[There's a flicker of real warmth just before Sypha departs. It's kindled because of that smile, but also because he understands Sypha's own plan now. A study in contrasts, enough to make a first night of this easier and enough to have any questions be about how this happened, not why this? Because the why is obvious, and the brightness does invite questions from anyone who's old enough to actually behave.
It's the plan of a trickster, and what a role to play. What a way to skirt the already liminal space. Who else but her would think of it? Who else but Sypha could pull it off?
He watches her depart, and the smile fades. The warmth is gone, and even as there is blood served, he is cold and stiff and gains no color from it as he drinks. (Usual mutters about quality are said, and no questions asked about how. Ethical consumption is the watchword of any who live in the city.)
Alucard's eyes are never far from her though, even as deeper conversation progresses. Something about the Church Ladies having a harder time of it, too many funerals, some younger ones might be joining their ranks so that means some re-learning of the laws of the land. Another thing about something happening in Texas with the Morris family. Distant kin expected to join them, which does no one any harm because Texas is large.
Fifteen minutes are over. Morrises can wait.
The blood glass is put aside, drained, and he begins to make his way over to where Sypha is.]
[She's about halfway through sussing out just how the fae light spells are crafted when she starts to sense the approach of a few partygoers — three of them, in total, all young, two fanged. There's nothing about the way that they draw near that's inherently predatory, but there's still always something about partygoers that advance in groups on a single individual that lends itself to the feeling of a group of sharks moving in on blood in the water.
They're presumably harmless, though all of them carry a drink in their hands, and she notices with some curiosity that one's glass is filled with liquid the color of champagne, while another has something similarly bubbly but with more of a pink-rose tint to it.
You're her, aren't you? The human Speaker, the one with the rosé remarks pleasantly.]
Why, yes. Mm, but I think you are a step ahead of me, may I have the courtesy of your names?
[They introduce themselves, one by one — Richard and Walter and Charles — and they engage her in idle chatter for a few minutes before eventually, Walter remarks, gosh, what lugs we are, taking up the time of a pretty belle without even handing her a drink —
And she can't actually tell if it's coordinated or not, but she suspects that it is, or at least something they've done in practice before, because a little too quickly Charles has a glass of that rosé in his hand and is pressing it toward her, and all of a sudden she wants to look for Alucard, but she knows better than to take her eyes off of a cluster of sharks.]
[Alucard's already walking over to Sypha when three gentlemen he only vaguely recalls meeting seem to reach he first. He isn't concerned exactly - Sypha can hold her own. She's lived a life on the road, there's no doubt that she has dealt with far worse than three tipsy idiots at a party where decorum is actually important.
He doesn't speed up. What he does instead is make sure the three have their backs towards him as he approaches, his eyes making contact with Sypha to ask how far gone any situation is or is not.]
Did you satisfiy your curiosity with the spellwork, Sypha?
[The look in her eyes when she glances up is almost categorically the universal sign for "If these fuckboys even try to start shit I will set them on fire", but, you know, in a pretty and smiling sort of way.]
Mm! Almost, but I wound up a little distracted.
[Detained, more like, but it's almost funny to watch two significant things occur in a matter of an instant: first, the three young vampires whirling around to glimpse Alucard making his approach, and second, Charles very hastily hiding the glass in his hand behind his back.
— Lord, Richard sort of blurts out, when it occurs to them in a split-second that they actually have no idea what sort of address Alucard might be demanding right now, and opting to err on the side of not getting their heads ripped off. Uh. Good — good evening, lord.]
[He sees that glass. Alucard's eyes narrow at it, because he can smell what it really is. There's about twenty lectures to launch into including "you wouldn't do this to a new member of the local coven, hm?" and "so we should talk about human medical needs" but he settles on the disapproving face of "you know better" because it's going to get to the heart of the matter. You wouldn't do this if my father was here. Behave.
That ice wall can be pushed outward against those who earn it. Their confusion about the nonsense of titles helps as well.]
Unless you're interested in discussing theory for the next half hour, I don't think this is the kind of conversation any of you three would enjoy.
[The fact that Alucard doesn't correct them on the point of the title leaves an ambiguity that produces the same effect as if he'd outright confirmed it. This time it's Charles who weighs in with a hasty, yet almost sullen, Uh...no, no, lord, and Richard who quickly spurs them along to return to the party. Well met, miss, sorry to interrupt — and off they go, taking their pretty glasses with them.
