Chapter Text
Something about the village made the hair on the back of Trevor’s hair stand on edge. He had been here before, eleven years prior. He was only fourteen, having been homeless due to the Belmont massacre for two years already, and had taken refuge in the town.
The memory was too much to bear. He pushed it out of his mind as he slipped his hand next to Sypha’s, taking it. She and Adrian were discussing dinner plans for the night. The decision to stop in the town for a few days was a good idea. The weather was getting stormy, and the three of them hated getting rained on, especially when the wagon’s wheels got stuck in the mud. The covered wagon had holes in the tarp that they needed to fix, but their last needle broke. They had to buy a new one to sew it up. It was a nice excuse to let the horses, and more importantly them, rest for a while.
As Trevor looked on at the selection of dried meats, he felt a weight on his hip lift, and heard the pattering of footsteps quickly speed off. He looked up to see a young boy holding his satchel of coins.
“Hey! Get back here!” Trevor yelled, running after the kid. If the thief was anyone older, he would’ve risked it to whip the purse out of the boy’s hand, or at least tackle him. However, the kid looked to be around eight years old, and dangerously underweight. He didn’t want to hurt the poor boy.
The kid rounded a corner and crashed into a stack of boxes, falling into the mud. Trevor skidded to a halt and knelt down next to him, grabbing his money.
“You little shit,” he said. “Did you get hurt?”
The boy opened his shimmering aqua-blue eyes and looked up at Trevor. Something about them seemed familiar to him. The kid sat up and groaned, running a hand through his now-muddy dark brown hair. It was an untamed mane of tangles, reaching down to his shoulder blades. “My ribs hurt,” he moaned.
“Can you stand?” Trevor asked, standing up to offer his hand to the child.
The boy took it and stumbled to his feet. “Oh, I’m all dirty... Ma’s gonna kill me,” he said.
“Go wash up in the river. That’s what I’d do at your age,” Trevor laughed. “Go on, then.” He shooed the boy away.
The boy didn’t budge, instead keeping his eye fixed on the bag of money. “Ma’s going to be angry if I don’t get dinner.”
“What, are you looking for a handout?” Trevor sighed as Sypha and Adrian rounded the corner. “You’re going to lose the money in the river if you wash with them in your pocket. Go bathe and then I’ll give you something.”
The child nodded and ran off.
“Who’s that?” Sypha asked.
“Some pickpocket,” Trevor shrugged. “He looks desperate. I… I can’t let a kid go hungry like that.” He rubbed his chin, letting out a loud exhale.
“Don’t let us go hungry either,” Adrian said. “I want to get cooking soon.”
“You two go get the ingredients. I’ll meet you back at the inn,” Trevor said. His partners nodded and walked off, leaving the man to wait.
The kid returned ten minutes later, drenched in water. He wore only his trousers, carrying his soaked top in his hands. His wild hair was matted to his back and he squeezed the water out from his top before putting it back on. Trevor noticed the child bore no shoes. “Alright, I bathed!” He held out his hand.
“A bit forward, are you?” Trevor smirked. He got up from sitting on a crate. “I’ll buy the food. How’s that?”
The boy frowned. “You don’t know what Ma likes,” he said.
“Then you can tell me. How’s that?” Trevor asked. “Either that or no food.”
“Fine,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Come on, Mister.” The boy lead Trevor back to the market and started picking out some food.
“Leo! You leech! Show some coin first!” The portly vendor yelled.
“I have money, Mister Grigore! Jeez,” Leo grumbled. He picked up a potato. “Ma might want soup.”
“You know what goes good with those?” Trevor asked. He grabbed an apple and a couple carrots. “Brew some stock with some bones and add dandelions. Comes out perfect.”
Leo looked at the food curiously, then back at Trevor. “You sure?”
“Try it. Tell your ma that it’s Trevor’s special soup,” he smirked, and paid for the food. “Now go run along.”
“Thank you, Mister Trevor,” Leo smiled. He wrapped up the food in his tunic and ran off.
