AMoS Chapter 5-1

[eiahmon]

Title: A Moment of Stupidity Part 5: 1535 - 1568
Rating: R for language, and mentions of RAPE and M/M SLASH. Don't like, then don't read.
Disclaimer: Castlevania and its characters and situations are the sole property of Konami. I am making no money or profit off of this fanfiction and no copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: AU. What if Joachim Armster had lived through his fight with Leon Belmont? What might have been different? Well hang on, because Joachim is going to tell you all about it. From his kidnapping and forced turning to his rescue from the ruins of Walter's castle, and from Trevor's birth and to Richter's death of old age, he tells all - and blames it all on Leon while he's at it.
Section Summary – Part 5 goes from Trevor's funeral to Liron's death.

1.
Grief

The next several days were the worst of my life.

I had never, not when I had been turned against my will, not when Walter had killed my brother, not even when Matatias had died, feel such pain.

It was Jacob that found me in the morning, and he had to walk me out of the room as my own legs were so wobbly I could barely stand, which left it was up to Isaiah and Bridget to look after their parents. Sypha still lived, but she seemed to be catatonic, and it took a bit of work to get Trevor's body out of her arms so he could be prepared. Bridget and Claudia had to gently eased Sypha out of bed, bathe her, dress her, and then feed her, and through it all, Sypha showed no sign that she was aware of what was happening around her.

Through the bond with me, Kerwin knew immediately what had happened, and he showed up later in the morning with Celia, Matatias, and Silvanus. They found me in the study, sitting numbly at the desk, and Silvanus was quick to enfold me in his arms, whispering words of comfort as I cried into his shoulder.

"It is the worst pain imaginable." he whispered. "It feels as though someone has ripped your heart from your chest, like your very soul is being crushed in a vice. You feel that you'll never smile again, but you will Joachim, you will. You will always love him, and part of you will always ache for him, but in time you'll be able to think of him and smile without any tears. You'll be able to remember him as he was, without thinking of the loss."

I didn't believe a word of it; I only shook my head. Behind me, I could hear Matatias asking what had happened, and I heard Kerwin gently explaining that Trevor had died.

Matatias didn't seem to grasp it. "But.. but... no! I thought Uncle Joachim was going to make him like us!"

"He refused, Matatias." Kerwin replied. "He didn't want it."

"But he shouldda done it anyway!" Matatias began to cry, and I pressed my face harder into Silvanus' shoulder, not wanting to hear my nephew's tears. "He shoudda, Daddy!" I heard Kerwin pick Matatias up and carry him out of the room, and Kerwin gently squeezed my shoulder as he passed by.

"I should have turned him." I sobbed quietly once they had gone. "I never should have let him go."

Silvanus rocked me like I had Trevor so many times. "Shhhh..." he cooed. "You did as he asked. He never would have forgiven you if you had turned him against his will. You did the right thing."

"It hurts, it hurts so much. How.. how did you stand this?"

"I didn't." Silvanus sighed, and I raised my head and looked at him in confusion. He gave me a sad smile. "I was seriously considering taking my own life when Walter wandered onto my territory. If it hadn't been for him..." He sighed, and I laid my head back down for a moment, before Silvanus pushed me away. "Come Joachim, you have things to do. Trevor needs you one last time." I nodded in understanding and wiped my tears away. I then squared my shoulders and walked out of the study to face what lay ahead.

******

Trevor was laid out in the family room, and various members of the clan came and went throughout the day. Once Matatias had calmed down, Kerwin brought him back, and he spent a long moment standing aside Trevor's open coffin, staring at him, before he started to cry again and asked to be taken home.

When the sun set, I offered to watch him through the night, as was custom, and soon I was alone in the darkened family room, with only the light of a few candles and Trevor's still form for company. It was futile to hope; I knew that he was gone, but I still hoped to see him move, to take a breath, sit up in the coffin and ask me what the hell was going on. I wished for it so hard, I actually hallucinated it at one point, or maybe it was my own power of illusion reaction to my emotions. To this day, I am still not sure. It was real enough that I rose from my chair and stepped up to the coffin to take a closer look.

He hadn't moved. His chest was still, and no heartbeat fell upon my ears. My nose twitched as the sickly sour sweet smell of decomposition touched it, and I found myself backing away, shaking my head.

"No," I whispered, "No, no, no, no, this.. this, no!" I backed into my chair, knocking it over, and then I got my legs tangled up in it and fell to the floor. I knelt of the wooden slats, hands on my knees, head bowed and sobbed as my heart constricted in pain.

"Never," I gasped between sobs, "Never.. again." I grasped my arms in my hands and rocked back and forth. I shook my head. "I can't..!" I wanted to leave the room, flee from my godson's decomposing body and never look back, but I couldn't make myself rise from the floor.

