[It's not so unheard of, what happens one night in the midst of the two weeks the three of them spend at the castle recuperating. Sypha has heard stories of the phenomenon, certainly; it shows up often enough in tales from around the world to be at least familiar, if not curious. Trevor's religion shares some of the same: sleepers being visited with dreams and prophecies, and awaking the next morning with the guidance offered to them during their slumber.
It happens just once, in the right place and at the right time — on a night when Alucard has finally relented enough to sleep in the middle of the tangle of three, with Trevor's arms around him and Sypha's head tucked under his chin, and the castle still and quiet, and the blankets warm and thick.
It's a dream that begins like a memory: his father's study, the great tall chair by the fire. It faces the door, this time, the way it had for all his years of growing up with these corridors as a playground. The fire is glowing, red-orange and warm. The room is quiet, and still, but oddly not lonely.
It's only after he sits in the chair, and faces the door, that something changes. He'll look once, and find the open portal to the corridor empty.
If he looks twice, he'll find that it's empty no longer — filled now with the figure of a blond woman in a sensible burgundy dress, her soft hair so much like his own in the way that it frames her face in waves.]
[Prophecy isn't a unique concept. They've all been bound by it, only an idiot ignores ancient wisdom. Even if one's parents were scientists. (One of those parents was also a master of the dark arts, after all.) Even if the dream begins in a much too familiar way.
(He'll wake and mutter that this is because he slept in the middle for once instead of his normal spot. He usually sleeps closest to the door out of instinct. Pointless as Trevor has pointed out time and again. Smarter men would come through the windows these days. Instinct remains. And it is nice to have two pairs of warm arms around him with all the additional blankets.)
The study it is. Another night of grief, most likely, because that's what this set up always means. Alucard doesn't wake up from this particular dream anymore, he lets it go where it decides to, then rises to make breakfast. Whatever foul mood he's in for those dreams is gone by the time that all three plates are ready to be devoured.
But this isn't the dream as it usually is. The door is closed most days, because that's how he spends his waking time in the room. Door closed. Memories done in private. (He showed Sypha earlier today. Maybe that's why this is different. She'll say it is later, he's sure.)
And there's his mother. Not acting out the rote motions of memory (she's usually gone by this point when he thinks there's some kind of ghost in the halls), but interacting in dreams.
Which means he isn't there to question logic. Just to ensure that this isn't guilt taking a new and exciting form.]
[There are ways that phantoms and specters behave, in dreams that are largely figments of one's imagination, or of the latent guilt resting in their subconscious. The ghosts act mysteriously, behave ethereally. They are aloof, and distant, and enigmatic.
This one, however, seems the very antithesis of aloof; quite the contrary, her expression brightens visibly when she's acknowledged, and she takes a few subconscious steps toward him like she's drawn to his presence, or at the very least like it's simply her instinct to move to him and take him in her arms.]
[The energy is what makes Alucard realize that this is truly not just his mind making decisions for him. Relaying familiar words in the tones he has always heard, because there's a sort of gravity to his mother (he's not using the word specter or ghost, not yet) that does not match up in the past. It's the same kind of gravity he has in dreams too.
But there's fear that this might be some demon or ill thing with a familiar face. Voicing it, that's pointless. Worse, there's the desire to put that concern to the side, and he's off the chair.
And a very, very soft laugh from him.]
Nonsense. You know that at this point I haven't aged a day.
[She does come a little closer, but stops short of actually moving to him to try to touch him; it seems she's preferring at the moment to hang back a little, the better to look him over from head to toe.]
You've found yourself a pair of friends.
["Friends".]
I always did hope you would find someone to love, besides me.
[The distance is...there's meaning to it, isn't there? That there hasn't just been that running embrace (the other two do that sometimes when they're back at the castle from a very long trip. Sypha first because Alucard can just scoop her up and spin her around in his arms. Then Trevor knocks them both over onto the floor, Alucard bitches about something breaking, and there's the usual joy and stupid arguments echoing through the main hall.) Should he...?
No, he should look very embarrassed and go as blushfaced as a vampire can.]
Mother!
[How many years and it's childish embarrassment first?]
[Is there any truer confirmation of her identity than the fact that she can embarrass him this easily and with this much tactical precision? Perhaps not.]
Am I wrong?
[As though he's got any room to deny it.]
I hope your Belmont is treating you well. But you seem to be able to handle him without any trouble.
[We. So that's. That's a thing. And that was always one of the nightmares, wasn't it? Being confronted with some version of his mother and having to tell her what the world and his father's rage demanded of him. Breaking her heart for it, because there was no way that I killed my father because he mourned you in the worst way would end in anything but heartbreak. It was one of his least favorite nightmares. (He had quite a few least favorites, but it was in the top five.
