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Thrown for a loop

Summary:

Here’s the thing - he never meant for any of this to happen. It’s like he took one step, and then another, right off the edge of a cliff that he bounced his way down, somehow landing on his damn feet with a flourish instead of in the crumpled, broken, balls-kicked-in heap that by all rights he should have been. And yeah, he has old man Popescu to blame for the start of it, but there’s only so much that can be laid at his feet. All he’d done was give a terrified, newly orphaned kid somewhere to sleep and a job to do.

Not his fault that it somehow ended up with him becoming a fucking international household name, what the actual fuck.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter Text

Here’s the thing - he never meant for any of this to happen. It’s like he took one step, and then another, right off the edge of a cliff that he bounced his way down, somehow landing on his damn feet with a flourish instead of in the crumpled, broken, balls-kicked-in heap that by all rights he should have been. And yeah, he has old man Popescu to blame for the start of it, but there’s only so much that can be laid at his feet. All he’d done was give a terrified, newly orphaned kid somewhere to sleep and a job to do.

Not his fault that it somehow ended up with him becoming a fucking international household name, what the actual fuck.

 


It all started with a thirteen-year-old boy, shivering but resolute, sneaking into the first unlocked building he could find. It started with him finding a small, defensible corner just big enough for him to crawl into, but not big enough for any adults to follow. It started with the first real sleep he’d had in weeks , even with the screams of his family haunting his dreams.

He’d been running for so long, surviving off of stolen half-hour naps, that his body had forced him to pay the piper. No more, it had said. Now we rest.

That’s why he didn’t get out before they found him. Before the old man who ran this place had already seen him. Called out to him.

“Hey kid - it’s dangerous under there,” he’d warned.

Here’s the thing - Trevor couldn’t pretend that this was recent. Not when his shoes were falling apart on his feet. Not when his coat was more grime than fabric. Not when his stomach was tight and his jeans loose with rationing. Even ten minutes and a sink couldn’t conceal what was going on.

He’d been surprised, then, when the man - old man Popescu, with more heart than sense - had taken one look at him and instead of calling the authorities, the police or social services, had sighed and offered him a job. The pay wasn’t much but it was enough. Enough to pay for a small room, to keep himself from starving again, to have a tiny steady trickle of extra to put away. And, Trevor had reasoned to himself, there was no way anyone would look for him here, driving the ancient zamboni around on chipped ice, polishing it to a beautiful mirror sheen.

He’d never been ice skating before. There had been no point, not even when the lake had frozen over thick enough to hold a full herd of deer on their brief passing-through of their grounds. It was a frivolity , and more likely to get the younger Belmonts too injured to be useful .

Lots of things had been frivolities.

Still, after being trained in awareness of his body, strength and balance and athleticism since he could walk, it wasn’t much of a surprise to him that he’d taken to it like a duck to water. Him and old man Popescu together, with only half the lights on, just enough to cast a flickering, orange glow over chipped ice.

The old man had been made for the ice in the same way that Trevor had been made for weapons. The only difference was that his career-ending bad luck hadn’t come with a body count.

He’s been learning for six months, building on already-existing skills, already taking on a couple of beginner classes of his own, when he sees the advertisement. When he sees the prize money .

So he looks into it.

Mulls the thought over while he guides little Teo through a turn.

He’d have to do a bit more to qualify, but-

A thousand euros.

And yes, it might be a bit of a stupid idea. Those bastards in the church won’t have given up so easily. They wouldn’t just accept leaving the job unfinished. But still.

A grand.

He could buy so much instant ramen.

--------------------

IceToMeetYou @tomeetyouice
y’all who is this kid and how tf did he not get a concussion

[video description: a grainy and blurred phone recording of a small dark-haired boy throwing himself about on a rink in a clearly home-made costume]

--------------------

He wins it.

He fucking wins it .

The second he’s back, he grabs a chunk of his cash and shoves it into the old man’s bag. No refusals accepted. No ‘but you earnt this yourself!’ or other protests allowed.

Trevor knows he’d never have survived long enough to fucking win this without his help, and he says as much, profanity included, to old man Popescu’s face.

It’s gratifying how quickly he backs down.

But here’s the thing.

The phone will not stop fucking ringing off the hook with idiots wanting to poach him . No matter how firmly, how rudely, how aggressively he refuses, they just! Won’t! Stop! 

The old man has been trying to get him to accept an offer - any offer - that will get him a real teacher , someone better, with more facilities. Someone who won’t need to teach him in brief snatches between group lessons.

