You’re drunk.”
“I’m working on it, yes.”
“What do you think?”
“I think the child is in for a rough life.” Alucard managed a wobbly smile. His eyes looked wet. “While I’m very touched that you would think to do something like this, you have to be realistic. A child named after my father, even if it was only a middle name, they may struggle.”
“Kid doesn’t have to tell anyone, but we would know,” Trevor said. “It was Sypha’s idea.”
“What do you think?”
“I think…” Trevor took a long breath. “I think that when everything went fucked up, the world lost out on a lot more than it realised. I think that if the church hadn’t… well, if none of it had happened, then… the world is a lot poorer for losing them both.”
“Thank you.”
“And this place got me thinking. When you called the stupid town Belmont. Well, it was nice, that little of recognition and I’d like to do that for you too.” Trevor raised his stein, poured a little of beer into Alucard’s empty stein and raised his stein in a toast. “To the Belmont’s and Tepes. No one should forget them.”
“Chin, chin.”