cryptsleeper | with willpowerful

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.]

I love them both.

Mmm. Your Speaker.

[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.

[Speaking of fondness.]

As though you wouldn't find a way of inserting yourself into that conversation. You'd enjoy it as much as we would.

[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.

Mmm, I expect I'd be talked over.

[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?

...Mm?

[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.

[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. ]

And the rings?

He had them made, after I said yes. He was very proper about it — I think every cottage in Lupu wound up with some sort of gift, and certainly my parents had a whole chest of them. Not as a bride-price or anything like that — he hated the idea almost as much as I did — but I recall it was important to him, that lavishing of gifts. Paying his respects, I think, was how he saw it.

[She hums softly, her eyes closing halfway as she thinks back, collecting every detail she can.]

I had a necklace originally — it might still be in my old rooms, somewhere. And then we agreed on a sensible period of engagement, a few months, and then at the end of that few months, we had me kidnapped by a few of his generals, and after rescuing me and proving his worthiness in combat, the rings went on and that was that.

[There's a smile that endures. An entire village given gifs (he doesn't think horrid thoughts about those who betrayed her for it later, that's for Awake Alucard.)

And then...his generals. And it is ridiculous beyond words, and all Alucard can do is laugh. Laugh because images in his head are delightful. Laughs because it's too much of his father. Laughs because why did he expect anything else?]

I think that....that might be a bit overkill in my case.

[However Sypha's going to love this story.]

It was a very pleasant kidnapping, I'll have you know. I met all of my abductors in advance, and we all visited the appointed place where I was to be taken, and Vlad personally threatened each and every one of them with the terrible vengeance he would visit on them if a single hair on my head — well, you can guess how that went. They were very respectful about the theft of my person.

[The or else is so palpable in that last remark.]

Thinking of what you'll do for your own loved ones, are you?

I did figure that it was all pointedly prearranged and the standard threats were issued.

[He remembers the standard threats, at least. Bore witness to quite a few too.]

Mm. I don't expect things to change, and there's only a lifetime.

[For once, he manages to articulate that thought without sinking into a terrible fit of other depressed thoughts.]

You could, I suppose, go a bit lighter on the theatrics than he did.

[She tugs on his hair again, then reaches up to rest her hand against his cheek.]

But the principles are there. Respect their own loved ones, seal your promises. And try to make them laugh at least once, in the process.

I feel that I might surprise them more if I did none at all.

[He's the overdramatic fuck, so it'd be fun to throw the insult in their faces. Then the dramatics can happen in full.

Maybe it's pointless to point out that Trevor's about as alone as he is when it comes to extended family. Sypha's caravan, that's it. And maybe any rites that are done should be according to those customs.

Alucard pauses, then kisses the hand that rests on his cheek.]

I may just be laughing at their face, but...

No plans to kidnap Trevor, then?

[He's so gentle, so sweet; she never gets tired of his little notes of affection, even as she offers him up her own in return. This, he got from her, and the rhythm of exchanging these little touches is so familiar.]

I'm sure he'd be thrilled to be won in combat.

Hmmm, do I want the endless complaints in the process?

Something to reminisce about on your first anniversary.

[Oh. There's a dangerous idea.]

I just do that on the first anniversary. False sense of security.

You'd best get to work acquiring some generals, then.

[She pauses, reminiscing idly.]

Do you remember the one that could turn into a mist? A female vampire, she visited once or twice. We had a very pleasant time together, while I was abducted and out of commission.

I think that's a bridge too far.

[The mere idea of having any more than three in the castle is a bridge too far at the moment.]

But I do remember her, yes. I was likely older for that visit.

Mm. She was the ringleader of my kidnapping. There were a few others who answered to her for the purposes of the endeavor.

[She laughs softly.]

I'm afraid most of them didn't quite know what to do with me, I think. I suppose for them it was the equivalent of being told to cart, I don't know, a highly-prized goat to a woodshed somewhere and watch over it until its owner came to fetch it.

Most of them have that disconnect.

[Alucard doesn't know what's going on in the waking world. He's sure he doesn't care to know at the moment, because this conversation is so...so blissfully normal. He has his normal with the other two, but with his mother is so much more important.]

I don't think I could live with that kind of thinking. Beyond what I already have.

That's because I raised you with good sense.

[Well, and Vlad helped, but we all know where a lot of the good sense came from.]

So. Speaking of good sense, is there anything else you want to know about your father and I?

Hm. You were doing double duty at the time.

[He's just saying.]

That...hadn't actually been the point of the question. Not initially. [But there's one natural question to ask now:]

How badly did you yell at him after...everything?

...Oh.

[Oh, right. Of course. That. He would want to know, wouldn't he?

...Well. Maybe it's not about want, precisely. But certainly he needs to know.]

I couldn't speak to him, at first. I was so...

[...]

I knew I'd say something I'd wish I could take back later. So I didn't — we didn't speak. Later, I found the words.

[Translation: and then she screamed.]

with willpowerful

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