Encore

Family

The good thing about Trevor maybe having food poisoning is Sypha's distracted being smug she thought to include railings on her stairs so he can't fall over the edge. He says Dracula's castle becomes Alucard's castle and she nods because there's nothing so weird about visiting in that case.

"And that's why he doesn't come back here," she says.

"Right."

And. He. He just can't keep his fucking mouth shut. "Do you - do Speakers, do your funerals - it's, your grandfather, he wouldn't leave back then with somebody missing, even if they were probably dead, and I promised to get the body if they'd leave, but they were really just agreeing so I'd stick around because they believe in you, so would they, would Speakers, I know you have funerals but do you need to?"

Sypha shakes her head. "Our traditions are important to us, but, not so much we'd risk the living for the dead."

So at least he hadn't made things worse by being selfish. Bad enough he's in Hell, nobody else should have to be because he wasn't thinking.

"You're not upset, are you?" Sypha asks. "That he lied?"

Trevor shakes his head quickly. "No, I'm glad -" And he is, isn't he? Is he allowed that? It's not like it'd have been better if he hadn't. He shakes his head harder. "And it wasn't exactly - I volunteered. I wanted them to leave, they didn't want to leave, I offered to get you for them if they promised they'd go." He pauses. "Okay, they lied about that part, but that was right. People died but the ones who didn't, it's all because of you. I was planning to leave. I would've."

"But you didn't."

"But I meant to."

"But you didn't. That's what counts."

"Apparently not!" Trevor snaps, throwing up his hands. "Apparently doing shit isn't good enough, because here I am doing it all over again! Apparently what I said did count!"

"What did you say that was so terrible?"

"That I was leaving!"

Sypha looks distinctly unimpressed.

"That I was leaving and they were all going to die and if you didn't want to die first you needed to leave because I was leaving."

"But we didn't leave."

"You shouldn't have had to stay in harm's way for me to get my head out of my ass!"

"We had to stay to find the sleeper," Sypha says.

"Yeah, I know. There was an argument about it. You won, because I never win arguments."

She shakes her head. "I'm glad we could help the people of Gresit, but you understand, we would have otherwise left as soon as the talk against us started, or sooner."

"I know," he repeats. "It wasn't your job, it was my job. Maybe you haven't heard, but I'm a Belmont. It's what we do."

Sypha considers this for a bit. "Isn't it mine too? Or, will be? Because I will be."

"Uh," he says.

"A Belmont?"

Not technically. Or. Only technically. Depending on which way around you looked at it. On how you weighed the untried spirit against the forged letter of the law. "That's not really how it works."

"It isn't," Sypha says with the cadence of You're a liar. "Hm. Boys only, is it?"

"Absolutely," Trevor tries. He will welcome whatever Sypha has to say about that.