The dawn couldn't come soon enough.

******

We buried Trevor the next day, and Liron decreed that he be laid to rest in the clearing with Leon and Kalina, under the tree that he and Sypha spent so much time under. It was under that tree, I found out, where Trevor had told Sypha the truth of his ancestry, and where he had proposed to her.

The weather that day was perfect. The temperature was not too warm, not too cool, and there wasn't a cloud in the soft blue sky. A breeze ruffled our clothes and hair and rustled the leaves in the tree over us as the coffin was lowered into the ground. I stood close to Sypha, who was still catatonic, a consequence, Silvanus informed me, of Trevor's death and the resulting weakening of their marriage bond. If she was younger and had something to focus on, she would have a good chance of coming out of it, but since she had neither youth nor a focus, she would likely remain that way until she too passed on.

I wasn't in a much better state than Sypha. I heard the priest speaking, but I didn't understand any of his words. I was vaguely aware of Bridget crying on her mother's other side, as well as weeping coming from several others. I was quiet for the moment, but as the service ended and people began drifting away, I refused to leave the grave site. Jacob and Liron tried to pull me away, but I refused to budge, and they finally had to give up and leave me standing there alone.

I stood there in silence, staring mutely at the Trevor's marker, trying not to think of how decomposition would really be getting started, as the sun moved across the sky and sank below the trees behind me. I paid no mind to the thirst tickling my throat, or the sounds of the night life moving around me. I just stared until sometime after midnight, when a chest hitch caught me by surprise, and I sank to my knees, crying.

"I... I... Trevor..." I sobbed as the tears poured down my face. "I love you, and I don't want to leave you here!" I threw myself down onto the grave. "Come back! Oh God, please come back to me! Don't leave me behind! Don't go where I can't follow!"

Hands grabbed me by the arms and began to pull me up off of the grave. "Let go of me!" I wailed as I tried to get away. "I can't leave him here alone!"

"He's not here, Joachim." I dimly recognized Kerwin's voice as he dragged me to my feet.

"He is! He's right there! Let go!"

I was lifted off my feet and nestled in someone's arms, and I saw through my tears that it was Silvanus, and it looked as though he was crying too. I ignored that though, as I tried to get away him and back to Trevor as he carried me away. "Trevor! He needs me!"

"He's gone, Joachim." Silvanus said gently. "Let go of him."

"Trevor!" I wailed as I was carried out of the clearing and into the trees. I tried to get out of Silvanus' arms and run back to my boy, but his grip was far stronger than I could ever muster, making escape impossible. "Let me go!" I tried to pry Silvanus' arms away, tried to force him to let go of me, but it was like trying to move a mountain. I struggled to escape until Silvanus pressed his lips to my forehead and willed me to sleep.

******

My throbbing head was the first thing I became aware of when I woke up. I groaned and massaged my temples as I sat up. For the fist time in two days, my heart wasn't aching, but I looked around then and realized I was in the back bedroom in Silvanus' house, the same bedroom where Trevor had been sent to sleep after our escape from the council 75 years ago.

With that thought, it felt as though someone had socked me in the chest, and I curled up on myself and tried to swallow the tears, but it was a pointless endeavor. I paid scarce attention to the door opening or to Silvanus sitting down beside me. I didn't resist when he gathered me into his arms and rocked me like a child.

"It will be all right, little one." he murmured gently as he ran his hand down my hair. "I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but it will get better."

"I just want my baby back." I whimpered into his shirt.

"I know." Silvanus rarely used the bond between us, but this day he did. I had never given thought until then what Silvanus saw me as. I knew that he saw Kerwin as a grandson, but I never knew what he thought of me personally. At that moment, I felt it, his affection, his love, his worry, his care and concern, and his own heartache that a child he considered a grandson, me, was hurting so much. I snuggled close to him and soaked up the feelings through the bond as he held me in his arms and let me cry myself out.

When I had quieted, he lifted me up so I could easily reach his neck, and my thirst seized hold of me. I drank from him, but even then, my tears continued. It would me a while before they would stop.

******

I barely moved for the next few days. Silvanus kept his wards raised up to prevent me from running back to the Belmont lands and back to Trevor, but he needn't have worried. I had no interest in doing anything. I only fed myself because Silvanus made sure that I fed from him every night. I barely spoke to him, or to Kerwin when he visited, and all I wanted to do was crawl into some dark corner and hide. I didn't think my heartbreak was ever going to heal.

