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AMoS Chapter 6-1
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 6 covers from Liron's funeral to just after Belmont's Revenge.
1.
Release
We interred an empty coffin for Liron.
Hector was inconsolable at the graveside service, and he sat on my lap and cried through the entire thing. Isaac, reacting to his master's emotional state, wailed like a starving baby, and the mournful sound could be heard everywhere within the ward line. I rocked Hector silently and said nothing to comfort him. I just couldn't drudge up the words. I sat there with tears running down my face and paid scarce attention to those around me.
There was a memorial service in the chapel, but I refused to go to it. I couldn't bear to look at the place where Liron had died, and not even the carpet could hide where the stone floor had glazed due to the intense heat. The roof and roof beams were also badly scorched, the altar lamp was melted, and the Holy Table was severely charred, despite my attempt to contain the heat, and even though the building had been ventilated for several hours, I could still smell burning flesh and hair. No, I would avoid the church altogether for the next few hundred years, even after the glazed stones, melted altar lamp, charred Holy Table, and scorched roof beams were replaced.
None of the Belmonts said anything to me about what I had done, not even Adrian or Lucas, which surprised me. I was grateful for it though; I couldn't have handled their anger on top of my grief and guilt. I went about my days and nights: I kept Hector fed and bathed, but I was in a similar state to how I had been after Trevor's death, only this time it was worse in a way, because of the bond that Liron and I had shared. I had not raised him, but for those two short days and nights, he had been mine, my child, my son.
And I had rammed a stake through his heart and burned him to ash.
Hector's hysterics, his struggles to reach Liron, on top of his grief had caused him to have a small relapse, so it was back to three feedings a day and heavy bleeding. I kept him clean and dry, and I held him when he reached for me, but there was no real emotion behind my actions. I knew that Hector was in pain and that he needed me more than ever, but... I couldn't help him when I was barely coping myself.
And that only made me feels worse.
Silvanus practically moved in with us for several days, and while part of me resented the intrusion, another part of me was grateful for his presence. He kept me functioning when I otherwise would have shut down completely.
"Why does no one want to be turned?" I mumbled one night. "What is so bad about being a vampire?" Hector was in bed, sleeping off his relapse, and Silvanus and I were on the living room couch, with me leaning against him.
Silvanus shifted and put his right arm around my shoulders. "Not everyone can live this kind of life, child." he said gently.
"First Leon refused, then Trevor, then Liron. Will anyone ever decide to stay with me?"
"In time, little one, I'm sure someone will. You just have to find the one that's willing to live forever and say goodbye to everyone they know and love."
"I would have given him everything, Silvanus." I said as tears began to trickle down my face. "I had him for only two days and nights, but I... I loved him as if I had fathered him myself. Why didn't he want it?"
Silvanus gently sat me up and tipped my head back to look at him. "Joachim," he said firmly yet gently, "please don't blame yourself for doing as your child wanted. If Liron said that he would never been happy as a vampire, then you have to believe him. To do anything else is to torture yourself."
"He didn't even want to try!" I wailed. "He hated it before he would give it a chance!"
"He didn't want to try because he knew what would happen. He knew that he would never see his parents or his wife again. He knew that he would outlive his children and grandchildren. He knew that the world would move on around him, and he didn't want to face that. Would you have wanted to outlive Trevor, if you could have avoided it?"
I didn't need to think about my answer. "No.." I whispered. "Losing him was..." I closed my eyes and laid my head against Silvanus' shoulder again, but a disturbance from the bond let me know that Hector was waking, and he was thirsty.
I dragged myself to my feet and wandered into the bedroom to see Hector blinking himself awake. He scrubbed at his eyes and sniffled as he reached for me, and I picked him up and sat down in the rocker with him on my lap so he could feed. Once he was done drinking, he wound his arms around me and tucked his head under my chin.
"Do you want to get dressed for the night?" I asked as I slowly rocked the chair back and forth.
He shook his head. "I want to go back to sleep. It doesn't hurt when I'm asleep."
