[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.]
Alucard tries to keep the study in view. Keep them both in a place familiar, if not always warm. (Too many horrible things happened in the study for it to be full of warmth.) He holds onto his mother. He doesn't know if privileging one thing shall diminish the other. If it does, then he knows who the priority is.
There's such a heavy sigh out of him, all the exhaustion and grief manifested in a single, wretched noise.]
[He succeeds, of course, because this is his dream, after all. Forcing his will upon it like this might make it a touch more lucid, the surroundings more responsive to his intentions for them, but the price of lucidity is that in the waking world, he's just slightly closer now to rousing than he'd been before.
But in the dream, it holds. The study grows clearer again around the edges, the seeping darkness pressing back. And in his arms, Lisa grows just a touch more solid and heavy, because she is, on some level, subject to his will in his dreams, too.]
For as long as I can, my little star.
[She tucks against him, trying to bring him some comfort by the weight of her presence.]
And even when you're awake, I hear you. I watch you. I'm never far from you, believe me.
[There. There, that's better. It buys precious minutes, maybe it'll give them ten. Fifteen. Enough time for more than just this. Physical closeness is one thing, but there's that and there's talking.
They've had so little of that. He misses it, because the conversation Alucard had with his mother were never the ones he had with his father.]
...There are a few points in time I hope that's not the case.
[It's easier, somehow, to be holding on to him. It keeps her anchored, and so she lets her fingers curl lightly in his shirt, unmindful of how it will wrinkle if she does. It's only a dream, after all, but this will help her to stay.]
Now. Indulge a mother's curiosity and tell me about your friends? It's one thing to watch you with them, but I want to hear what you think of them, yourself.
[That weight on his shirt is the greatest thing. He smiles, not just for the gesture but for what his mother asks.]
You'd had thought Trevor rude the first time you met him. He is, mostly, but I know you too well. And you'd probably laugh about parallels, because I did too after I realized it.
I worry, a little, about him being a Belmont. Or I did, at least, until the two of you seemed to find your footing with each other.
[She sighs a little, smiling almost ruefully.]
I always worried about you that way. Hoping that you would manage to find the people in the world with enough of an open mind to take you as you are, for who you want to be. I wouldn't have guessed a son of the Belmonts to be among them.
Neither personalities made it easy. [Bluntly, they're both assholes. And prickly.] None of it would have happened without Sypha.
[And that's a truth too. Those first few moments of walking out into the sunlight after that horrid night, that was where it all managed to originate.]
In fairness, I wouldn't have expected it either. The circumstances were...[Nope. They're not talking about that now.]
[It's so unexpectedly good to hear him admit his feelings for them so frankly. Her son has always been one to keep his thoughts aloof and his emotions close to his chest; that he's willing to make a confession like that is warming, to say the least.]
I can see they've both been good for you. Trevor knows how to provoke you when you need provocation. And Sypha, it seems, has a knack for tempering that with acceptance.
You two would probably abandon all of us to just discuss theories into the morning light.
[That's something Alucard's always known. Magic and medical science. New applications of them both. The world moves forward, and everyone else has to just sit and listen to it. (Fondly. Maybe with some awkward if his father was around.
Ok, a lot of awkward.)]
Until they've both decided to be bullies. It's known to happen.
[Her eyebrows go up, a little surprised, and almost instinctively she glances to the ring on her finger — still there, the same as always, where it's meant to be — before turning her attention back to him.]
Well. He asked, first, which was surprising enough in and of itself. He found me a bouquet of flowers I'd never seen before — it had to have been incredibly taxing on him, but he waited until I was set to go into town for an afternoon, then moved the castle to wherever he'd found them and moved it back again, all before I got back home so I wouldn't suspect. We had dinner, I told him about my afternoon, and then he asked that I stay up until midnight for some astronomical phenomenon he wanted to show me.
[She's starting to smile, just from the reminiscing.]
He took me up to the roof of the castle's tallest tower, so that there was nothing at all above us except sky, all spread out from horizon to horizon, and told me he'd give me all of it and more, if I would give him just one thing in return. So I asked what it was, because I couldn't very well leave a question like that alone, and he picked up my hand and kissed it and said "this hand, to be mine."
[Alucard knew most of the small romantic stories of his parents. He listened when they spoke over him in his youth, or else he witnessed so many of their moments that he wove his own stories and understandings of what he witnessed.
He always knew that of the things he inherited from his father, he got this as well.