Trevor smirked and made his way to the direction of the inn he and his partners were staying at, thinking about the boy. He was all too familiar with the sort of poverty Leo was facing, and much more. After the massacre of his family, he was thrust into a cold, unforgiving world. He had to beg for scraps, steal from oblivious townsfolk, and perform deeds that haunted him to the day. It was a wonder he managed to survive and grow up.
The room that the three were renting in the inn was rather large, with a bed stuffed with down feathers and covered in wool blankets. A cooking pot was strung over a fire that Adrian was poking at as Sypha was at work scrubbing away at their clothes. It had been forever since the three had cleaned up like this.
The castle was in good hands. Sypha had found a spell in the hold that would shield the area from unwanted view and prevent any wanderers from stumbling into its bounds. The intimidation of it having been the castle of Vlad Dracula Tepes would have deterred most folks, but Sypha wanted to be sure that nobody would enter and realize it was empty.
“Who was that child you were with?” Sypha asked as she scrubbed at her outer robes in a washbasin.
“Some kid looking for food. Leo, I heard someone call him,” Trevor shrugged. “Bought him some food to make a stew with.”
“I didn’t know you had a heart,” Adrian joked as he tasted his stew. “You’re not exactly known to be generous.”
“I’m plenty generous,” Trevor said, shucking off his clothing and throwing them to Sypha. “Just not with you.”
“Go take your bath,” Adrian chuckled. Trevor smiled and went to the other room, where a hot bath had already been drawn. A couple bottles of oils lined the shelf around the stone tub. Trevor sunk inside the water, feeling his muscles relax.
He remembered the last time he had come to this village. A whole decade ago, when he was fourteen years old, he stumbled into the town, starving and dirty, begging for scraps. He remembered a woman outside the bar. She was a bit older than him, probably in her twenties, and motioned for him with a coin purse. She brought him over to an empty alleyway as she explained the deal with him. She would pay him for his… services.
The memory was too painful to relive. Trevor sunk deeper into the water, trying to let the heat permeate his bones. This was a vacation of sorts he was on. Monster-hunting with his lovers. There was nothing else he’d rather do. This was a time to relax.
His mind lingered on the boy. Poor kid seemed to be expected to provide for himself and his mother, whether it be by stealing, begging, or some sort of trickery. He hoped the kid at least had a roof over his head. To be homeless at that age… Trevor couldn’t imagine the struggle. He sighed, popping a few joints as he shut his eyes. Don’t fuss, just relax.
A cold foot on his legs, a whimper and a snore in his ear. Trevor couldn’t sleep.
The man was always in the middle whenever he slept with his lovers. Sypha and Alucard always complained that they wanted to use his chest as a pillow, so he let them. That came with the cost of having to deal with their annoyances.
His eyes fluttered open, greeted by the pale yellows and blues of the dawn sky. Trevor slipped out of bed and watched his partners instinctually pull each other into a hug. Adrian was the little spoon, as always. He smirked and tugged on his clothes, then left the inn.
The kid from the other day was sitting by the entrance, and jumped up as he saw Trevor. “Good morning, Mister Trevor!” Leo pipped.
“You want breakfast, don’t you?” Trevor chuckled.
“Yes sir,” the kid blushed.
“Well, Leo, I don’t have-”
“Leon. Well, Leonardo, but Ma calls me Leon.”
“Ah.” Trevor wondered if he misheard the shopkeeper from the other day. His mind went to the grand painting of his ancestor, Leon Belmont, that he and his partners recently moved from the hold into the castle. It hung in the library, next to a loving painting of Lisa Tepes, holding her favorite white lilies. The boys joked to Sypha that they were sorry they didn’t have any paintings of any famous Belnades. “Well, Leon, I don’t have any money on me right now, and besides, it just got light out. Shops shouldn’t be open yet.”
“There’s apple trees in the forest,” Leon said. “They’re my favorite food.”
“Then go get some. Make a pie with your mama,” Trevor suggested. “I’m going for a walk.”