Four days after Trevor's funeral, I felt Silvanus lower the wards, and detected Liron's presence in the house. I wondered what he was doing there, and then decided that I really didn't care. I kept my back to the bedroom door, even when it creaked open and Liron stepped in. I expected him to say something, to ask me when I was coming home, or worse, demand that I get over myself because I was needed, but he did none of those things. Instead he only walked up behind me and dropped the Vampire Killer into my hands.

"Someone wants to talk to you." he said quietly, and before I could contemplate what that meant, I was blinded by a flash of violet light.

When I blinked the spots out of my eyes, I was no longer in Silvanus house. I was instead in my small library in my old house as it was when Trevor was a child living there. It was dark outside, and the candles and lamps were all lit, casting the room in a warm yellow glow that gleamed off the polished wooden floor and soft leather spines of the books. I paid scant attention to that however, because I wasn't alone in the room.

"Trevor," I whispered, and I felt my heart wrench as he approached me, looking as he did years ago, before he had gone off to track down the Devil Forgemaster. He walked up to me, and before I could even think about how this was possible, I opened my arms and pulled him close to me. "This cannot be real. How can this be? You're here, as if you had not died just the other day."

"I am here." he said quietly, and his voice, that loved sound, sent another wave of emotion rolling through me. I crushed him to me and cried as he returned the embrace. "You needed to see me, one last time."

"But this... You're just a memory, Trevor, a memory stored in the whip, like Leon before you. You're not really here."

"I am truly here. I cannot move on until Sypha joins me. Once she arrives, we will go on together. Until then, I wait here for her."

I didn't know if he was speaking the truth or if he was just trying to comfort me. I didn't care either way, I just treasured the feel of having my godson in my arms again, even if it was bound to be fleeting. "I never want to let go of you again."

He went to step back, and I reluctantly relaxed my grip so he could do so. He looked at me. "You have to, Uncle Joachim. I lived a long, full life. I was tired and was ready to move on. I never would have been happy with eternal life."

I looked back at him, trying to memorize every feature of his face as I absently noted that the scars that he received while facing Dracula were missing. "I love you, child. I loved you from the moment your mother placed you in my arms all those years ago."

"I know you do. I knew that letting go would be hard for you, but it was necessary. If I had been turned, I would have grown to hate it, and by extension I would have hated you for giving it to me." He stepped back into my arms and laid his head against my shoulder. "I never wanted to hate you, Uncle Joachim." He looked up at me. "Now please, come home. Everyone is worried about you."

I gently ran my fingers through his hair. "I don't know if I can, Trevor. I never want to feel this pain again."

"Even if it means staying away from the family you promised to protect?"

"I will still look after them, but I will do so from a distance, as I did after Leon died. I don't think I could bear it if I lost someone like you a second time."

Trevor looked away. "I understand." he said quietly, and I felt so bad for disappointing him that I almost took my words back. "Don't say it." he said. "Don't say it if you don't mean it." He snuggled against me, like he had when he was small. "I want to come back, Uncle Joachim."

"Come back?"

He looked up at me again, this time with an eager look that made his blue eyes shine. "It's real, Uncle Joachim. I can came back later if I want."

Reincarnation? Is that what he was talking about? "What about Sypha?"

Trevor shook his head. "The bond is not permanent. Once she joins me here, the bond between us will part ways, allowing us to go on however we wish. If we meet again in the next life, we will be drawn to each other, but there won't be a bond unless we create a new one. Magic never intended for us to be tied together for eternity." He gave me a serious look. "If I do come back, Uncle Joachim, I want you to be there. Please don't run away."

"All that I can promise, little one, is that I will try." I replied as I ran my hand down his face. "If you come back, you won't know me, and I won't know that it's you. You'll likely have loving parents then, and I will be no more than an family friend or surrogate uncle. How will I know, Trevor?"

That seemed to throw him for a moment, and then he gave me an earnest look. "I'll let you know, somehow."

My laugh came out halfway between that and a sob as I crushed him to me again. "Trevor, my boy, my baby. I love you more than words can say. I need time, little one. I can't jump back into the family life so soon. Please, just give me the time I need, and I promise that I will be there waiting for you."

Trevor smiled at me, and I wanted to freeze time at that moment and hold him there forever. "I have to go now." he said gently. "You're holding the Vampire Killer to talk to me, but even though Sara knows you mean no harm, it's dangerous for you to handle it for too long."

"I don't want you to leave."

"But I must. I can't stay here forever, and it's not safe for you. The whip could injure you in such a way that you will never heal, and I don't want that to happen."

"I don't care. I never want to leave you."

"I'll be back. I promise I'll be back. Wait for me, please?"

I closed my eyes and sighed, not wanting to lose the feel of him in my arms. "Always." I felt him smile against my shoulder, and then the room around us faded and vanished into nothing.