"Are you sure, little one?"
He nodded, so I stood up and laid him back down, and he reached up to me as I was about to tuck him in.
"Can you stay?"
"Yes, little one, I can stay."
I flopped down beside him and pulled the blankets over us with a gesture. He did his usual routine of snuggling close and tucking his head under my chin, and I sighed as I wound my right around around his shoulders. I heard Silvanus come in, and he leaned over and gave us both a kiss before he retreated back to the living room, closing the door behind him.
******
Silvanus returned home eight days after Liron's funeral, once he was assured that I wasn't going to stop functioning without him. Hector recovered from his relapse a few days after that, but even then I had to coax him out of bed, otherwise he would have slept around the clock.
"Actose killed a few of his other children once." he said late one night, once he'd woken from his mid-night nap. He was curled up on my lap in the rocker again, and he'd already tried twice to crawl back into bed, but I hadn't let him.
It didn't surprise me at all to hear that, so I just made a noncommittal "Hmm," in response.
"I had bonds with them too, but they were.. weaker, so much weaker than what I had with Liron, and it didn't bother me at all when they died and the bonds broke. But with Liron..." He trailed off and hid his face in my hair.
"You did not care for any of his other children, did you?"
He shook his head. "No, most of them.. they hurt me a lot. The ones that didn't I barely saw."
"I imagine that you weren't in the best health either?"
He shook his head. "Does that make a difference?"
"It does. The closer you are emotionally to a sire, child, sibling, and so on, the stronger the bond between you will be. The blood connection is also important, as is your health. Walter forced a marriage bond on me, but as my feelings for him withered and died as he became more and more cruel, that bond weakened. My deteriorating health also weakened it a great deal. By the time he died, I could feel him, but not as strongly as I once could. When Kerwin claimed me as his, and he spent months caring for me, our sibling bond strengthened due to the brotherly love and concern that he felt for me. I trusted him and did not fear him, which also helped, as did my improving health. Drinking his blood on a regular basis also added to it."
He looked at me. "How sick were you?"
"Not as ill as you were when I brought you home, but very, very close. I was much older, but I had been starving for a century, only able to feed off the occasional vampire hunter and when Walter deigned to give me a drink. I believe I was about a month away from death when Leon rescued me."
"So why did Liron's death..." His chin trembled. "Why does it hurt so much?"
"Because you cared about him. Because the bond between you was strong." He laid his head back down, and I gently raked his hair back from his forehead. "Because you loved him."
"It hurts. I wish it would just stop."
"I know. It's hurting me too, but letting him go was the best thing I could have done for him." I sighed. "Even if I didn't want to."
******
Adrian announced that his father had died suddenly in his sleep, so no one outside of the clan questioned Liron's sudden disappearance. Thankfully, he had already assumed many of the duties of Baron Belmont, so it wasn't much of a strain to assume the rest of them. I barely spoke to anyone for those first few days, because the Belmont lands were haunted by Liron's presence as much as my old house was haunted by Trevor's. I forced myself to go out and socialize on occasion, to try and prevent myself from becoming a shut in again, but I still didn't speak much.
"I don't know how you managed to force yourself to do that." Adrian said one evening. He had caught me wandering around, and he had somehow steered me into Hunter's Rest without me knowing it.
I shrugged without saying anything, and he stepped in front of me and looked at me for a long moment. "I know he asked you to end it for him, and let me make it clear that I don't blame you, I'm not angry, or any of those other things you might be worried about. I had hoped that he would make a go of life with you and Hector, but I will never be angry about him being at peace."
"It doesn't make it any easier." I whispered. "Killing one's own child..."
"But it was necessary. He's with my mother, his parents, and his grandparents. He's happy on the other side. I much prefer that to him being miserable here."
Adrian's words were a small comfort at least, and Lucas agreed with his brother when I encountered him the following day, but...
How does one describe the soul wrenching agony caused by losing a child? A child that you have a bond with? A child that you killed with your own hands?