When the first of them hunts him down and stalks him through the streets to recruit him, Trevor finally, finally snaps.

The next time the phone rings and someone opens with “I am a figure skating coach interested in taking on Trevor Belmont as a pupil”, the response is more ‘fuck it’ than ‘fuck off’.

Which is how he ends up in fucking Norway because apparently he forgot the importance of running a basic google on someone before signing on as their new protegé.

Fuck.

--------------------

Lily @eyeseyesbaby
Incoming! Photo compilation of ALL THE LITTLE KIDS doing their kiss and cry!! 

Demon @dragonsimagined
whats up with that 4th one he looks like hes literally been dragged there w a knife to his throat did he fall loads?

Lily @eyeseyesbaby
That’s Trevor Belmont - Romania’s newest Junior prospect, he looked like that the whole time

Gerald PLS @sendcatpics
they’re literal teenagers they don’t count as little kids

Demon @dragonsimagined
dont tell me, ur 14 and insulted
go do ur homework kiddo and dont do drugs

Gerald PLS @sendcatpics
Fuck off

Lily @eyeseyesbaby
Can we please all be civil in my thread? Thank you

       Read more

--------------------

It isn’t until his first big performance - the first time he’s on big, proper cameras, not just smartphones and youtube - that it really hits him just how fucking stupid this is .

He’s fucking Sebastián Trevor Belmont and barely even trying to hide himself, what the fuck?

They killed his family, his whole fucking family. His mother, his father, his sisters - not even the fucking dog escaped - and those shady fuckers damn well aren’t too good to try again. One person’s a hell of a lot easier to get rid of than a family.

There’s people all around him. Talking. Laughing. A finger-food buffet, glasses glinting in the too-bright lights. A knot tightens itself at his sternum, beneath the cheap tie he’d picked up last week because his coach told him he had to wear one.

It’s funny how quickly he regresses to that scared boy shivering in an empty ice rink.

All he can think of is getting away .

He backs up to a table, moves slowly, deliberately.

Toe, ball, heel, shift weight. Toe, ball heel, shift weight. Toe, ball, he-

A table’s edge presses into his back. His knuckles touch glass.

The door isn’t far.

Bottle gripped in one hand, he sidles out. Anyone who sees him dismisses it - he’s a teenager, and not even the first of the Junior competitors to try it on tonight. By mutual agreement, it’s his coach’s prerogative either to chastise or tacitly allow.

He manages to get a decent way through the bottle before he’s found. Sat on the floor, back to a wall - any wall - and sinking into the comforting haze offered by his purloined wine.

“I know it’s boring, but you need to charm the sponsors, Trevor,” he says before he can properly see what’s going on here. “You won - it won’t be hard-”

It… is not a fun conversation. Luckily, the next day, Johann had taken pity on him and hadn’t left him to suffer the hangover alone. He doesn’t pry, knows better to tug on the tangle of trauma that makes up Trevor’s psyche, but from the next week forwards, Trevor starts to see a lot of brochures and leaflets and pamphlets for psychologists turning up in his equipment bag, underneath his shoes after practice, and one time even on his bed in his locked studio apartment, what the fuck Coach.

Still, once he’s midway through his season at the age of fourteen, it gets… weirdly easier.

His family were - not exactly celebrities, but you can’t be that rich and total unknowns. Their deaths had been sudden and shocking, and the investigation had proved arson. Every so often, the morons in the tabloids run out of other material and rummage around in their collective rectum to drag out the Missing Belmont Heir! story. And he’s getting pretty well-known in his own right now, at least in the figure skating world. He’s known for audacity, for the almost aggressive way he attacks the ice, like he has something to prove. Or something to take back. He’s been televised - internationally. And still, nobody’s tied Trevor Belmont, up-and-coming junior skater, to Sebastián Belmont, tragic missing orphan. Thank fuck for only ever having used his middle name, right?

His coach still checks on him during the banquets.

No matter how his breathing eases as he realises that he’s, if not safe , then at least not in immediate danger, the kind of trauma he carries around with him doesn’t go away overnight.

Trevor, carrying the baggage of his upbringing as well as the precise circumstances of the loss of his family, does not take well to the kid gloves approach. They spend his last year in the Juniors’ division at a slightly uncomfortable standoff, but he’s not about to get a new coach this year . Not when he needs to set himself a decent foundation upon which he can stand for his launch into Seniors.

