Limbo
- Published: 2/26/2023
- Number of chapters: 1/1
- Word count: 3,362
- Genres: Tragedy, angst with a happy ending, hurt/comfort, drama
- Warnings: Graphic violence, strong language
- Characters: Alucard, Richter Belmont
- Other Tags: Vampires | Non-traditional relationship | And There Was Only One Coffin
- Summary: Berkeley Mansion is no more.
Wrote this one a little while ago cause we talked about melodrama in play production class and I was like oh fuck yeah I love that shit love when emotions are heightened for the purposes of providing entertainment or catharsis to an audience. Took me like a week to decide if I wanted to post it publicly and then another week after that to settle on a title that wasn't "Two Dudes have a Mental Breakdown in a Cave"
Thunder boomed, shaking the cold, damp ground on which they sat. Richter couldn’t help but shiver slightly.
At the distant end of Richter’s field of vision were faint traces of the dim, grey glow of daylight through rainclouds. Normally, Richter would have found such light tempting; Even all these years later, knowing fully well how much it hurt, he still found the sun to have a sort of primal allure he could never quite shake. Today, however, he felt no such temptation- Only fear. Daylight was the realm of humans, and after everything that had happened… He would much rather stay in the safety of the shadows. The land to which he’d been banished long ago, both his fortress and his prison.
He could still smell the ashes of Berkeley Mansion, their beloved home. There had hardly been time to pack before the humans had come. They’d hastily thrown a number of their most important belongings into the old horse cart: Some sentimental objects, magical artifacts and weapons, a coffin. As soon as the last of the family portraits had been carried through the flames and spears, they’d grabbed the cart themselves (Richter had modified it long ago with a wolf-sized harness), and taken off running.
That had been hours ago. He didn’t know how far they’d traveled- Much farther than any human could travel on foot in a reasonable amount of time, for certain, but it didn’t feel far enough. Only the inevitable approach of dawn had forced them to stop. Even then, it had taken Richter considerable effort to get Alucard to stop; They’d found a small cave, and as soon as they’d dragged their things into it, Alucard had collapsed onto the ground, shaking and gasping and muttering about his mother.
Richter had only barely managed to hold himself together enough to make sure their hiding space was adequate.
Eventually, the two of them had fallen silent, huddled together against the cave wall, their singed cloaks wrapped tightly about them in some sort of feeble attempt to keep out the cold. It wasn’t that either of them had truly calmed down; Rather, they were both simply too exhausted to continue being hysterical. How long they’d been there, Richter didn’t know. A stalactite nearby dripped a slow, steady puddle of water onto the ground, drip, drip, drip, like a cruel imitation of a clock. A cruel mockery of them both, so far from their once-warm, once-beautiful home.
He wanted to get out, to go- Where? They couldn’t go home. Home didn’t exist anymore. It was just a pile of rubble, no doubt smoldering like a cloud in the rain.
“...Alucard,” he whispered, the first either of them had spoke in quite some time.
“Mm?”
“Do you… Do you have a watch on you, by any chance?” Richter asked quietly.
“Probably,” Alucard answered.
Alucard gave a tired groan, and began to stir against Richter’s side. Richter stared out at the sunlight, shivering involuntarily yet again. “It must be at least noon by now,” he muttered idly as Alucard searched his clothes for his watch.
“‘Tis…” Alucard popped the lid of his watch and glanced down at it for a moment. “Nine.”
“Nine?!” Richter blurted out in disbelief. “You’re kidding me. You’re sure your watch isn’t slow? It’s been wound, and all that?”
“Yes.”
Richter sighed, and stood up, his cold muscles aching in protest. Immediately Alucard grabbed onto his wrist with a vice grip.
“I’m not leaving,” Richter assured him gently. “I’m just going to the cart.”
Alucard said nothing, yet slowly let go of Richter.
Richter made his way over to the cart, and carefully sifted through the ash-covered contents. He took out one of his father’s paintings; With a gentle touch, he popped it out of its frame, and began slipping his claws underneath the staples at the back of the canvas.
“What are you doing?” Alucard asked, still seated on the ground.
“Disassembling the portraits,” Richter answered. “They will be less at risk of tears or punctures if we roll them up, and we can use the stretcher bars as firewood. It’s too damn cold in here.”
“I see… Then I shall help,” Alucard decided, and stood up.