Carefully, ever so carefully, Sypha watches them go. And gauges the distance between herself and the closest vampires to them. And compares that to what she knows of a vampire's typical range of earshot.
And then smiles, brilliantly, at Alucard.]
Your timing is perfect, as always. Just when I was growing tired of boys.
[Contrasts. And what will those eavesdroppers hear? Three youths have left; an adult remains.]
[Fifteen minutes seems about right for someone to be an idiot, so at least Alucard can be satisfied with that. His face is impassive as the trio retreats for the rest of the party, and beyond them, no one seems to be paying any attention at all. Sypha's comment gets a few nods, he can see those, and the rest of the world does not care.]
I did say fifteen minutes and not a moment more, didn't I?
[These breaks can only be that long then, it seems.]
The music is slower than the modern pieces for now. Do you know the steps?
I'm best with country dances and sailors' hornpipes, but I know enough of slower ones to keep up.
[She gravitates toward him, just a little, but doesn't return to his side or reach for his hand just yet. If they were at home, she'd already be draped down his arm with her head resting on his shoulder — but this isn't home, and here they are.]
It is, yes. Quick enough to pick up though, and if not, put your feet atop mine.
[They'll cheat because they can and who will say a word? Alucard's quiet for a moment more, and here he does need to offer his arm instead of his hand because that's more proper for dancing.
Dinner will be in half an hour yet, which means that if they go for ten minutes in dancing, then while away the remaining twenty, they will be a third of the way through the night. It is silly, counting down, but it helps Alucard remain so very sane and so very, very grounded in what he must do.
This though, as much as this is politics it is also pleasure. Because it is an excuse to be close to her, to have her body pressed against his, to ignore the world for just a few precious minutes while the noise and the music and the heady smells drift over them both. They can ignore all of those things and focus on each other.]
[She does, ultimately, end up with her feet atop his — just the tips of her toes — but not because she needs it so much as because she wants it. She wants to, wants this, wants to be close to him as much as she can, and it's such a small and affectionate little thing, to step surreptitiously up onto the tops of his shoes and let him carry her around the dance floor.
It's a risk, because everything is a risk. But there's a stubborn, selfish recklessness in her over it, too. Let them see that she belongs here, she thinks fiercely. Let them see how loved she is.
She realizes too late how much it must make him resemble his father, in the eyes of the old ones who remember.]
This is nice.
[She says it softly, pressed up against him, for no one's ears but his own.]
[It's the easiest part of the night by far. Sypha's weight on his feet is nothing at all, and te thrill of closeness carries him for the duration of the first dance and well into the second. There's fewer eyes on them right now, far fewer than there will be at dinner. (He has seen the arrangements, he is at the head of the table. Sypha to his right, because that is How These Things Work.) A luxury they can't pass up.
His thoughts are on her, not what they resemble. That's for the drive home.]
The dances will be faster after dinner. Modern.
[He sighs, and it's one of those sighs he makes when they're alone and in each other's company. Not talking, usually just reading in the vicinity of each other, some drama on the radio.]
Perhaps it will be you who stands on my feet, then. I'm far better than you at them, I am sure.
[She wants so desperately to kiss him. It would be so easy to bring them to a standstill, reach up and draw him down and do it, and if they were at home, she would.
Hm, I'd be afraid to crush them and to float would give away the game.
[On less formal nights, he'd indulge every urge that says his mouth needs to be on Sypha's. Now. And for the next several minutes. Tonight is too formal, too high in expectation, and he makes a note to cover her in kisses when they stir tomorrow.]
[She can feel the tension between them, the ache and the want pulled taut like an overtuned E string, trembling with every breath and held back only through sheer force of self-control, mostly Alucard's. He doesn't look like himself tonight, she muses idly, even as the rest of her unfinished thought slips away into nothingness, replaced solely by the glitter-glow of the magical lights and the glint of the gold of his eyes. He looks like a vampire prince, more statue than alive, straight out of a story breathed into being with the rise of the moon. But looking at him makes her long for her Alucard, with a softness in his features that isn't there tonight, and a boyishness to the upturn of his lips that runs warm instead of ice-cold.
She wants to kiss this prince until the spell breaks and he becomes hers again. This is perfect, it's all too perfect, and she wants to rip it all apart until he's her Alucard once more.