“Then walk with me to the forest,” Leon suggested. “Please? You’re my friend.” The kid’s bright blue eyes were pleading as he stared up at Trevor.
“Sure, fine,” the man said. It would be nice to have company. Hopefully none of the townsfolk would take any objection to a grown stranger hanging around an eight year old. “How was your dinner last night?”
“Oh, so good! Ma was surprised! She said she took me for an idiot, but it was a clever recipe!” Leon beamed as he skipped ahead of Trevor. He showed him to the dirt path leading outside of the village. “I don’t really like carrots usually, but these were great!”
“Did your father like them?” Trevor asked, wanting to get a read on the kid’s living situation. “Your brothers and sisters?”
“Don’t have any. Just me and Ma,” Leon said. “Do you have any? Are brothers and sisters fun?”
“I… had a few,” Trevor said. “Where’s your father?” They stepped into the trees, and Trevor watched as Leon jumped on top of gnarled roots and mossy rocks with ease, kicking up dirt and grass with his bare feet. The boy had so much energy so early in the morning.
“Ma said he was a deadbeat,” Leon said. “An’ everyone from his family was.” He approached a towering apple tree and climbed up a few branches, grabbing the scarlet fruits. “Catch!” He tossed an apple to Trevor.
The man held out his cloak to use as a makeshift bag. “Let’s bring back a lot, huh? My partners will want some for breakfast.”
“Partners? Who are they?” Leon asked, throwing another apple down. “What kinda things do you do together?”
Trevor smiled as he caught the fruit, setting it down on his cloak, now spread on the ground. “They’re my lovers.”
“You have more than one wife?” Leon gasped. “Can you even do that?!”
“Oh no, I’m not married yet,” Trevor said. “So, no wives. I have both a girlfriend and a boyfriend.”
Leon gasped again, looking down at Trevor with awestruck eyes. “You’re dating another boy?! How?!”
Trevor shrugged, smiling. “Some people like that.”
“Ma told me that I’m not allowed to like other boys. She says that only the devil’s spawn does that,” Leon said, tossing down an apple. “But I dunno. The devil doesn’t seem like the kinda guy to care about love.”
“You can love who you want, so long as you’re not hurting anyone,” Trevor explained. He caught a few more apples. “This should be good, right?”
“Yeah!” Leon jumped out of the tree and brushed off his trousers. “C’mon.”
Trevor picked up his cloak and wrapped up the apples, following Leon out of the forest. “You said everyone from your father’s family is a deadbeat. Where does he hail from?”
“Ma said he was a Belmont.”
The word pierced through Trevor’s heart. “A Belmont?”
“Mhm! Have you heard of ‘em? Black magician monster hunters who work for the devil,” Leon said. “And she said I’m gonna be like him…” The boy’s bright smile fell as he walked into town.
“Did… did she say which Belmont?” Trevor asked. He could’ve sworn his whole family had been massacred. Everyone was home when the church came to burn down their ancestral home. He could see his cousins Emil or Theodore having slipped away in the night beforehand to go and bed a woman, but this town was so far away. Perhaps Leon’s mother was a traveler. However, Leon looked to be eight years old. Trevor’s cousins died four years before the kid would’ve been born.
“She doesn’t like to talk about him,” Leon shrugged. He approached a run-down shack of a house, where a pale, portly woman with golden hair was sweeping leaves away from the door. The kid skipped up to her, and as soon as Trevor locked eyes with the woman, he was thrown back into a memory he tried to repress for ages.
...She had pushed him down and played with his pants, and soon he found himself staring up at the sky as she rode him in the dirty alleyway. He was on the verge of tears as she groped him all over and slid a thumb into his mouth, playing with his tongue. The stimulation was too much.
He ended up sobbing, curled up beside some barrels, as the woman dusted off her dress and tossed the sack of coins at him...
Bile filled his throat, and Trevor couldn’t stop himself from vomiting on the side of the road. That woman, that very same woman who stole his innocence and left him with only two coins and a bag full of rocks…!
The woman saw the crest on his chest and recognized him as well. “You! You’re the prissy Belmont who got me pregnant! You bastard!”