They worked in silence, carefully pulling out staples one by one, throwing them haphazardly on the ground. They laid the loose canvases gently in a stack: Father’s self-portrait, a family portrait of Richter and Annette with Maria when she was a child, a portrait of Mother and Uncle Maxim.
Richter paused as he came to a particular painting. It was his father’s last complete, full-size work: A family portrait of himself, Alucard, and Maria, the residents of Berkeley Mansion. Maria had been in her late twenties then, though he and Alucard looked no older. He still remembered posing for that portrait in the garden, by the light of the warm lanterns they’d hung all around. As he’d worked, Father had remarked over and over about how lovely they all looked, and what a beautiful home they’d made.
And it had been lovely, hadn’t it? Yes, he and Alucard led cursed lives, doomed forever by the tragedy of their births and Richter’s own mistakes, and yet… And yet still, they’d built a life for themselves. They’d had people who loved them, even if sometimes from afar. And they’d had each other.
They’d had some wonderful times, the three of them, out there in the old mansion in the woods. In winter, they would play in the snow until they couldn’t take the cold anymore, and then they’d curl up by the fireplace and tell stories; In spring, they would dress up in fanciful clothes and hold elaborate, silly tea parties, as though they were the kings and queens of the night, and the wolves and bats their courtiers. In summer, they would lounge around the garden, braiding each other’s hair and eating fresh fruit under the light of the stars. And in autumn, they would go to the apple grove and harvest a wonderful bounty, and the house would smell of apple cake for weeks to come.
But it was all gone now. His parents, his dear Annette, even their beloved Maria had died, leaving Richter and Alucard alone. And now the house they’d worked so hard on was gone… Everything, everything Richter had had been destroyed. Everything! He had nothing left but Alucard and a handful of things in a beat-up old cart. They had nowhere to go, no one to turn to.
They’d lost it all. And could never get it back.
Suddenly Richter was crying again. He felt Alucard’s arms wrap around him, but they held none of their usual warmth; Alucard, too, was shivering in the cold of the late autumn rain. For several minutes they stood there silently, neither of them bothering to speak, for there was no point in discussing it. They’d both suffered the same loss.
“…Let’s get that fire going,” Alucard muttered after some time.
Wiping his eyes, Richter began gathering rocks, helping Alucard to form a fire ring on a relatively dry patch of ground. It took only a touch of magic to ignite the old wooden stretcher bars into a respectable camp fire.
Again the two of them leaned against each other, tired and cold, hands stretched out to the warmth of the fire. Richter removed his cloak, and spread it over both of their legs like a blanket; In return, Alucard wrapped his own cloak around Richter’s shoulders.
“I hate to admit it, but I… I am afraid,” Alucard confessed in a whisper, his gaze downcast.
“So am I,” Richter replied. “What- What are we meant to do now? We have no friends, no family, our house is gone- I-I don’t, I don’t even know where we are, much less where we could go,” he added, the beginnings of a hysterical laugh escaping from his throat.
“Nor do I. And do you know what scares me the most?”
“What?”
“It’s the fact that… There is no escape,” Alucard said, pulling his cloak slightly closer around him. “If we- If we reveal ourselves before humans, they will surely seek to kill us again, but-” He shook his head. “You know the stories about Dracula. The hundred-year cycle. We have, what, perhaps ten years left until he returns, and when he does… He will kill innocent people.”
Richter frowned. “Must the burden fall to you? There are other vampire hunters. Surely you’ve done enough by now.”
“The burden will fall to me whether I want it to or not,” Alucard replied. “Think about it, Richter. Your family has specialized in killing Dracula for hundreds of years, and even they have struggled to do it. Who else could bear it but me?”
Richter felt a tightening in his chest, the familiar feeling of fear sink into his stomach. The fire began to flare as he shook his head rapidly.
“No. You can’t. It’s- It‘s not your responsibility,” he stammered. “Forget about Dracula, and-”
“Forget about him?!”
“Yes! Because you know damn well what this kind of obsession with Dracula leads to. Just because he’s your father doesn’t mean his evils are your responsibility. If you keep being so self-sacrificing it will destroy you!” Richter insisted.
“That’s why I said I am afraid!” Alucard blurted out, almost pleadingly. “You make it sound as if I want this! I don’t!”
He stood up abruptly, and Richter shivered as Alucard’s warmth and his cloak were suddenly gone, leaving Richter’s back exposed to the wind. Heedless of his chill, Alucard began pacing back and forth.