The smile on his face is so soft, so endeared, so happy to just know. Why hadn't he ever asked before? He should have. ]
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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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He refuses.
Alucard tries to keep the study in view. Keep them both in a place familiar, if not always warm. (Too many horrible things happened in the study for it to be full of warmth.) He holds onto his mother. He doesn't know if privileging one thing shall diminish the other. If it does, then he knows who the priority is.
There's such a heavy sigh out of him, all the exhaustion and grief manifested in a single, wretched noise.]
Stay. Please.
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But in the dream, it holds. The study grows clearer again around the edges, the seeping darkness pressing back. And in his arms, Lisa grows just a touch more solid and heavy, because she is, on some level, subject to his will in his dreams, too.]
For as long as I can, my little star.
[She tucks against him, trying to bring him some comfort by the weight of her presence.]
And even when you're awake, I hear you. I watch you. I'm never far from you, believe me.
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They've had so little of that. He misses it, because the conversation Alucard had with his mother were never the ones he had with his father.]
...There are a few points in time I hope that's not the case.
[There has to be some dark comedy in here.]
I miss talking. Just the two of us.
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[It's easier, somehow, to be holding on to him. It keeps her anchored, and so she lets her fingers curl lightly in his shirt, unmindful of how it will wrinkle if she does. It's only a dream, after all, but this will help her to stay.]
Now. Indulge a mother's curiosity and tell me about your friends? It's one thing to watch you with them, but I want to hear what you think of them, yourself.
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You'd had thought Trevor rude the first time you met him. He is, mostly, but I know you too well. And you'd probably laugh about parallels, because I did too after I realized it.
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[She sighs a little, smiling almost ruefully.]
I always worried about you that way. Hoping that you would manage to find the people in the world with enough of an open mind to take you as you are, for who you want to be. I wouldn't have guessed a son of the Belmonts to be among them.
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[And that's a truth too. Those first few moments of walking out into the sunlight after that horrid night, that was where it all managed to originate.]
In fairness, I wouldn't have expected it either. The circumstances were...[Nope. They're not talking about that now.]
I love them both.
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[It's so unexpectedly good to hear him admit his feelings for them so frankly. Her son has always been one to keep his thoughts aloof and his emotions close to his chest; that he's willing to make a confession like that is warming, to say the least.]
I can see they've both been good for you. Trevor knows how to provoke you when you need provocation. And Sypha, it seems, has a knack for tempering that with acceptance.
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[That's something Alucard's always known. Magic and medical science. New applications of them both. The world moves forward, and everyone else has to just sit and listen to it. (Fondly. Maybe with some awkward if his father was around.
Ok, a lot of awkward.)]
Until they've both decided to be bullies. It's known to happen.
[Speaking of fondness.]
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[She reaches up, tugging lightly at a lock of his hair, playful.]
And you don't do the same in return, with each of them? You know you have to accept what you dish out in kind, my dearest.
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[He smiles at that too. Doesn't blush, but it's so very near.]
I like to think I do it the least. [He fucking well does not.
But...there's something to ask. While they have time. Where she's here. And that question does put red in his cheeks.]
Mother, when you and father decided to...solemnize things, since I know no religious authority was involved, how did you go about it?
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[Her eyebrows go up, a little surprised, and almost instinctively she glances to the ring on her finger — still there, the same as always, where it's meant to be — before turning her attention back to him.]
Well. He asked, first, which was surprising enough in and of itself. He found me a bouquet of flowers I'd never seen before — it had to have been incredibly taxing on him, but he waited until I was set to go into town for an afternoon, then moved the castle to wherever he'd found them and moved it back again, all before I got back home so I wouldn't suspect. We had dinner, I told him about my afternoon, and then he asked that I stay up until midnight for some astronomical phenomenon he wanted to show me.
[She's starting to smile, just from the reminiscing.]
He took me up to the roof of the castle's tallest tower, so that there was nothing at all above us except sky, all spread out from horizon to horizon, and told me he'd give me all of it and more, if I would give him just one thing in return. So I asked what it was, because I couldn't very well leave a question like that alone, and he picked up my hand and kissed it and said "this hand, to be mine."
[A beat.]
So you see, you get it from your father.
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He always knew that of the things he inherited from his father, he got this as well.
The smile on his face is so soft, so endeared, so happy to just know. Why hadn't he ever asked before? He should have. ]
And the rings?
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* it's funny because it means bread in french
GROANS
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