The words turned to static in Trevor’s ears as the woman berated him. Leon backed away as the woman hit Trevor over the head with a broom.
A few other townsfolk heard the cries of the woman denouncing the dirty Belmont, and joined in on the jeering. Trevor didn’t process the words or the pain. He gasped for air as his stomach heaved, but no vomit would come up. He was choking and sobbing, replaying the event over and over in his mind.
He felt hands on him, pulling him away. His brain wouldn’t decipher the image he was looking at as he was escorted away from the displeased crowd. He collapsed against a tree, pulling his knees to his chest as he stared blankly out at the forest’s edge. He barely processed the three people around him. One in a black coat, the second in a blue cloak, and the third in rags.
Sypha knelt down in front of the young boy. “What were you doing with Trevor? Don’t worry, we’re friends. We won’t hurt you.”
“My ma saw him, a-and she just started yelling! I dunno!” Leon shrugged. “She… kept yelling awful things.” The boy looked over at the traumatized man, who utterly refused to comprehend the world around him. “She said he’s a Belmont, like my papa.”
Sypha and Adrian looked at each other, then back at the boy. “What’s your name?”
“Leonardo, but Ma calls be Leon,” the kid said.
“It’s nice to meet you, Leon. I’m Sypha, and this is Adrian. We’re Trevor’s friends,” Sypha smiled.
“Are you two his boyfriend and girlfriend?” Leon asked.
“How’d you know?” Sypha smiled.
“He told me about you two when we were picking apples,” the kid said.
“How… how old are you? Trevor told us he was here a decade ago,” Sypha muttered.
“I’m nine, ma’am. I was born in springtime. Almost ten,” Leon said. He looked over at Trevor. “Is… is he my papa?”
“We believe so,” Adrian said. “You two certainly look alike, and if your mother said that your father is a Belmont, he’s the only one it could’ve been.”
Trevor was in a haze for the rest of the day. He stayed in bed at the inn while Sypha and Adrian brought Leon back home. The two were a bit wary of leaving Trevor at the inn, especially due to the active bar downstairs, but he barely even acknowledged them when they told him they were leaving. He simply stared out at the ceiling.
“You leeching brat! I sent you out to get breakfast!” The woman yelled, slapping Leon upside the head. Sypha and Adrian both winced at the sight, and Sypha decided to step in.
“It’s our fault, Ms-”
“Marcela.”
“Ms Marcela, we forgot to grab the apples for you,” Sypha lied. In reality, they had been trampled and Trevor’s cloak was stained in the escape from the jeering townsfolk. “We can get you some breakfast. Adrian is a lovely cook.”
“Only in comparison to you and Trevor. Always burning things,” Adrian laughed quietly.
Marcela looked between the two of them. “And who the hell are the two of you?” From behind her, Leon shook his head while making furious eye contact with Adrian.
“Sypha is to be wed to Trevor, and I am their traveling partner,” Adrian explained. “I am Adrian Lupu.” He didn’t know how much knowledge of Dracula and his heretic wife reached Marcela’s ears and if the Tepes family name would set her off. It was best to play it safe with Lisa’s maiden name.
“So that brat leaves me and fucks off to bed a flea-bitten Speaker, eh?” Marcela spat. “And leaves me with this brat.”
“Ma’am, if I may, how long did you know Trevor for?” Sypha asked.
“Long enough for him to leave me with Leon.” As Marcela spoke, her son shrunk behind her, sliding his back along the house’s wall before sitting down.
Sypha sighed and wiped her forehead. “Look, is there anything we can do to help? We’re sorry that Trevor did that. Neither of us even knew that Trevor had a son to begin with.”
“He eats me out of house and home, this kid,” Marcela said. “Can barely bring any food to the table as it is. I tried sending him off to become an apprentice to someone, but the damn kid’s not talented in the slightest.”
Adrian stared at the lanky, malnourished child who was tucking his head to his knees. “He looks like he’d be handy with a sword,” the dhampir suggested. “What if I taught him? Take him in as an apprentice.”
