Trevor finds himself on his hands and knees in the dirt, the taste of vomit on his tongue and distant pain everywhere else that said he'd gotten the shit beaten out of him but was too blessedly drunk to feel it properly.

None of these things makes sense. The only possibility is - he shoves his hand into his mouth, then splutters from the muck that brings. Yeah, no, that was fucking stupid. He couldn't have been turned and turning didn't screw up people's memories, he's pretty sure.

He staggers to his feet. He's cold. It's dark. He is too shitfaced for mysteries. There's a tavern behind him. He definitely was just in a fight there. Getting out of here is the best option. He'll pass out somewhere quiet and tomorrow he can try to find -

Trevor spits out a laugh. No one. There's no one.

But there's still monsters to fight, and he'll be damned if the last Belmont freezes to death in a ditch instead.

The last Belmont needn't have worried, it turns out. The night is miserable but warmer than it has any right to be, and when the dawn comes he sees flowers sprouting amid the snow, like it's early spring instead of late autumn.

And he hasn't worn this cloak in some time. Or the whip.

"What the fuck!" he shouts at the sky. God doesn't answer, so he continues, "If this is - if this is Purgatory, I was fucking well purified already! I was pissing sacrament! What more do you fucking want!" When there's still silence, he adds, "I can wait all fucking day!" A bird shits on his head.

And it turns out his stomach hasn't figured out they're dead. It twists in on itself like it's got teeth in a demand for breakfast and Trevor... He supposes he doesn't want to stand around and get more shit on him.

When is this? Is it any time in particular, or is he just supposed to spend eternity wandering in and out of stinking bars? Is that, of every fucking thing he's done, what God's taken issue with?

...It was sloth of a sort, he supposes. But under the circumstances it sure seems fucking petty. He kept walking, didn't he? And a bar brawl wasn't particularly slothful, so why start there when mostly he'd just passed out quietly.

It's when he reaches Gresit it all suddenly clicks into place.

It's later in the day than when he arrived the first time, the real time when it actually happened. The demons have already retreated. But the rest is just how he remembers Gresit.

And that means Sypha and Alucard are somewhere underneath.

So he makes his way through a fucking shit pipe, again.

On the other end of the pipe is supposed to be a sleeping guard. Middle aged, clean-shaven. It'd meant he could get into the city without having to knife anyone.

Instead, Trevor finds a spear aimed at him by some bald geezer with a scraggy white beard. "Well," he says. "Fuck me. I'd been happy to go in the front way, y'know. If it wasn't barricaded. Against flying monsters." It won't even be hard to throw a dagger and take this pathetic excuse of a defense down. But what's Trevor got to fear, exactly? Getting speared through his unreal chest?

To his surprise, the spear tilts away again, the butt coming to a rest on the flagstone. Bit of a disappointment. "What brings you to our fair city," the man says, and Trevor can't tell if the flatness is exhaustion or sarcasm.

He'd gone through all the trouble, crawled through shit to get into a hellhole of sobbing victims and fly-ridden entrails and the sure knowledge that those demons would be swarming back that night, for some dried goat.

And just. Just fuck it. "The story of the sleeping soldier," Trevor says. "Here to put a boot up his ass."

He's not sure what he's expecting to get out of that - anger and maybe a stabbing for his flippancy, derision and mockery at the claim he'd be the one to do it, perhaps the kindness of an eyeroll and 'move along' for a madman. But not hope.

He bites back a groan. Well, he's got no one to blame but himself for that one. He'd seen it play out already, he knows the desperation and he knows how fast people switch allegiances when nothing's worked yet. And maybe. To be charitable. Maybe people were waiting for anyone to propose a solution that wasn't a goddamn lynching. He straightens up because Belmonts don't slouch, tells the man, "It won't be until after the night's attack. Those will have to be fought off but I'll help with that. But there needs to be holy water, as much as possible." He never got the priest's name, barely got a look at him in the dark. "Could you pass that along? Get someone on it?"

"I... I don't know that the men of the Church would listen to me. They're saying..."

"I know what they're saying. It won't happen." Trevor claps him on the shoulder, says in his most confident voice, "Anyone who refuses to help, they couldn't bless the water if they wanted. Try the deacons until you find one who will. And start gathering salt. Alright?"

The old man nods so hard he almost falls over, drops the spear on the ground, and runs into the city.

Trevor picks up the spear and sets it against the wall. Balance is shit on the thing.

His stomach grumbles again. If he doesn't need food to live, is that gluttony? But he was never eating so he wouldn't starve, now was he? You eat because you're hungry.

"It wasn't even good goat," he tells God. "You got a problem with what I do, you shouldn't be making me do it."

It's not that bad either, though it's hard to be objective when you're hungry. This time, though, the woman doesn't pick up his coin after giving him the strip of dried meat. "You the one Elias was talking about? You here for the Speakers?"