It’s kind of a relief when they part ways. He gets introduced to a coach based in Canada with a few skaters under his wing already, and yeah, he’s been a bit of a dick to Johann since he’d signed on, but still - he owes him. Anyway, nobody signs up to teach fucking teenagers full-time if they’re not willing to deal with teenage bullshit.

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sparkle goth @catsnboots
will never not love how always ready @tbelmontofficial is to tell journalists to fuck off when they don’t take no

 may we all take that energy with us into our mondays

--------------------

Alain gets him. He gets Trevor’s drive, he understands just how far to push him. Sure, there’s a fair bit of trial and error in it, but they just - click. Anyone looking from the outside wouldn’t believe they’d work - they seem like polar opposites. But at the end of the day, they both have that same core of pure steel.

Even if it comes out in astonishingly different ways.

 Their first competitive season together just clicks as well. Trevor never drops out of the top five in any competition he enters. Most of the time, he’s on the podium. He claws his way to the top of the world with sweat and blood and other people’s tears, facing it with the same kind of grit and determination his father had shown when he left on the hunt. He steps onto the rink, polished to a mirror’s shine, like a man walking into battle, and bares his teeth in a wolf’s smile when he’s being made to play nicely with his competition.

Everything is going really well . He’s holding his own against grown men, steadily becoming a household name - at least in winter sports circles. He even gets his first major sponsorship.

Honestly, he doesn’t know how he feels about it. About his face being used to sell things. Honestly, he doesn’t even really know what it is he agreed to? Just that Alain said it was a good deal, a good opportunity, and honestly - if he can’t trust his coach, who can he trust?

(Nobody, he can’t trust anyone, not even Alain, not with the big things, the things that really matter. )

But still. That’s his face . If it weren’t for the good ol’ ancestral Belmont paranoia, he’d probably be way more stressed about it. Not that he’s exactly the picture of sanguinity already. But… well. None of his family had ever been one for cameras. They’d done a pretty good job at keeping the Papps away, too. There are only a few surviving pictures of any of them, and the only one of Trevor himself is blurred, from a distance, and at a terrible angle.

But the thing about playing with the grown-ups is that everyone else takes that as a declaration of open season.

The vultures start circling when he’s fifteen. They start sniffing into things. Wanting to find out everything about him. Trevor knows he’s attractive, in a sort of disconnected way. It doesn’t particularly matter to him, but it does make things a damn sight easier in his life, from time to time.  The flip side of this, though, is that the teen magazines somehow latch onto him - a staff member who’s into the sport, maybe? Fuck if he knows - and decide to turn him into the latest up-and-coming teen heartthrob.

He starts having dedicated fans.  

If he had to choose between being locked in a room full of hungry journalists, or a room full of hungry vampires, it wouldn’t even be a question - the vampires would be way easier to deal with, especially since he got his skates consecrated. (Yes, that had been awkward to navigate.) And Alain definitely wouldn’t dust off the ‘violence isn’t the answer, Trevor, you can’t skate in jail’ speech. Again. 

(Seriously, tell someone to fuck off one time on a bad day, and all of a sudden you’re the ‘skating world’s black sheep’ and a ‘bad boy with a troubled past’ and a ‘public menace’. Fuck’s sake.)

Worse, though, is the fact that the tabloids finally seem to have connected the dots between Trevor Belmont, Romanian figure skater, and the fabulously wealthy and notoriously private Belmont family, whose ancestral home was situated very firmly in Romania.

Alain doesn’t ask questions. He always tries to deflect anyone looking into Trevor’s past as well.

Another reason he trusts his coach’s judgement.

But there’s only so many people that can be politely turned away before someone shoves a recorder in the face of seventeen-year-old Trevor Belmont and bluntly asks him if he’s any relation to The Belmonts , the family whose house was burnt down four years ago with everyone inside.

Okay, so maybe his reputation of being ‘difficult’ has some foundation in truth.

--------------------

TaNukeIe @pizzazpo5t
Words cannot describe how much Fear I hold of FSer core strength 1/2

 But this video CAN 2/2
[video description: poorly focused footage of Trevor Belmont in training skating straight into the boards at speed, tipping over them without changing position or losing a single iota of body tension. The camera shakes and laughter can be heard. A hand pops up brandishing a single middle finger]

--------------------

When he hits nineteen, it’s the year of his first Olympics.

There’s big, and then there’s the fucking Olympic Games what the fuck how the fuck did he ever manage to qualify for this.

His short programme goes well, really well, and honestly it kind of blows his mind a little bit.