They're perfect. Together, they're perfect. And perfect is what the eyes on them will see, for the rest of the night, but for just this one moment she falters, fractures just enough to remember the rest of her earlier thought, and finish it.]
I'm glad I came back. From the train. Back to you.
[The music is coming to an end. Alucard can hear the last page of sheet music turn, they'll call this here because when that last note plays, there will be an announcement for all to take their seats. This is really the last time they'll get to have, to be as close to themselves as they'll be afforded for the rest of the night.
He'd rather be curled up talking theory right now. Those lights, how to make the microwave heat more evenly because there's cold spots even if the plate's burning, anything. Their life is perfect when there's no one else around to observe it. Observe them. Alucard's presence at these things in the past has always been limited. When he has popped up in circles they have always been the intellectual or the magic ones, because that's what fascinates him most. Never politics. Never this.
Yet this is how it must be. Slight of hand, even as that slight of hand is perfection.
He can't sigh with the terrible longing he feels right now.]
And here I thought you might've heard a story or two about what happens when you go to a vampire's castle for business and not bothered.
[He likes laughing about the book. His father, less so.
The song does end. Dinner is called exactly when Alucard expects it to be, and there is no luxury spared for the meal. Blood at the start for those who require it (he takes his in full view because he must.) Courses tailored for everyone's needs - vampires with blood sausages and blood soups, those more mortal have finer cuisines that include a bevy of seafood served off bone white china - wines that match each selection. There is small talk, but Alucard is quiet for most of it. When he can, he touches his foot to Sypha's. A promise that he isn't in his own head.
It is all such fine food. The music that comes after is just as fine and cheerfully, proudly modern, allowing those who are older to depart with grace and dignity while those younger can enjoy the rest of festivities until dawn. (He catches a few mutters. That dancing, if it wasn't for the hair you'd swear they were his parents. His heart stops.) Alucard still must circulate and take all remaining conversations, but those fall off as dawn approaches. He is apart from Sypha, but never for long. She needs that time apart to plant her feet in this society as her own person, not just as the Speaker who is with Dracula's son. There's one or two vampires that approach that he can trust to engage with her levelly (thank God for James and his shit science), and that is a place to grow.
Dawn threatens. They are the last two to leave, save Theodora and her kin who must, must retire. The goodbyes are scant but warm, and the two are shuffled out into the dawn.
Home then. Home with no incidents. Home where all this artifice can be shed.]
[There are, thankfully, no more incidents like the one with the young vampires of earlier. They keep their distance, now, and she learns the merits of plucking a safe drink of her own and simply keeping it in her hand for the duration — one trick circumvented, courtesy of experience. When she separates from Alucard, her wandering usually takes her back to the spells being worked around the yard; she's in the process of puzzling one out when one of the older vampires wanders over to politely engage her, and she quickly comes to like him, even if he is a bit funny in his behaviors.
James is, if not explicitly kind to her, at the very least courteous. Once or twice he makes a thoughtless passing comment about humans that makes her cringe a little inside, but they quickly hit it off when he starts to ruminate on the war, and she doesn't actually realize which one he means until he brings up an old Speaker acquaintance of his — Paul Revere.
Time goes by quickly after that. She warms to James a little more when he catches her hand in his and pats it with the other, making her promise to attend the next event so that they can continue their conversation. The night grows darker and darker, until at last it gets close to dawn, and the various denizens of the night take that as their cue to leave.
At last, when she returns to Alucard's side and goodbyes are being exchanged, she can take the liberty of leaning on him a little by feigning sleepiness, now that it's only Theodora and her relations there to see. And it's sleepiness that stops being so feigned once they're back in Alucard's car, and she goes boneless with weariness in her seat while he spirits them back toward home at last.]
...Alucard. There won't be any vampires in the daylight, will there?
[Dawn is breaking, as they drive. She lifts her head and looks at him, slow and drowsy and reminiscent of slow-burning embers and fireglow.]
[They're so close to home. Just five more minutes. He doesn't want to stop at all, he just wants to finish this. Exhaustion is creeping on him too, this night has been nothing but. He nods to confirm that there's no more threat of vampires being awake now. Dawn has come.
So he pulls over. Unsure of where this is about to go.]
[The car stops. There's no danger now, whether from the now-sleeping supernatural community or from the forward movement of the car, and he is here and she is here and it turns out, she can't wait five more minutes.