There's no movement in him, nor does he meet his mother's eyes for this next part:]
How did that...go....
[Whatever strange reunion was had. And is this moving away from his romantic life? Hell yeah.]
[Her voice is very, very quiet, and forlorn. He doesn't move, or look at her, and she understands why; for a year, a war was cultivated in her name, for her sake. Like a perverse Helen of Troy, her death launched a thousand others. And standing on opposing sides of it all were the two people she loved most — and worse still, the two people whose motives she understood best.
She'd known even before her flesh had burned away what Vlad would do when he learned of it. She'd prayed her cries might reach him, and they hadn't.]
At the last, you reminded him that there was still something on this earth that he loved, Adrian.
[Because that had been a plagued thought. If that break through had happened sooner, perhaps the need for that terrible death would have been avoided. He'd have his father alive and the world would maybe be recovering from all those night creatures in a different way.
But he did not break through in time. He was half-dead before it happened. And that's a terrible truth too.]
[On this point, at least, she is suddenly and emphatically no-nonsense. Because it's very apparent where this line of thinking goes, getting tangled up in the thorns of what might have been. He could torment himself for a hundred years over notions of what he might have done differently, and in the end of things she still wouldn't be any less dead, or Vlad any less fallen.]
You made yourself responsible for him. But that doesn't make you responsible for his choices.
[And in 100 years, the cycle will begin anew. Not that any of them can know that now, but it is a truth that Alucard will reflect on one day and hate just as much as anything else.
He is amazing at finding new ways to guilt himself, even if his mother's stern voice jostles him from that train of thought for a hot minute.]
It makes me responsible for whatever legacy is left behind. His and yours.
[Because he will be thrice damned if his mother is only known in some dry academic footnotes as an executed witch.]
Of course you're responsible for the legacy we left behind. Our legacy is you, Adrian.
[And now, at last, she crosses to him, reaching up to try to take his face in her hands. Her tangibility is questionable, of course; the firm security of her fingers on his skin is somewhat absent. But it's not nothing, either, and she guides his face up so that he can't look away from her.]
I've never wanted you to define your life by anyone else's. Don't spend the rest of yours chained to your memories of us. Don't make me the weight that keeps you anchored in unhappiness.
[How to articulate that it isn't that easy? That those memories are a way to cope with all the horrors and disgusting ways his mind is so very, very skilled at tormenting him?
And sometimes he needs the anchor, the you're acting like your father to keep tendencies at bay. The overprotective bordering on possessiveness, that one's the part Alucard fears most. That's the quickest path to a downfall.
He smiles, and it's a fragile thing.]
It isn't an anchor. And there is not unhappiness in it.
[She raises herself up, catching his cheek with a soft kiss.]
The day you learned to walk, it was so hard to let go of your hands. But you didn't fall. You wobbled your way to your father with a smile on your face, and he'd barely even caught you before you wanted to do it again, just to show off.
[Her hand slides around to the nape of his neck, gently supporting the back of his head.]
I was afraid to let go of you, but you weren't afraid, not in the slightest. That's all I want for you now. To be able to let go of our hands, and show us how far you can go.
[It's a long life ahead, if his father being alive for four centuries is anything to go by. That is a fact Alucard knows well, because he's already given thought to what will happen when he is alone again. (The rites of Sypha's people versus what to do with a man excommunicated from his God.) Holding on is...right. Not letting memories fade. Because that's all anyone will be in the end, memories.
There's such a familiar, pleasant weight in his mother's touch, even if it isn't as full as it ought to be. And he kisses her forehead so gently, because he doesn't know if he'll pass through.]
I think that a part of me is afraid of letting go in full.
[She's just tangible enough that he can be certain there's something there, though it's not the familiar physical weight of a solid form. She's present but she isn't, and perhaps a good portion of the reason he's able to interact with her even this much is because she's so determined that he should be able to.]
[Simple as that. A simple fear too. He doesn't have to elaborate, because this is his mother. She'll understand what is meant, even if there's only something half-tangible in front of him.]
[The weight of his forehead against hers is a strange thing. How real it is shifts in little increments, sometimes nearly solid, other times fading. There's no logic to it at all, just...just dream stuff. Dream stuff and his mother's will.]
I know. [But to know something and to do something are two very different things.]
There are times when it is easier. And others when it is impossible.
[All three of them worry just the right amount. It is stupid, stoic, and self-centered. He knows it too, that's the worst of it.