I found the quiet hum of the bond with Hector far more comforting than I was willing to admit, and I found his habit of snuggling close while we slept every bit as reassuring as he did. There were a few times I woke up during the daylight hours and had to assure myself that he was still there, still sleeping, still alive before I could go back to sleep.
Seven weeks after Liron died from a stake through his heart, Silvanus crossed into my territory late one night. Hector was in the middle of his mid-night nap, and I was curled up in the dark, silent library. The room was chilly as fall moved through the area on its way to winter, and I knew that I should get up, and light the fire so the room would be warm when Hector woke up in an hour or so, but I just couldn't muster the energy to drag myself from the couch. Not even Silvanus' approaching presence perked me up.
I heard him come through the front door. "Joachim?" He walked the short distance to the library and stood in the doorway. "Joachim?"
"What is it, Silvanus?"
"Get Hector up. I have something the two of you need to see."
"Hector is asleep."
"I know, but he needs to see this. Get him up."
I just waved my hand at him. "He's fine where he's at."
I heard a sigh, and then I heard Silvanus move from the library and into the bedroom, followed by a quiet whimper from Hector.
I sat up. "What are you doing?" I yelled through the wall as Hector woke up. "Let the child sleep!" Silvanus reappeared in the library door with a blanket wrapped, bleary eyed Hector in his arms. "Get up, Joachim. Come with me."
I stood up and glared at him. "What the hell are you doing!"
"What needs to be done. Let's go, Joachim." He walked out of the room and then out of the house without another word, and I went after him.
"Damn it, Silvanus! It's too cold for Hector to be out!"
He ignored me as he carried a confused Hector across the ward line and into the trees, while I chased after him. "Silvanus! Stop! What are you doing?" Hector was now fully awake, and he picked up on my anxiety and began to cry a little as he was carried off. I felt Silvanus reach through the bond and soothe him, and I quickly did the same. I didn't know what Silvanus was planning, but I knew with a certainty that he would never hurt Hector.
He didn't go much further beyond the ward line though. He stopped and waited for me to catch up, and then he slipped one arm around my shoulders as I was busy checking on Hector, and then I felt a hard jerk as the world went dark for a second. Hector wailed in terror, and then I suddenly found the three of us standing in Silvanus' small kitchen. I tugged Hector out of Silvanus' arms then and backed away several steps as Hector clung to me and cried.
"What are you doing, Silvanus!" I snarled "You drag Hector out of bed in the middle of the night, wake him up, carry him through the cold air, and then somehow bring us here? What the hell are you scheming?"
He looked at me sadly and stepped forward so he could gently run his fingers over Hector's hair. "You never would have come here willingly, Joachim, not with the weather being too cold for Hector, so I had to do this."
"Do what? What was the point of this?"
"Do you know what day it is, Joachim?"
I rattled off the date. "What of it?"
Hector, who had started to quiet and relax back into sleep against my shoulder, suddenly sat up and looked at Silvanus with wide eyes.
"All Hallows Eve." he whispered. Silvanus nodded.
"The one day of the year when the barrier between the world of the living and the world of the dead is at its thinnest." he said softly, and Hector gasped.
"You can do that?" he asked, and Silvanus nodded again.
"I can, little one, if you want."
"Yes! Yes, I want that!" He reached out to Silvanus then, and I just stared silently as Silvanus took Hector out of my arms and carried him the short distance to the living room. Hector was laid down on the couch, and Silvanus sat down on the floor beside him.
"Joachim," he said with a warning tone, "do not interfere."
"What are you going to do?"
"Nothing harmful; quite the opposite in fact. So just sit down and wait your turn."
My turn?
Turn for what?
I felt a burst of excitement from Hector as Silvanus began to chant in a low voice, and I stepped backwards to the kitchen table and sat down. I didn't recognize the language he was speaking at all, but considering his age, it came as no surprise that he knew otherwise unknown languages. I felt magic fizzling across my skin, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up as the bond with Hector went silent, like it did when he was in a deep sleep. Silvanus continued chanting for another minute, and then he went silent as the magic levels in the room seemed to level out. He was no longer actively casting, instead he was only maintaining it.