He didn’t just make it through to the free skate - his score places him among the top few. With this score, it wouldn’t be too out there to say that he could medal.

In the fucking Olympics.

Fuck.

He’s standing up there, on the world fucking stage, the biggest sporting event going, with his own damn surname. The fucking cursed millstone around his neck, the thing that got everyone else burnt alive , and would’ve had him too, if he hadn’t stomped off after an argument.

The free skate goes less well. He comes off the ice more bruised than he’s been outside of practice in years . Alain greets him with an arm around his shoulder and a squeeze. No judgement, no disappointment.

He doesn’t place, doesn’t even make it into the top ten, but he still made it here , he tells himself. It doesn’t help much, when he watches the recording, replays each misstep, each failure over and over again. What happens next is both kind of inevitable and, Trevor thinks later, much overdue.

He goes off the rails, even for Trevor Belmont, in the Olympic Village, and honestly, he was as surprised as everyone else when he woke up - naked - in the same bed as his choreographer.

No regrets.

(Some regrets. Many regrets.)

Alain tells him on the way home that he’s proud of him for performing so well, reassures him that everyone has off days, and manages not  to look too disapproving when the two of them have a friends-with-benefits thing going on for a good few months after.

In Trevor’s defence, he proves to be a damn good lay.

Also, more importantly, fucking out his frustrations with someone who is definitely a less-than-optimal life choice is the only thing that’s keeping him sane in the months following the Olympics. Not because of the rankings, not because he’s been catapulted to a whole new level of fame - or infamy. Not because of the fucking journalists. Not even (just) because of the irritating new bastard Alain’s taken on as a student for some fucking reason.

The conspiracy nuts have got hold of him.

It started small. A couple of posts in a forum online, the odd tweet - nothing he couldn’t ignore. But then. But fucking then.

The Article.

The. Fucking. Article.

The source is some stupid conspiracy blog. He can’t tell if the writer genuinely believes this shit or if it’s satire. What he does know is that fucking piece of shit goes fucking viral overnight. And yes. It fucking deserves the caps.

His life is ruined.

Farewell cruel world.

(“No, Trevor, you can’t drown yourself in the showers. First of all it’s impractical, and second of all do you know what that’d do to the insurance premiums here? Yeah, now get a move on or I’ll send JJ in to get you.”)

(“ Fuck you.”)

He does the only thing he can: pretends that shit doesn’t exist. Like everything else that makes him want to scream, he locks it away deep in his psyche, nice and tight and dropkicks the key far, far away.

(Alain seems to have inherited Johann’s irritating habit of trying to get him into therapy. Trevor is equally determined not to go. )

Still. If he gets Tweeted one more time with a quote from that article, if he gets one more joking comment asking if he has the ‘Belmont Family Cleavage’, he will not be held fucking responsible for his actions.

And then someone asks him about it in a televised interview.

Murder flashes in his eyes. His media smile, always strained to some degree, reaches a wholly new level of rigidity. Eventually, he manages to force a stiff laugh.

This is my life , it says. I hate it.

When he walks out of the interview, he heads straight into the nearest bar.

If he ever finds whoever wrote that life-ruining piece of shit , he’ll fucking murder them.

Trevor hopes against hope that this shit will just blow over. It has to, right?

--------------------

Trevor Belmont Official✔ @tbelmontofficial:
If one more person asks me about my cleavage
I’m gonna be skating from fucking jail

And yes you can fucking quote me on that 2/2

grffikdesIgn @ismypa55ionfruit
TBel really makes his publicist work for their money huh

--------------------

His next Olympics are approaching. It has been nearly four years since that bastard bit of writing dropped. And it still refuses to fucking die. And yet he somehow has even more fucking problems. His coach pulls him aside at the end of training one day, and this has all the hallmarks of a conversation Trevor does not want to have .

“I’ve found a choreographer for your Olympic routine,” is the opener, and oddly enough a statement that should be positive overall does nothing but fill Trevor with dread.

“I would really like to be able to work with him again, so please, Trevor. Do not fuck this up. Don’t argue with him. Don’t fight him. Don’t sleep with him. Just - please. Please, just be nice . I had to pull in so many favours for this.”

Trevor has never once backed away from a conversation he can escalate into an argument. “In my defence, I didn’t exactly mean to sleep with the first two.”

“...That is not the persuasive argument you think it is. Did you send an email to the person I recommended last week?”

He gives that statement the precise level of consideration it deserves, namely none at all . “Anyway, if I’m not allowed to fuck him, how am I meant to be nice?”