******

"Trevor!" His name was on my lips when I jerked myself awake. I recognized immediately that I was back in Silvanus' house, laid out on the bed in the back bedroom. The sun was down, and the only light in the room came from the moonlight shining through the window. I slowly sat up, and it was then that I spotted wisps of white smoke drifting up. I looked down to see that I was still holding the Vampire Killer firmly in my right hand, and that the smoke was seeping out from under my palm.

"Trevor?" I said quietly as I held the whip up to eye level, but there was no response from it. I sighed in resignation, got out of bed, and wandered out of the bedroom, towards where I sensed Silvanus and Liron to be. I found them in the kitchen, sharing a pot of tea and a platter of cookies. I handed the whip to Liron without a word and didn't protest when Silvanus pulled me over to look at my hand. I glanced at the damage as he turned it palm up to look at it, and I saw that skin was burned off and the muscle was badly injured.

"Oh Joachim," he sighed, and he bit into his own hand and let his blood drip into the burn. I winced slightly as the muscle healed and the skin regenerated. "You're going to have a scar, child. That whip is dangerous."

"Indeed it is." Liron said as he emptied his cup and stood up. He looked at me. "When you're ready, Uncle, your family is waiting. Take your time, do what you need to do, and when you're healed and ready to see us, we'll be there when you come home." I nodded silently, and he thanked Silvanus for his hospitality, and then he walked out of the house, taking the Vampire Killer with him. I watched it as swung lazily from Liron's belt, and I imagined that Trevor was using it to wave goodbye.

I slumped down in the chair that Liron had vacated and absently munched on a cookie. Silvanus watched me in silence for a while, and then he came around the table and knelt down in front of me. I reached out to him as my eyes began to burn, and he pulled me out of the chair and into his arms. I cried myself to sleep in his embrace.

******

I stayed with Silvanus for twelve days. I never left it, not even to feed, not even when word reached me that Sypha had passed on, nine days after her husband. She was buried next to Trevor, but I didn't go to the funeral. I wasn't ready to face that place again.

When I finally did return to the Belmont lands, I avoided the little cemetery where Trevor and Sypha were. If I went, I didn't think I'd be able to leave it again. I stayed in my little house and ignored everyone, leaving it only to hunt. Jacob, Isaiah, and Bridget tried to draw me out, but I refused. I saw Trevor everywhere I looked, and that was the only reason I didn't return to my other house. Trevor had grown up there, so the memories there would have been worse. It wasn't until seven year old Lucas, Liron's second son, approached me and asked if I had any of those ginger squares that he had heard about, did I start to venture out. Thankfully, my one servant that cooked and cleaned for me had kept herself busy during my absence, and soon Lucas was on his way with a small amount of the tasty treats. Soon the other children began to approach me once more, and I saw to it that snacks were always waiting when they came, but I did not interact with them like I once had. I dispensed head pats and hugs when asked, but I never made the first gesture.

That did not stop them from coming however. My small porch was often covered with children, eating, drinking, playing games, talking and laughing, and I tried not to imagine Trevor's voice when I listened to their chatter. After a while, I forced myself to go sit with them, to make sure that they weren't doing anything that they shouldn't have been (That's what I told myself anyway.), and after a few days of this, one of the girls mustered up the courage to ask if Trevor had liked ginger squares like they did. I hesitated for a moment and then told her that no, Trevor had preferred jam on bread. I then told them of how he, at the age of eight or so, he got into the pantry and ate an entire jar of it, making himself sick in the process. He had then tried to pull the innocent act when I confronted him about it.

The children laughed and giggled, and I smiled fondly at the memory, surprised that the expected pain was only a sting. It still hurt, but not as much as I had thought it would. They asked me for another story, so I told them about the time he had gone to the council with me, though I didn't mention Mathias. The children were fascinated and begged for more stories, so I obliged them. By the time I called an end to it after telling them of how Leon had come to Trevor's defense after he was named heir, even many of the adults, including Trevor's three children, were sitting around listening with rapt attention.

Everyone seemed to shake themselves, like they were breaking free of a spell, and then the crowd dispersed, with the children being shooed off to bed, and the adults mumbling about things still needing to be done before they went to bed themselves. Once everyone had gone, I wandered away from the house and into the woods, where I morphed into a wolf and went searching for my evening meal. I then returned home, long after everyone was in bed, bathed, and readied for bed myself.

I glanced out of the window that was beside my bed, up at the stars, and felt the breeze caressing my hair.

"I'll be waiting, Trevor." I whispered to the night air, and then I shut the curtains to block out the morning sun and climbed into bed. I was asleep in seconds.

Chapter 4-5 -- Chapter 5-2
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