cryptsleeper | with willpowerful

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.]

[It is very much a matter of need. And Alucard nods, knowing that he's directed this conversation away from the lightness of reunion. His own edification isn't a requirement but...well.

Knowing is better than always wondering.]

I can't say I'm surprised.

It would've been one thing, if —

[She stops short, the train of thought falling away as an expression of hurt and melancholy drifts across her features, and when she picks it up again, it's much more quietly.]

I would've understood, at least, if it'd only been his way of grieving. I wouldn't have agreed with it, but he is what he is. I never thought I could make him a man instead of a monster; I only tried to encourage more of the one in the other.

[She presses her lips into a thin line.]

But to do it in my name — he knew I wouldn't have wanted — he knew I would never have wanted —

[The arms around his mother grow tighter. Squeeze gently. Because in the end, everything that was, it was about how his mother would feel about the matter. That's all it ever was, just one family's heartbreak destroying an entire country along with themselves.]

I know.

[Knowledge that had driven everything to it's horrible end.]

And where do you both stand now?

When the two of you wound up in your old room...I think that was the first time he truly remembered me in a year of his grief. Not just the shadows of my memory that haunted him.

[She draws in a breath she doesn't need, and lets it out again, simply because.]

I still love him. He still loves me. What he did to you in particular haunts him the most — I don't think he regrets the rest of it much, even now. We...

[She closes her eyes, turning her face away.]

I'm still furious. But I can't bear the thought of being away from him.

Yes, that part was very obvious in the moment.

[He would like to move away from that terrible memory, thanks mom. Alucard's worked very hard to find ways to deal with all of that, because in that horrid little moment he had hoped that maybe the insane patricide quest might have been stopped.]

You get all the time to find a way through it now.

[Her face is away, but Alucard rests his face on the top of his mother's head. Just a warm weight. Just there.]

I missed him so much.

[This is an awkward, embarrassing thing for a mother to be admitting to her son, of all people, but here she is, and so it goes. She leans heavily against him, holding on as if seeking his support and his warmth.]

...Do you want to see him? If we were able to visit you again.

[Awkward, maybe. But honest. And utterly unsurprising, because his parents were practically on top of each other most nights Alucard remembers. It was ridiculous, still is when he reflects on those memories, but it also defined them.

The question isn't an easy one to answer.]

I think that'd need to be a very, very long dream.

[Which is not to say no, but it would be much messier than this.]

How are you managing this anyway?

It's as much you as it is me, I think. I'm loath to try to explain it without proper evidence, but my guess is that it's some sort of psychic resonance. Likely in a similar vein as the way you call your sword to you, only here what you've pulled is...me.

[She shrugs a little, though her mood does seem to perk up a touch at the prospect of scientific theory.]

Is there anything different about tonight, from what you do normally?

It's winter, so usually Sypha's in the middle of us instead of what the present arrangement is, but beyond that...

[He shakes his head no. Nothing else unusual at all.]

I suppose it'll have to be done again. To prove or disprove the theory.

Oh? It changes with the season, does it? How logistically challenging, to have more than one lover. I've only ever had to contend with having one.

[her son has a boyfriend AND a girlfriend and what better reaction can there possibly be than "yeah that's right get it boy".]

Have you been missing me moreso than usual?

It's...practical...when one runs colder during the hotter months. [Wait.] Mother.

[Please. This is embarrassing. Let him die.

Or just go and be serious again, that'll do it. Alucard pauses, wondering how much his mother saw of that....scrape.]

Something along those lines, I suppose. [If he has to almost burn at the stake for this to happen every time though, there's going to be problems.]

Perhaps that's something to do with it, then. An unusual yearning for me, and here I am.

[She leans on him, a little more heavily.]

And you needn't Mother me. If you're going to keep a pair of lovers, you'd best get used to people remarking on ordinary facts about them.

It would make the most sense. As much as any kind of dream thing can.

[That weight is nothing at all. He's happy for it. That it is there only makes Alucard smile, even as he's dealing with this particular topic.]

Beyond Sypha's people, no one's aware and they're not my mother.

Your mother has eyes, just like anyone else, and the capacity to use them moreover.

[She can't actually see his smile, the way they're currently positioned, but she knows it's there anyway. Mothers.]

The Speakers are aware of it, though, are they?

Hm, second part is rather the problem, I expect. Along with living out in the middle of lands that most of Wallachia considers cursed.

[So there are no village gossips. But Sypha's people well...]

...None one of us are known for our understanding of the concept of subtle.

I should say not. Between your Sypha all but melting the castle's traveling machinery, your Trevor's response to a present threat being to immediately punch it in the face, and your own irrepressible flair for the dramatic, I'd say the three of you are a well-matched set when it comes to a lack of subtlety.

[Not that she's one to talk; obviously he gets at least half of it from her. But still, objectively speaking, the point stands.]

It really is a shame, about the poor castle.

Hm. I wonder where my own lack of understanding comes from. What a mystery this is.

[There's a moment where he pulls away, just to put a finger to his lips and tap it thoughtfully. A great problem. Nay, the greatest. But then that actually becomes a serious gesture.]

We're trying to reverse it. Safer that way. And...

[Things shift again. Something dims just beyond the two of them, and Alucard hisses. Not yet. (It's morning, isn't it? He needs to get started on breakfast.)]

...Adrian.

[She noticed it too — perhaps even more acutely than he did, being that she is in some ways subject to the whims of his dreams in a way that he isn't.]

You might find some help in our old room. A few pages, somewhere, about the nature of the castle — your father wrote them for me early on. Not that I could've ever moved it on my own, but...well. You of all people know it's more than just a machine. It was supposed to help me better understand it, if I ever needed to ask something of it. Between you and Sypha, it might help you make some progress.

[Not yet, not yet, just a few more minutes.]

I'll...I'll look. I haven't gone in there in for a time [he's absolutely locked it] , but I'll find it.

[He'll take Sypha and Trevor with him. He'll need them both. And he hopes that they'll both be in bed when he wakes, as he'll need them for that too. There's something dark and wretched starting to rise up in his throat and he fights it back down.

This entire dream has been happiness. No tears permitted.

He squeezes his mother again. One last time. A real good-bye this time.]

I miss you so much, mother.

with willpowerful

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