Alain pinches the bridge of his nose.

Trevor grins, nice and wide.

“Look. It’s Alucard . The Alucard. Be nice to him or I’m calling everywhere that sells alcohol in the city and having them blacklist you for a month.”

Trevor opens his mouth with a witty retort.

“Say anything else and it’s three.”

He closes his mouth, but still seems defiant.

And you’ll be sharing rooms with JJ.”

Trevor scowls sullenly. He’s lost and he knows it.

--------------------

Not 4 Granted @icegremlin
Transcript of Trevor’s short interview yesterday!

Reporter: “…and what about the accusations about your personality?”
Trevor: “I’m not grumpy. It’s just my face.”
[Trevor leaves. His rinkmate, JJ, steps in]
JJ: “No, he’s grumpy. I once breathed too loudly in the changing room and he bit a spoon in half.”

Mango Twist @fruityfine91
Let’s all have a moment of silence for this man’s dentist RIP

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The problem with Alucard is that he’s the best choreographer in Europe and he fucking knows it. Worse is that Trevor can’t even argue about it, no matter how fucking aggravating this poncy blond’s particular brand of self-confidence is. He’s proven time and time again just how much merit there is to his title.

Trevor’s still going to bitch about it though.

“It’s unsuitable,” Alucard says, daintily plucking one airpod out of his ear.

Alucard does a lot of things daintily, with just the absolute bare minimum force required to complete the action. Trevor still hasn’t decided if it’s attractive or infuriating.

“An Olympic programme to this music would crash and burn on the altar of the ISU judging system.”

Trevor stares longingly at his glass of coke, not for the first time wishing it was something stronger, but he’s been banned from alcohol during the week now. Seriously, turn up at the rink hungover one time , and nobody lets you forget it. Give a man a break, god . “Look, let me worry about the scores. You just worry about doing the job I hired you for - choreographing a programme to my music.”

Alucard quirks one perfectly manicured eyebrow. His expression very clearly reads ‘Your illusion that you think you can tell me what to do amuses me.’

Arsehole. 

Ugh. Fucking Alucard with his pretention and his talent and his god-damned attachment to sucking the judging panel’s dicks. There’s something about him that drives Trevor to the brink of insanity and he can tell it’s only a matter of time before this whole - thing - boils over. Either he’ll deck him or he’ll kiss him, and he doesn’t know what it says about him that Trevor can’t decide which one he wants more.

Maybe he’ll just call it quits and do both.

--------------------

Don’t Dead @openinside
Bc I love you all, have a compilation of all the
latest TBel reaction images you need

[image description: 16 year old Trevor Belmont in his first major product endorsement, photoshopped to be pointing at a sign saying “nobody asked”]

[image description: Trevor Belmont sitting stoically in the kiss and cry while his coach literally leaps from his chair with joy]

[image description: nine screengrabs of Trevor Belmont mid-spin, cropped to perfectly capture every nuance of his skating faces. Captioned “Tag yourself”]

[image description: Trevor’s coach, talking to Trevor who is wearing his trademark scowl. Captioned “Be nice” / “Fuck you”]

[image description: Trevor being patched up and scolded by his coach. Captioned: “CBT: Cage Battle Therapy”]

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Yes, the fact that two of the biggest personalities in the world of skating are working together is big news.  Especially given the fact that they’re both, by sheer dumb luck, from Romania. That still doesn’t fucking excuse the media furore that springs up like a fucking undead monster.

In a fit of pique, Trevor does a little bit of no-longer-teen rebellion and arranges an interview without telling Alain. Belnades - also, oddly, Romanian - is an independent journalist with a decent following, and definitely some of the most enjoyable articles on the sport. Most importantly, though, there is not a single article with his name in it that mentions the conspiracy theory that shall not be named . Which cannot be said for some other sports writers he could mention.

And fuck him sideways, but she’s cute. Big, round eyes, a fluffy halo of shocking red curls, and a stare as piercing as Coach’s whistle when Trevor turns up to the rink hungover. There’s something almost bloodthirsty about her too, but not in the usual way that journalists have. He matches her grins with his own, slouches in his chair a little, and feels kind of… in cahoots with her.

She asks all the expected questions, and a few he hadn’t thought of. Alucard answers her with dainty precision. Trevor with flippancy. She never goes near asking about his alleged ancestral cleavage, even though he deliberately picked out his sluttiest shirt with the deepest (yet still, apparently, tasteful) v-neck that he has.