Hector was quiet for nearly an hour, and then he came awake with a gasp, and the magic levels dropped as Silvanus released the spell. He sat up as I stood up and moved towards the couch, and he looked at me in silence for a long moment before a strange mixture of grief and relief flooded the bond. He reached out to me with trembling arms, and I scooped him up. He wound his arms around my neck and hid his face in my hair.
"Hector?"
"I saw him." he whispered, and I could hear the tears in his voice. "I saw Liron. I spoke to him."
"Liron? What? How?"
"Come lie down, Joachim." Silvanus said from where he was still sitting on the floor. "I can only cast this spell successfully on this one day of the year, so you wouldn't want to miss your chance."
Hector raised his head and nodded eagerly, so with a sigh I kissed him on the forehead and sat him down on his feet. He toddled over to the kitchen table and sat down, while I laid down on the couch.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" I asked, and Silvanus gave me a reassuring smile.
"I am sure. Are you ready?"
"Ummm, I suppose."
"Close your eyes then and relax."
I sighed again as I shut my eyes, and I felt Silvanus' hands come down to gently rest against my temples. A second later, he began to chant again, and I forced myself to ignore his words and just do as he said.
After a few seconds, I began to feel tired and heavy, and keeping my eyes closed became a non issue. I felt as though I was falling asleep, and I couldn't have resisted it if I had wanted to.
"Uncle Joachim?"
"Liron?" My eyes flew open, and I sat up to find myself in the Lord's House, in the family room. To my left, by the fireplace, was Liron, looking like he did years ago when he was still a young man, newly married. I leapt to my feet just as he ran at me, and I caught him in my arms. It was just as it had been when I had spoken to Trevor all those years ago. It was as though Liron was truly there, a living person, and I ruthlessly quashed that little voice that insisted that he wasn't and focused on the feel of holding him close to me again. I ran my fingers through his thick auburn hair and placed a kiss on his forehead.
"Oh child," I breathed, "I've missed you so much."
He looked up at me with a faint smile, but that smile quickly vanished as his expression turned serious. "Uncle Joachim," he began, "why haven't you let me go?"
I started a bit. "I did, Liron. Surely you remember what I did to you, there in the chapel?"
"Yes, you freed me from the life that I did not want, but you haven't let go of me. You grieve as though I had just died days ago instead of weeks, and you feel guilt for what you did."
"I rammed a stake through your heart, child! And then I burned you to ash!"
He wrenched himself out of my arms and glared at me. "You saved me from having to condemn my soul to Hell by taking my own life!" he snapped. "I never wished to live as a vampire, Uncle Joachim! I never wanted to watch everyone I care about die before me! If she hadn't bitten me, I would have lived out the rest of my natural life and died an old man as I should have!" He wiped away a few tears. "Now stop torturing yourself!"
"Liron.." I reached out to hold him again, but he stepped away from my reach.
"No," he said firmly as he began to cry, "hugging me won't make it stop. You need to stop blaming yourself first."
"I killed you, Liron! You died by my hand! I stood by as you convulsed on the floor! What am I supposed to do! How am I supposed to feel! I killed my child! I did nothing as the bond collapsed but hold onto the stake!" I paused and took a deep breath. "I knew you were unhappy, child, but you didn't even want to try. You insisted that death was the only way to go for you." I hung my head. "I just can't, Liron."
He stepped up to me, and I raised my head as he wormed his way into my embrace. "I felt the bond too." he whispered. "I felt Hector's despair because I wasn't accepting things. I felt your worry for me, and I knew that you really didn't want to do what I was asking. I felt your hurt as the bond collapsed, but it was the only way, Uncle Joachim. I decided long ago that I didn't want to live forever if you offered it to me. I couldn't have done it; I would have hated every second of it. I couldn't bear outliving Adrian and Lucas. Outliving Mary was enough for me. Please understand, Uncle. I just couldn't do it."