And to hell with it. If that's a request he'll give it, wrap up whatever he can of his mother in his arms because this dream is more likely to never be again.]
[She's there but she isn't, ephemeral yet solid enough for the duration. This is a dream, but it's a little bit more than a dream, and while she's not able to do everything she wishes she could, she can do just enough.
There are so many things she hasn't said, that she wants to; there are so many things she'll remember later and wish she'd thought of them now. There will never be enough time to tell him all the things she wants to, or what she's known and seen of him since she started to watch over him like this, or how proud she is of him — even for the choices she disagrees with or recoils from.
But maybe there don't need to be words. Maybe it's enough to cling to him, and to hold him tight, as the walls of the study around them start to fade into darkness.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drops this onto this post because i do what i want
It happens just once, in the right place and at the right time — on a night when Alucard has finally relented enough to sleep in the middle of the tangle of three, with Trevor's arms around him and Sypha's head tucked under his chin, and the castle still and quiet, and the blankets warm and thick.
It's a dream that begins like a memory: his father's study, the great tall chair by the fire. It faces the door, this time, the way it had for all his years of growing up with these corridors as a playground. The fire is glowing, red-orange and warm. The room is quiet, and still, but oddly not lonely.
It's only after he sits in the chair, and faces the door, that something changes. He'll look once, and find the open portal to the corridor empty.
If he looks twice, he'll find that it's empty no longer — filled now with the figure of a blond woman in a sensible burgundy dress, her soft hair so much like his own in the way that it frames her face in waves.]
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(He'll wake and mutter that this is because he slept in the middle for once instead of his normal spot. He usually sleeps closest to the door out of instinct. Pointless as Trevor has pointed out time and again. Smarter men would come through the windows these days. Instinct remains. And it is nice to have two pairs of warm arms around him with all the additional blankets.)
The study it is. Another night of grief, most likely, because that's what this set up always means. Alucard doesn't wake up from this particular dream anymore, he lets it go where it decides to, then rises to make breakfast. Whatever foul mood he's in for those dreams is gone by the time that all three plates are ready to be devoured.
But this isn't the dream as it usually is. The door is closed most days, because that's how he spends his waking time in the room. Door closed. Memories done in private. (He showed Sypha earlier today. Maybe that's why this is different. She'll say it is later, he's sure.)
And there's his mother. Not acting out the rote motions of memory (she's usually gone by this point when he thinks there's some kind of ghost in the halls), but interacting in dreams.
Which means he isn't there to question logic. Just to ensure that this isn't guilt taking a new and exciting form.]
...Mother?
[Soft. Concerned. Uncertain.]
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[There are ways that phantoms and specters behave, in dreams that are largely figments of one's imagination, or of the latent guilt resting in their subconscious. The ghosts act mysteriously, behave ethereally. They are aloof, and distant, and enigmatic.
This one, however, seems the very antithesis of aloof; quite the contrary, her expression brightens visibly when she's acknowledged, and she takes a few subconscious steps toward him like she's drawn to his presence, or at the very least like it's simply her instinct to move to him and take him in her arms.]
My, look how you've grown.
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But there's fear that this might be some demon or ill thing with a familiar face. Voicing it, that's pointless. Worse, there's the desire to put that concern to the side, and he's off the chair.
And a very, very soft laugh from him.]
Nonsense. You know that at this point I haven't aged a day.
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[She does come a little closer, but stops short of actually moving to him to try to touch him; it seems she's preferring at the moment to hang back a little, the better to look him over from head to toe.]
You've found yourself a pair of friends.
["Friends".]
I always did hope you would find someone to love, besides me.
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No, he should look very embarrassed and go as blushfaced as a vampire can.]
Mother!
[How many years and it's childish embarrassment first?]
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Am I wrong?
[As though he's got any room to deny it.]
I hope your Belmont is treating you well. But you seem to be able to handle him without any trouble.
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How much, exactly have you been witnessing?
[If there's anything beyond handholding, he's going to just go back to Gresit and stay there.]
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[She's quiet a minute, before she makes one small but dramatically significant grammatical change as she continues.]
But you're finding your way, now. So we don't worry quite as much.
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[We. So that's. That's a thing. And that was always one of the nightmares, wasn't it? Being confronted with some version of his mother and having to tell her what the world and his father's rage demanded of him. Breaking her heart for it, because there was no way that I killed my father because he mourned you in the worst way would end in anything but heartbreak. It was one of his least favorite nightmares. (He had quite a few least favorites, but it was in the top five.
There's no movement in him, nor does he meet his mother's eyes for this next part:]
How did that...go....