And the unexpected happens - he likes her.

“Y’know, we’ve booked a working dinner together after this,” he says. “Wouldn’t be hard to add a seat to the table.”

He’d chosen the place half for the food, and half to get a reaction out of Alucard. He’s got sponsorships coming out of his ears, for some reason, and a good accountant - he can afford it.

And with the three of them together, it’s weird. The desire to deck the blond prick doesn’t entirely go away, but it’s definitely… lower. And he likes her laugh. Likes the way he can startle it out of her with his own brand of rough charm. Likes how he and Alucard play off each other. He- 

Well, in a sense it’s inevitable, isn’t it?

The next morning, tangled up in two lovely sets of limbs and someone’s long hair tickling his nose, Trevor wakes up early and fumbles around for his phone. It’s early enough that he’s got plenty of time to roll over and get some more sleep in, but first he’s going to be fucking responsible. Because he’s a grown fucking man and he can do that.

Hey coach does the 'don't sleep with him' rule count if it's a threesome ✔✔ 5.43

 

Trevor what the fuck have you done ✔✔ 5.43

Trevor answer me ✔✔ 5.44

Trevor you little shit I can see that you're reading these ✔✔ 5.44

 

He does not answer him. 

He’s gonna get yelled at later.

Fucking worth it.

Trevor puts his phone - now on silent - back down and rolls over to press his face (and cold nose) into the crook of Sypha’s neck with a smile.

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Belmont and Tepes: Dream team or dramatic duo?

Spend any time in figure skating circles and it isn’t long until one of these names comes up. Both of these men are known for being the bes… Read more 

Posted 1 hour ago
Likes: 964
Comments: 132

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Even Alain can’t complain when he sees how good they are together. Somehow, the three of them just work. They balance each other out in an ever-shifting web of alliance and betrayal and, most importantly, cahoots. Trevor even cuts (a bit) down on his drinking. He argues with Alucard less. He stops hiding JJ’s phone. And whenever he starts getting that thundercloud on his face that warns of an argument on the horizon, one of the two can step in and redirect him, get him to realise that he’s being a bit of a dick.

(Often he’s being a lot of a dick, but baby steps.)

And with less energy being wasted in fruitless antagonism (No, Alain does not want to know about the many and varied ways his student uses his antagonism fruitfully) he all of a sudden has more energy for the ice. He attacks the phrases Alucard sketches out for him, carves each pattern into the ice with the same deadly precision with which he’d once learnt to wield a consecrated whip.

Trevor skates like a man going to war. There is something poetically brutal about the way he uses his body. Like he has something to prove, that it’s just the latest volley in an argument against the world. There is anger, knotted deep into his core, and this is the beautiful outlet. He’s lashing out at the world around him, screaming with a deeply suppressed fury and lingering hurt, and it shows itself in every single move he makes - even the angle of his blades in a spin betrays him to Alucard’s skilled eye. His programmes for this man are a study in soul-wrenching tragedy, and Trevor makes them sing.

Trevor Belmont is a man with a secret. Alucard is certain he could devine it, if he gave himself permission.

Instead, he presses his lips to a divot in his gloriously muscled back crossed in old, long-since healed scars, scars older than this stupid, reckless, gorgeous man’s career, and carefully turns his mind away from the matter.

Besides, that degree of betrayal would not be conducive to a good season and Alucard has a professional reputation to uphold.

Let him leave the war outside. Shrug away the burden for a while.

He doesn’t think Trevor has smiled in this way - loose, relaxed, open and honest - in a long time. And who would he be to tear that away from him?

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COMPILATION: OLYMPIC FIGURE SKATER TREVOR BELMONT FORGETTING HOW TO WALK FOR 4 MINUTES AND 32 SECONDS STRAIGHT

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To say that Alucard is displeased when their first true argument as a relationship occurs is an understatement. And it is not over something so trivial as where to get dinner.

“It’s a satire blog! No-one was meant to take it seriously! It was a dumb joke! I finished it off by saying ‘Belmont Ancestral Cleavage’, for crying out loud!”

Ah.

This is… less than ideal.

“Do you know how fucking unbearable that article has made my life since you hit publish?!” Trevor growls back, and at least nothing has been thrown yet.

He turns around and walks out the door, leaving them to it. Either one will mangle the other, or they’ll express their frustrations in a more mutual form of mangling. Either way, it looks to be messy and far more aggressive than he is in the mood for, and he’ll come back later.

Much later.