I sighed and held him tight. "I do understand, little one. I do. I didn't want to live forever at first either, but I had really wanted you to stay. So did Hector."
"Sometime in the future, someone will stay."
"You know this?"
He looked up at me and gave me a teary smile. "I do. I can't tell you who it is because it would change the way you act around them, but yes, someone will want to stay."
I smiled faintly and brushed his hair out of his face. "I still wish it could have been you."
"It would have ended badly, just as it would had Grandfather stayed." He laid his head down and hid his face. "Please, Uncle, please for your sake, as well as Hector's, please just let me go."
"It's hard, little one."
"I know. I'm asking a lot of you, but it had to be this way. Please stop blaming yourself; you're only hurting yourself and Hector."
I just held him tighter. "I'll try, little one. I'll do my best." I walked him over to the couch, sat down, and pulled him down onto my lap. "I don't know how long Silvanus can hold this spell, and I just want to hold you until then."
He smiled again and curled close. "I love you, Uncle Joachim."
"And I love you, little one, so very much." I sighed again, and we fell silent. I don't know how long I sat on the couch in the thrall of that spell, holding Liron in my arms. I cherished the feeling of his warm weight, knowing that it was only temporary, and all too soon, the feeling of falling asleep started to creep up on me again.
"Goodbye, Uncle Joachim." Liron mumbled against my shoulder.
I sighed a third time. "Goodbye, little one."
I sat up and found myself in Silvanus' living room again. I rubbed at my eyes as Hector's quiet footsteps approached, and he climbed onto my lap. Silvanus moved from the floor to sit beside us.
"What kind of spell was that, exactly?" I asked as I leaned against him.
"It allows you to speak to the one that you need the most. It only works on All Hallows Eve, and it won't work at all if you have no real need to speak to anyone." he replied in a quiet voice. "I knew that neither one of you were moving on past Liron's death, so I wanted to help in any way I could."
Hector laid his head down on my shoulder. "Thank you." he whispered.
"Yes, thank you." I added, and I felt Silvanus' arm come around my shoulders.
"You're welcome, little ones."
I laughed lightly; I hadn't been called that in years, and even Hector giggled a tiny bit as Silvanus stood up.
"Come," he said as he pulled me to my feet. "Let's get you both home." He put his arm around my shoulders again and pulled me close against him. The world went black again, followed by that hard jerk, and I blinked and saw that we were just outside the ward line.
"Teleporting within powerful wards is rarely a good idea." Silvanus explained, and I nodded faintly. "Get Hector inside, Joachim, and call for me if you need me." He stepped away and vanished through another teleport to his own home. I blinked dumbly at where he had been for a moment, before I turned and walked over the ward line towards home. Hector and I didn't speak as I put him back to bed, but he did reach out to me, which prompted me to climb into bed beside him. He tucked himself against me and went back to sleep, while I laid awake until the sun rose, lost in thought.
******
Of course, things weren't all sunshine and roses after speaking to Liron that night. I would be lying to claim that seeing him again made all the guilt and grief go away, because it didn't. The casting of the spell seemed to help Hector a great deal, and I never did ask him what they said to each other. It helped me some as well, but probably not as much as Silvanus had intended. Losing a child in such a way is just not something that can be gotten over so quickly.
I avoided the chapel like the plague, and I preferred not to speak of Liron when he was brought up in conversation. When others brought up stories about him, I listened, but I didn't add anything. Speaking of him was still too much to ask. Still, I forced myself to go out and mingle with the others, and I had dinner at the Lord's house at least once a week. Jacob had made me promise not to become a shut in again, and I was going to keep it, no matter what I had to do.
Chapter 5-9 -- Chapter 6-2Back to the AMoS Archive
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Coming up in chapter 6-2: Silvanus gives Joachim some unpleasant news, Hector has a freak out, Joachim gets a talking to from Kerwin, and a new Innocent Devil is born!
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