“I have tried everything to escape the curse of my father’s blood. I’ve tried killing myself and it never works. I tried to live a peaceful life, and- And people ran me out of my own home, just for the sin of trying to buy some damn bath towels!” he recounted. “And now our house is gone, and everyone I love is dead except for you, a-and we’re hiding in a damn cave somewhere- And I don’t know what we’re going to do now, how we’re going to manage anything when everyone wants us dead just like they wanted my mother dead, and I- I-”
“Alucard-”
“There’s only one thing I do know for certain, and that’s that in a few years my father will start killing innocent people and I’m the one who’s going to have to deal with it! Because I always am! I always am!”
Alucard’s shout bounced off the walls of the cave like knives, his voice hoarse with despair and traces of ash. Richter watched as Alucard fell to his knees; He again began trembling, his breaths coming in short, rapid gasps as they had earlier. Without a second thought, Richter threw his own cloak back around his shoulders, and crawled over to Alucard hurriedly.
Within moments, Alucard was crying onto Richter’s chest.
“I can’t do this,” he whimpered. “I-I can’t, I can’t I can’t I can’t-”
“Shhhh.” Richter combed his fingers through Alucard’s hair, golden waves stained grey with ash. “Forgive me, old friend. I didn’t mean to upset you. ‘Tis just…” He took a deep breath, swallowing back the lump in his throat. “I couldn’t bear to lose you. You’re my best friend, you’re- You’re all I have left now. I don’t want you to have to put yourself in these situations. I love you.”
Alucard’s only response was another choked, shaking sob.
They stayed like that for some time, until Alucard gradually began to calm. His hysterical gasps slowed to quiet hiccups and whimpers as the fire started to die down.
“…Do you-” Alucard paused, sniffling quietly. “Do you think there will ever be anything else for us?”
Richter sighed. “I don’t know. Perhaps someday, many, many years from now. When the world is very different from what it is today.”
He reached over to the side, careful not to disturb Alucard too much as he grabbed another piece of canvas stretcher bar, and tossed it onto the dwindling fire. The fire crackled and snapped with the addition of new wood.
Richter stared aimlessly into the fire. He recalled his father telling him that fires had once been used for divination, in the days of old. Would his witch ancestors have been able to tell their future from this fire, he wondered? He could see nothing in its smoke and flames but the burning timbers of Berkeley Mansion. No future, and no past to return to either. No present but a cold, damp cave in unknown territory.
He took a deep breath, and tried to force his thoughts away from that path. He’d already despaired enough today.
“If things were different- If we could live our lives as we wanted, what would you like to do?” he asked.
For several moments Alucard was silent. Then, he quietly answered.
“I think… I would like to travel,” he decided. “The world is so much more vast than I ever imagined, and yet I have experienced so little of it. I haven’t even seen most of Romania, let alone other countries and continents. I think it would be interesting to see other parts of the world.”
“That sounds nice. I’d like that, too.”
“What about you? What would you want to do, if we didn’t have to hide?” Alucard wondered.
“I don’t know…” Richter sighed, and shook his head. “The one thing I most want is something that can never happen, no matter how much the world changes.”
Alucard frowned, glancing at Richter in concern. “What’s that?”
“Well, ‘tis just… I never truly got to know my children.” Richter lowered his gaze, biting his lip as he recalled the last he’d seen of them- Hazy, round little faces, many decades ago. “I wasn’t there for them. I wasn’t able to help Annette care for them, nor to watch them grow up… That’s what I want, more than anything. Just the chance to raise my children.”
“I’m sorry,” Alucard muttered. “I wish there were a way to give you that.”
Richter shook his head slowly. “This is the punishment I must bear.”
Alucard said nothing, only continued to frown. He reached across to take Richter’s hand; Richter sighed, and accepted the comforting gesture gratefully. He could still see the puddle of water dripping from the ceiling, its rhythmic sound drowned out by the crackle of the fire and distant thunder.
“I suppose, if I could be selfish… I would like to have a proper home with a family again,” Richter realized. “It doesn’t even have to be literal- Hell, even if we’re just living in a cave like this… I would like to have a place we can call our own, where people we love will smile. That’s what I want.”