They're exhausted and burnt out and run ragged with perfection, and somehow still perfect is her awful red lipstick that matches his accents and it won't be for long, as she slides across the seat to him and takes his face in her hands and kisses him like she's starving.]
[The kiss shouldn't take him by surprise. It does, and the last thing Alucard manages to do is actually turn the car off because he thought this was just a temporary stop. After that, everything just becomes a floodgate.
He kisses back. Terribly and desperately and both his arms wrapping around her, clinging for dear life because that's all he wanted to do since before they even left. He is tired and exhausted and still so scared of the thing he's taken on, and Sypha is here and there's no complication and she deserves all the affection and adoration in the world.]
[She could fit a narrative to this, if she wanted. She's a Speaker; turning a string of events into a story is what she was born and raised to do. And half of good storytelling is knowing how to deftly weave in things that weren't there in practice, but that knit the retelling together — morals and themes and trends and callbacks. She could put all of that into this. She could make up a pretty thread of how they need this because home is sacred, home is just theirs, and so the poison needs to be drawn out before they enter it so as not to bring the stains in with them.
She could, but none of that has anything to do with why she's kissing him now.
The sentiment is so raw, so aching, that she (she! she, of all people) can't even fit words to it. She needs him, and he needs her, and they've needed each other all night but they couldn't, it couldn't be allowed. But now the rules are lifted, because they're safe here, and there's no one to give a damn if her fingers are slipping down the line of his jaw to his throat, to the buttons of his shirt, loosening them not because she wants to reach under it but simply because she can't stand how perfect he is right now, and wants to be the one to dishevel him.]
Adrian.
[She smothers the word against his lips, smudging her lipstick on his mouth as one kiss turns to two and to three in an ever-lengthening chain. There's the faintest hint of a copper taste in his mouth and she doesn't let herself think about it. She comes close to cutting her tongue on the tip of one of his fangs, and she doesn't let herself think about that either.]
I will kill you. If you take your hands off me.
[Not that she thinks there's any real chance of that, but it bears remarking, just the same.]
[He kisses back to show he understands. To show that he isn't thinking about how they can't be doing this in the car, there's hardly enough room in the front seat (he totally is though.) All he's focused on is how wonderful his name is on her lips, now sweet it sounds after a night of a name that might as well be a title.
He can't even bring himself to try and touch her clothes, tug at that high collar because it's ridiculous, he can only drag her closer towards him until he can't put her on his lap. Steering wheel is in the way.
So they'll just have to continue at this terrible angle, chasing the night away with every kiss. There's detailed ignored because they're not as important as this, as being here as the sun rises high, as morning unfolds in full.
Alucard doesn't know how long they sit there like this. He knows that to break all of this is a sin, but they're out of places to go.]
We'll be more comfortable for this when we're in our own bed, Sypha.
[It's only when his shirt is a mess and his mouth is smudged red with something that thankfully isn't blood and his eyes are glittering bright with life rather than the dead sarcophagus gold that they'd been at the party, only then that she slowly lets him draw away enough for her to look at him, just look at him. They're just minutes from home, she knows, and she ought to let him drive, but she doesn't — not for a little bit longer yet.
She just wants to look at him. For a little while, that's all she does, is just look at him, beautiful and flawed and weary prince that he is, shedding his perfection with the light of the dawn, as though the sunbeams crawling up from the edge of the sky are burning away all the marble rigidity in his frame.]
Yes, I know.
[She breathes in deep, filling her chest with it, and lets it out again in a sigh that makes her shoulders sag and her expression soften. It was good to kiss him, and she's sleepy-sated now — for a little while, at least. Until they can make it home, perhaps.]
[They're contrasting again, aren't they? Alucard's clung to Sypha so fiercely but there's almost nothing out of place. Her shirt's untucked, her hair is a little more mussed than it was before. That's it. Wheras she's undone so much of him already (that's something else to unpack). He knows what he must look like, all undone because the tension of the night has finally snapped.
He's breathless when she pulls away. Just looks at him, and there's not an ounce of shame in letting her witness everything that's truly happening in his head. He is tired, he is scared, he is so glad for her, for this moment, and he wants to hold onto that moment for as long as he can now.
[There is a benign way to parse that sentence and a scandalous one, and either one could apply here. Perhaps they both could. Perhaps that's exactly the point.
She rakes her hand through his hair, rumpling the strands, petting him loose.]