The woman looked down at her son, who was staring up at the two strangers with a glint of excitement in his eyes. “That miserable pile of bones? Kid can barely pick up a knife! I wanted him to stay in town with me so he can contribute to the household! Bring home some dinner every night.”
“Ma-!” Leon spoke up.
“Shut it,” the woman snapped at her son.
“Do you not have work, ma’am?” Sypha asked. “Leon is just a child.”
Marcela glared at the Speaker. “He needs to earn his worth. He’s a bastard who’s caused me nothing but trouble!”
“I can do that by-!”
“I told you to shut it, didn’t I?!” Marcela barked.
Leon shrunk away as tears pricked at his eyes. Sypha and Adrian looked between the mother and child in stunned silence, before Sypha spoke up. “I think it would be good for him. His family is known for being excellent warriors. It’s in his blood.”
“He needs to work, and his father is a drink away from being absolutely broke!” Marcela yelled. “Following in his footsteps would only bring us further into the dirt!”
“Mercenaries make-!” Leon started.
“We’re done!” Marcela threw up her hands. “No more talk of this! And you, you’re getting me that breakfast!” She grabbed Leon by the ear and dragged him to his feet, away from the other two.
Sypha and Adrian found Trevor in the inn’s bar, staring blankly over an empty flagon of cheap beer. He clasped his hands around the cup, absolutely motionless. If not for his breathing disturbing a flyaway bit of his hair, the two would have assumed he turned to stone.
Sypha sat next to him at the bar, rubbing his shoulder. “Hey, how are you feeling?”
“I have a son,” Trevor muttered. His voice was barely a whisper as his dull blue eyes stared out in front of him. “Leon.”
Adrian gave a nervous chuckle as he took the other seat next to Trevor. “It’s like fate,” he said. “Just like-”
“My baby boy,” Trevor continued. He rolled his head to the side, where Sypha’s hand was on his shoulder. The woman caressed his cheek as he began to whimper. It was at first just a throat cry, then a waterfall overcame him. He melted into Sypha’s touch, leaning against the woman. His muscles all relaxed as he pressed all of his body weight into her.
“Ooof! Treffy, could you-?” Sypha grunted, trying to pick him back up. “Let’s go to our room, okay?”
Adrian slung one of Trevor’s arms around him. Using his vampiric strength, he helped escort Trevor up the stairs. “Come on, let’s go lay down,” he said, dumping Trevor onto the bed.
Trevor’s crying had subsided, and he wiped his face with the back of his hand. “His mother is a monster,” he said. “We can’t let him live with her.”
“It made my stomach turn,” Sypha said. “The way she treated him… Poor boy wasn’t allowed to say a thing.”
“Trevor, are you suggesting we adopt him?” Adrian asked. He sat on the bed and played with Trevor’s hair.
“It wouldn’t be adoption since Leon is Trevor’s kid. Not for him, at least. But yes for us,” Sypha said. She saw Adrian frown slightly, and she muttered “That was incredibly pedantic of me, sorry.”
The dhampir chuckled softly. “I wouldn’t mind taking him in. If not as a son then perhaps as an apprentice. He seemed excited when I offered to train him as a swordsman.”
“We have all agreed upon having a child in the future,” Sypha continued. “In the end, the baby wouldn’t be related to one of us, Adrie. Perhaps it makes sense that our first child isn’t related to either of us.”
“Are we really doing this?” Trevor muttered. “Is this a dream?”
Adrian knelt down and kissed his lover on the lips. “It’s real, Belmont. Whatever you want to do, we’ll support you.”
“It all depends on what Leon wants,” Sypha reminded them. “We can’t just uproot the poor boy against his will.”
“It truly seems like he’s unhappy with Marcela,” Adrian continued. “We can talk to him about it.”
“I couldn’t live with myself if I left that kid to stay with that monster,” Trevor said. “She’s a demon in human clothes.”
“Trevor…” Sypha said carefully. “How did you meet her, anyway?”