Alucard nodded. “I understand. To be honest, living with you and Maria all these years, I… I was happy, for the first time since I was a child,” he confessed, staring into the fire. “Trevor and the others were my first friends, the first to treat me with true kindness, and I will always love them. But you and Maria were my family. And your family, too- Even in the little time I knew them, your parents were better parents to me than my father ever was. And even Annette was a friend to me through letters,” he recalled. “Living together with you and Maria has been… fun. And I never thought I could have such a life.”
“But now Maria is dead, and our home is gone,” Richter said quietly.
“Yes… I’m tired of all this,” Alucard sighed. “We nearly died to the same violence that killed my mother. How many times must we watch these same cycles repeat?”
Richter idly tossed a pebble into the fire. “I don’t know. Probably forever… People like us don’t get happy endings, Alucard. We were doomed from birth.”
“But we’re still alive,” Alucard observed.
“That’s true. We’re still alive. And we have each other, if nothing else.” Richter paused, slightly hesitant to voice his fears. “We- We will stay together, won’t we?”
“Of course. Even if it’s only the two of us- As long as we yet live, I wish to stay together,” Alucard confirmed. “You are my dearest friend, and your companionship means the world to me. We will always be together.”
“Even if we end up just living in a shitty cave in the middle of nowhere?”
“Even if we end up living in a shitty cave in the middle of nowhere.”
“Oh. Well, then…” Richter sighed, resting his head against Alucard. “As long as we have each other, then that’s good enough for me, I suppose.”
Alucard nodded. “I don’t know what we are to do now, and… I don’t know what will happen when the hundred years are up. But for now, even if we are just stuck in this cave… I will cherish our time together.”
Richter faltered at the mention of Dracula’s return, but forced himself to take a deep breath, tightening his grip around Alucard’s shoulder. “When the time comes, we’ll- We’ll figure something out,” he decided. “You’ll be alright, Alucard. I promise. I won’t lose you.”
(It was as much a reassurance for himself as it was for Alucard.)
“Mm… We have some time until then, anyway,” Alucard pointed out. “Perhaps we ought not think about it too much right now.”
“Perhaps. We… Certainly have other things to worry about, after,” Richter added with a frown.
Another strong wind blew through the cave, bringing the chill of the rain with it. Richter shivered, adjusting his cloak once more.
“‘Tis too damn cold in here. You didn’t happen to grab any blankets, did you?” he wondered.
“I don’t think so. Did you?”
Richter shook his head. “I was just concerned with the paintings. I suppose we’ll just have to bear it.”
Alucard gave a hum of thought, but said nothing more. After a moment, he stood up, and made his way over to the cart.
“Hey! I just said I’m cold, and now you’re leaving me?” Richter complained. “What sort of friend are you?”
“Oh, hush. You’ll get your due in a moment.”
Richter watched as Alucard took the coffin down from the cart- Alucard’s own coffin, for they only had space for one, and his was the larger of the two. After placing it down on the ground, Alucard began removing its contents: Several swords and other weapons, an assortment of books, Maria’s old jewelry box. Once the coffin was empty, Alucard gestured to it, staring at Richter expectantly.
Richter frowned. “I’m not sure it’ll be any warmer in there…”
“Just get in,” Alucard insisted.
Richter raised an eyebrow, but nonetheless obeyed. He paused to take his shoes off before entering the coffin, not wanting to dirty its velvet lining. Once inside, he pulled his cloak around his shoulders, still just as cold as before.
Alucard gave a satisfied nod, and- to Richter’s surprise- shifted into his wolf form. He climbed into the coffin, gently nudging Richter to prompt him to lie down; Richter winced as Alucard stepped on him awkwardly, but after a moment he found his place, settling on top of Richter like a heavy blanket.
“Is this alright?” he asked.
Richter nodded against the pillow. “Yes. Much warmer now. Thank you,” he said with a smile, reaching up to stroke the fur on the side of Alucard’s face.
Alucard let out a soft sigh as he nuzzled against Richter’s hand. “Good. In that case-” He paused, giving a wide yawn, carnivorous teeth glinting in the light of the fire. “I think I shall sleep.”
“We probably both ought to do that. Lord knows it’s been a long damn night,” Richter replied.
“Understatement of the century,” Alucard muttered. “But yes, you’re right. We could both use some rest.”
With another small yawn, Alucard closed his eyes, lowering his head onto the pillow next to Richter. Richter let his hand come to rest on Alucard’s neck and followed suit.
“Goodnight, my love,” Alucard said quietly.
Richter sighed. “Goodnight, old friend. I pray things will be better when next we wake.”