Unsurprisingly, when he returns they’re flopped down naked in bed. Evidence suggests that this location is recent, given that the majority of their clothing is not in the bedroom.

It’s like living with adolescents.

Idiots.

Still. They’re his idiots.

He joins them. Both have swollen lips and more bite marks over their bodies than is decent. Hilariously, Trevor is the one who bruises the most easily, and neither he nor Sypha ever let up on teasing him about it. Alucard kisses what promises to be a new one, the day’s stubble tickling his narrow lips, and runs his long fingers up Sypha’s soft hip.

“Dare I ask what had you so incensed, Belmont?” he murmurs.

“Would it fucking kill you to use my actual name,” Trevor gripes. “When you’ve fucked as many times - and ways - as we have, pretty damn sure you get first name rights.”

Trevor can’t see him, but Alucard is talented in the use of expressive silences. This one conveys a raised eyebrow, a silent demand of are you done being childish yet.

Sypha is the one who answers, which surprises him. He’d thought she had fallen asleep, in that delightfully languid, lazy, contented way she does when she’s fully sated.

“He found out my secret pen-name,” she confesses with a little yawn. Her eyes do not open. She nuzzles into Trevor’s very generous chest.

The raised eyebrow silence shifts tone to something more like I know that is not all of it. Please, continue.

“...I wrote the cleavage article,” she confesses with a sleepy shrug, her words half-muffled by absurdly toned muscle. “Was meant to be a joke, didn’t expect it to hit like that.”

She rolls more firmly into Trevor’s chest with a little snuffle and this time, falls asleep.

It takes a while, but they get back to their easy dynamic. Trevor doesn’t forgive her, because really… there isn’t anything that needs forgiving.

--------------------

Trevor Bellend @tbelmontparody
  Attention everyone I’m not too proud  to admit that
  I’ve been slacking on the costume front 1/3

  I promise you that the labs are coming up  with the
  greatest and most audacious design yet 2/3

  Still haven’t heard back from the ISU about
  if they’ll let me go topless but my fingers are crossed 3/3

--------------------

Sypha was right.

Alucard - or at least, the part of his brain he’d tried to keep under control - had been right as well.

Trevor Belmont is the missing Belmont heir.

And he’s been acting shifty all week in the run-up to the big Olympic skate. He’s done even better than he had last time around - he’s older, more experienced, and he has a damn good choreographer on his side this time. A choreographer who can read him, who understands him. So long as he doesn’t fuck it up again, a medal’s a fucking guarantee.

And he’s still not saying a word about whatever it is that’s got him on edge. But Alucard knows that it’s something big because he’s got Sypha in on it too. Before they’d left their flat - because they twined their lives together like U-Haul lesbians - the two of them had spent a few nights working on something in secret. And neither were breathing a word to him.

It was frustrating to know that neither of his lovers trusted him with whatever this was.

Still, Alucard is a supportive partner, and someone has to be the adult, so none of that frustration shows on his face as he watches the last competitor before his lover leave the ice. It had certainly been a very… competent performance.

Trevor has always been known for his extravagant costume choices. They usually manage to skirt the line of acceptability and avoid tumbling into the pit of tastelessness, but from the way Trevor, on his walk up to the entrance, is shifting restlessly under his jacket, there is something he’s done to his costume that has not passed the Alucard Aesthetic Approval system. His brow creases daintily with displeasure, but at this point there’s nothing he can do.

*

The ice is solid under his skate. His jacket, emblazoned with the Romanian flag - his flag - is heavy around his shoulders. He takes a deep breath and feels the chill settled into his lungs. There are shadows under his eyes, he knows, but he hasn’t been a sponsor for leading cosmetics companies for the past five years for nothing - Trevor knows how to blend in his concealer. He glances up to Alucard, then over to his coach, in the last few seconds before his name is announced.

Alain gives him a few words of wisdom.

Trevor doesn’t hear them.

Fuck. He really can’t go back from this, can he?

He nods and plasters a grin on his face and nods again before shrugging out of his jacket and handing it over. His free skate costume is exactly the same as the one Alucard and Alain had okayed before, but with one major difference. One that he and Sypha and a rhinestone gun had pulled an all-nighter on.

Spread out over the dark mesh on his back, large and proud, blazes the Belmont family crest.

He’s done running.

The main announcer stumbles over his name as he skates a quick lap of the rink before taking his place. And then it’s just him and the music and the ice.

Fuck Alucard for being right about this music.

It’s fucking perfect.