A Speaker, at least. And he supposes he'll have to stop off for her grandfather as well or he'll never hear the end of it. "Not the way you're thinking." And then he says what he hadn't, because it's not like there's consequences for running his mouth: "Don't you people know, it's not just Gresit getting attacked."

"Lot of places have Speakers," she says. "Lot of places let Speakers through."

"Your bishop burned Dracula's wife!" he shouts, more at the sky than her. He's reasonably sure there is no her, anyway, this is all some fucked up puppet theater. "All of Wallachia gets torn apart by demons because that vicious fuck killed so many innocent people there were finally, finally consequences and and anyone believes him when he says killing more innocent people will help?!"

It's amazing how silent a market gets when you've forgotten how loud your voice should be.

"Forget it," he says, doing his best to drag his voice back down to quiet. He's already got his strip of goat and she's probably got enough propriety not to try to yank it from between his teeth.

"You here for the bishop, then?" a man says, and it's not at all a friendly question, but neither is there the energy of menace behind it.

"Some demon rips him apart tonight," Trevor says around the goat. "Doesn't change a thing. This kind of shit isn't stopped with human sacrifice."

"Didn't you say you could help?" another voice demands of him.

"They won't be here tonight if we kill the Speakers," someone else argues.

"If we kill the Speakers and the demons come anyway -"

"The demons come," Trevor interjects sourly.

"- we'll go to God with their blood on our hands."

Is that a message? The last thing he did pissed God off this much? He's pretty sure the last thing he did was die doing his duty, and if God's going to take issue with that, fuck him. "Better to die with demon blood on your hands," he informs the world at large, which, he definitely managed metaphorically even if literally it was probably all his own blood. "Look. I have things to do. I'll be back in time for your bishop to threaten me. After that, anyone who wants to live, gather in the western courtyard." And then, because he's starting to get jumbled about who he's speaking to, about when, he says like a complete idiot, "It'll be okay. I'll be here with you and I know how to handle this."

It turns out this doesn't make desperate people leave you alone and they just end up trailing after you, like goslings who question instead of quack. "Seriously, fuck off!" he shouts. "Believe me or don't, I have a schedule here!"

By the time he stumbles across the priests he's picked up more instead. He's also late, and Sypha's grandfather is staggering after being struck in the head, so plan Resolve Shit Peacefully This Time So The Whiny Goslings Don't Whine More and Maybe Finally Fuck Off is dead on arrival.

It's joyous, the crack of the whip and the snap of the man's wrist and the blood spurting from the shattered stump. Trevor waits silently for the next part. The man howls, "Kill the bastard!" again. The other priest pulls out his cross dagger thing, again.

And why deflect it? Trevor is always letting people smack him, always dodging the first attack or round of attacks, always giving everyone a chance to just stop fucking escalating things. But he already did this dance, already tried to talk them both down, already gave this vicious sadist of a man chance after chance to stop trying to stab him to death, and the guy won't take it. They're going to get murdered by their own viciousness tonight anyway. Trevor skips to the final whiplash to the face, again, and removes his eye, again, because again, God, he knows that's what it takes, it's not just him being bloody-minded.

"I don't like priests," he tells them again. "I mean I really, really don't like priests."

He's relatively certain none of the goslings are quite up for knifing him in the back and, well, so what if they do, right? Is God going to be all, you wrathful piece of shit, striking a man of the cloth while he was in the middle of striking down an elderly unarmed pacifist, now you're in Hell and every time you do that you get stabbed to death? Because fuck anybody who thinks that'll change his mind.

One of the gaggle mutters, "They fight monsters," and God can fuck right off with that shit too, he killed plenty of fucking monsters, he can find the time to take some asshole's hand halfway off too.

"Hey," he tells Sypha's grandfather, taking his elbow to steady him. "I'm here for your granddaughter."

He is not expecting the fear on the man's face and rapidly stammers out, "To help! The prophecy. I'm the Hunter. Belmont." He thumps the crest on his shirt, and that seems to work because the man nods slowly. Trevor continues, "I'll go into the catacombs and bring Sypha back up, she'll be completely ungrateful about it, we'll fight demons and fall down a hole in the courtyard later tonight and bring back your va- the sleeping soldier so he can stake Dracula."

"That is...a very specific interpretation," Sypha's grandfather says.

"I'm having a very specific day."

To lay some of the cards on the table:

This fic is meant to be canon-compliant. What you saw happen in S1 and S2 happened and you know as much (or more) as Trevor does regarding that. Then more things happened off-camera after the end of S2, which Trevor will do his level best to not get into, and then we come to the start of this story.

My intention is for it to be possible to work out what's happened piecemeal but it'll be explained in full before the end.

And, since I'm already here writing an author's note, l'll add that I appreciate any and all sorts of comments. I think of writing as like a conversation and I welcome hearing people's thoughts whether they're positive or negative. Say literally whatever you feel like.