[Whatever strange reunion was had. And is this moving away from his romantic life? Hell yeah.]
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[Her voice is very, very quiet, and forlorn. He doesn't move, or look at her, and she understands why; for a year, a war was cultivated in her name, for her sake. Like a perverse Helen of Troy, her death launched a thousand others. And standing on opposing sides of it all were the two people she loved most — and worse still, the two people whose motives she understood best.
She'd known even before her flesh had burned away what Vlad would do when he learned of it. She'd prayed her cries might reach him, and they hadn't.]
At the last, you reminded him that there was still something on this earth that he loved, Adrian.
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[Because that had been a plagued thought. If that break through had happened sooner, perhaps the need for that terrible death would have been avoided. He'd have his father alive and the world would maybe be recovering from all those night creatures in a different way.
But he did not break through in time. He was half-dead before it happened. And that's a terrible truth too.]
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[On this point, at least, she is suddenly and emphatically no-nonsense. Because it's very apparent where this line of thinking goes, getting tangled up in the thorns of what might have been. He could torment himself for a hundred years over notions of what he might have done differently, and in the end of things she still wouldn't be any less dead, or Vlad any less fallen.]
You made yourself responsible for him. But that doesn't make you responsible for his choices.
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He is amazing at finding new ways to guilt himself, even if his mother's stern voice jostles him from that train of thought for a hot minute.]
It makes me responsible for whatever legacy is left behind. His and yours.
[Because he will be thrice damned if his mother is only known in some dry academic footnotes as an executed witch.]
And for the fact that a death is still a death.
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[And now, at last, she crosses to him, reaching up to try to take his face in her hands. Her tangibility is questionable, of course; the firm security of her fingers on his skin is somewhat absent. But it's not nothing, either, and she guides his face up so that he can't look away from her.]
I've never wanted you to define your life by anyone else's. Don't spend the rest of yours chained to your memories of us. Don't make me the weight that keeps you anchored in unhappiness.
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[How to articulate that it isn't that easy? That those memories are a way to cope with all the horrors and disgusting ways his mind is so very, very skilled at tormenting him?
And sometimes he needs the anchor, the you're acting like your father to keep tendencies at bay. The overprotective bordering on possessiveness, that one's the part Alucard fears most. That's the quickest path to a downfall.
He smiles, and it's a fragile thing.]
It isn't an anchor. And there is not unhappiness in it.
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[She raises herself up, catching his cheek with a soft kiss.]
The day you learned to walk, it was so hard to let go of your hands. But you didn't fall. You wobbled your way to your father with a smile on your face, and he'd barely even caught you before you wanted to do it again, just to show off.
[Her hand slides around to the nape of his neck, gently supporting the back of his head.]
I was afraid to let go of you, but you weren't afraid, not in the slightest. That's all I want for you now. To be able to let go of our hands, and show us how far you can go.
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There's such a familiar, pleasant weight in his mother's touch, even if it isn't as full as it ought to be. And he kisses her forehead so gently, because he doesn't know if he'll pass through.]
I think that a part of me is afraid of letting go in full.
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[She's just tangible enough that he can be certain there's something there, though it's not the familiar physical weight of a solid form. She's present but she isn't, and perhaps a good portion of the reason he's able to interact with her even this much is because she's so determined that he should be able to.]
What happens then?
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[Simple as that. A simple fear too. He doesn't have to elaborate, because this is his mother. She'll understand what is meant, even if there's only something half-tangible in front of him.]
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I would never ask you or want you to forget.
[She draws him down again, touching their foreheads together.]
I only want you to think of your own mark on the world. Not just preserving what remains of mine.
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I know. [But to know something and to do something are two very different things.]
There are times when it is easier. And others when it is impossible.
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[She smiles at him, but it wobbles, just a little.]
Watching over you is bittersweet when it's all I'm able to do. When what I wish I could do is have my son in my arms.
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[All three of them worry just the right amount. It is stupid, stoic, and self-centered. He knows it too, that's the worst of it.
And to hell with it. If that's a request he'll give it, wrap up whatever he can of his mother in his arms because this dream is more likely to never be again.]
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There are so many things she hasn't said, that she wants to; there are so many things she'll remember later and wish she'd thought of them now. There will never be enough time to tell him all the things she wants to, or what she's known and seen of him since she started to watch over him like this, or how proud she is of him — even for the choices she disagrees with or recoils from.
But maybe there don't need to be words. Maybe it's enough to cling to him, and to hold him tight, as the walls of the study around them start to fade into darkness.]
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* it's funny because it means bread in french
GROANS
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