The bastard.

He doesn’t even think about the movements; they’ve all been drilled into muscle memory so strongly that he could do this in his sleep. But there’s something - different about this. Something… He doesn’t know.

There’s a new certainty in the way he places his feet, in the way he launches himself into weightlessness, the way he hurls himself through the air and forces physics to bend to his will.

He has always carried his family with him on the ice, ever since that day when the small, frightened boy was caught by an old man with more heart than sense.

He feels lighter for the acknowledgement.

The end of his free skate catches him almost by surprise. His whole body is aching and burning from being pushed to its furthest limit. And yet… there is a new serenity. He makes his way to the kiss and cry, not entirely on this plane of existence, and waits stoically with his coach for the scores.

It’s practically a meme at this point, even for those who don’t follow the sport.

He’s so zoned out that it doesn’t really sink in until the podium. Until he’s stood there. At the top. The world at his feet. Gold at his breast.

The reporters descend like piranhas scenting blood. One shared question on their lips.

Long, cool fingers slip into one hand and squeeze. A fluffy head rests against his bicep and a playful hand supportively gropes his rear.

Trevor clears his throat.

“First of all, it’s none of your fucking business,” he says, because he’s Trevor fucking Belmont and like Alucard, he has a professional reputation to maintain. “But yeah, Trevor’s my middle name. My first is Sebastián and I never fucking used that anyway. My family died in a fire a decade ago, and no shit I don’t like to think about it, because that shit is fucking traumatic. Yeah, I’m willing to go through whatever DNA tests or whatever else is needed, but you know what? I just won a gold medal at the fucking Olympics.” he laughs, a little hysterically. “See ya, I’m off to get shitfaced, Romania forever.”

Sypha bounces on her tiptoes, a big grin on her face.

“Don’t,” Trevor warns her, but he can’t fool her. His eyes already have those fond crinkles at the corners. “ Don’t.”

The grin widens.

Alucard is already inclining his aristocratic head to pinch the bridge of his nose with his free hand. A gesture which both of his lovers tend to bring out.

“They were right!” she grins, and dodges out of the way of an affectionate grab with a squeal. “It’s all in the Belmont Ancestral Cleavage!”

 

 


Other things that happen in this AU but did not make it into this fic:

  1. Trevor still fights monsters and vampires. No he does not go in search of them. The bastards just gravitate towards him and it’s really fucking annoying
  2. He instantly clocks Alucard  as something in their first meeting and has a tomcat-defending-territory gut response. Alucard, however is a fucking professional who is incapable of being out-diva’d
    • Trevor’s confidence and competence put together are incredibly attractive to him. He may not be morosexual like Sypha but he can make do in Trevor’s more himbo moments
  3. Sypha runs a fake conspiracy blog for her own amusement. She wrote The Article after seeing some discussion on a skating forum and thought it was funny
    • After publishing The Article and it going viral she started looking in more and immediately hated Past Sypha because now there’s no way she can mention it on her real blog or in any of her paid articles and have it taken seriously
    • Her character arc as a journalist is “just because you can doesn’t mean you should
  4. Between starting their relationship and the Olympic free skate she and Trevor engage in spy vs spy Shenanigans of her trying to trap him into admitting to being a Belmont and Trevor “I am not a” Belmont adamantly refusing to give her the satisfaction 
  5. At some point after the Olympic hangover passes Trevor’s rinkmates hold a party celebrating a) the win and b) Trevor actually being in a healthy relationship. The CBT spraybottle of water is ceremonially passed on to his BF and GF while Trevor is tied to a shitty plastic chair and ready to commit murder
    • The murder is downgraded to a light maiming when cake comes out
  6. The rink where he started keeps getting huge monthly donations to the point where the old man calls Trevor up like “I will pay you €8k a month to Stop”. Trevor either a) pretends deafness b) suddenly can’t speak Romanian c) “Oh no. The line’s terrible. You’re breaking up. So sad.”
  7. There is a disturbingly large group of fans who write RPF sugar daddy au fic of Sebastián Belmont x Trevor Belmont
    • No the reveal Does Not Stop This
    • In fact it gets worse
  8. Trevor does have an addictive personality but he has a support group around him who step in and keep him from self-destructing too badly
    • Mostly by squirting him in the face when he says things like “Coach only cares ‘cause I’m a paycheque”
  9. One of Trevor’s ancestors wrote music, way back, and for his next season he shuffles his feet and asks Alucard if he thinks he can do anything with it
    • (He does)