Which is where we should hurry to be. Home, and to bed, and not to get up again for at least half the day.
[It's entirely dependent on exhaustion levels in the next five minutes.
He starts the car again. There's never been any kind of magic modification done to it, but it roars to life in an instant. It allows for just enough time to steal another kiss. To make sure Sypha's aware how much everything has meant tonight. He worries about so much, panics about making her the guardian of his emotional well being in many ways. That the need is sometimes too much of a demand.]
I'll be there until moonrise, I expect.
[At least. To be in the arms of sleep is a thing to be wishes. So he drives them both home. Just five minutes. Five minutes to get home, pass through the gates, put the car in the garage. To slide out and then refuse Sypha even a moment to get out under her own steam.
She's in his arms. Where she ought to have been all night.]
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It's the plan of a trickster, and what a role to play. What a way to skirt the already liminal space. Who else but her would think of it? Who else but Sypha could pull it off?
He watches her depart, and the smile fades. The warmth is gone, and even as there is blood served, he is cold and stiff and gains no color from it as he drinks. (Usual mutters about quality are said, and no questions asked about how. Ethical consumption is the watchword of any who live in the city.)
Alucard's eyes are never far from her though, even as deeper conversation progresses. Something about the Church Ladies having a harder time of it, too many funerals, some younger ones might be joining their ranks so that means some re-learning of the laws of the land. Another thing about something happening in Texas with the Morris family. Distant kin expected to join them, which does no one any harm because Texas is large.
Fifteen minutes are over. Morrises can wait.
The blood glass is put aside, drained, and he begins to make his way over to where Sypha is.]
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They're presumably harmless, though all of them carry a drink in their hands, and she notices with some curiosity that one's glass is filled with liquid the color of champagne, while another has something similarly bubbly but with more of a pink-rose tint to it.
You're her, aren't you? The human Speaker, the one with the rosé remarks pleasantly.]
Why, yes. Mm, but I think you are a step ahead of me, may I have the courtesy of your names?
[They introduce themselves, one by one — Richard and Walter and Charles — and they engage her in idle chatter for a few minutes before eventually, Walter remarks, gosh, what lugs we are, taking up the time of a pretty belle without even handing her a drink —
And she can't actually tell if it's coordinated or not, but she suspects that it is, or at least something they've done in practice before, because a little too quickly Charles has a glass of that rosé in his hand and is pressing it toward her, and all of a sudden she wants to look for Alucard, but she knows better than to take her eyes off of a cluster of sharks.]
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He doesn't speed up. What he does instead is make sure the three have their backs towards him as he approaches, his eyes making contact with Sypha to ask how far gone any situation is or is not.]
Did you satisfiy your curiosity with the spellwork, Sypha?
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Mm! Almost, but I wound up a little distracted.
[Detained, more like, but it's almost funny to watch two significant things occur in a matter of an instant: first, the three young vampires whirling around to glimpse Alucard making his approach, and second, Charles very hastily hiding the glass in his hand behind his back.
— Lord, Richard sort of blurts out, when it occurs to them in a split-second that they actually have no idea what sort of address Alucard might be demanding right now, and opting to err on the side of not getting their heads ripped off. Uh. Good — good evening, lord.]
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Far be it from me to distract you as well then.
[He sees that glass. Alucard's eyes narrow at it, because he can smell what it really is. There's about twenty lectures to launch into including "you wouldn't do this to a new member of the local coven, hm?" and "so we should talk about human medical needs" but he settles on the disapproving face of "you know better" because it's going to get to the heart of the matter. You wouldn't do this if my father was here. Behave.
That ice wall can be pushed outward against those who earn it. Their confusion about the nonsense of titles helps as well.]
Unless you're interested in discussing theory for the next half hour, I don't think this is the kind of conversation any of you three would enjoy.
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Carefully, ever so carefully, Sypha watches them go. And gauges the distance between herself and the closest vampires to them. And compares that to what she knows of a vampire's typical range of earshot.
And then smiles, brilliantly, at Alucard.]
Your timing is perfect, as always. Just when I was growing tired of boys.
[Contrasts. And what will those eavesdroppers hear? Three youths have left; an adult remains.]
Have you come to ask me to dance, I hope?
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I did say fifteen minutes and not a moment more, didn't I?
[These breaks can only be that long then, it seems.]
The music is slower than the modern pieces for now. Do you know the steps?
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[She gravitates toward him, just a little, but doesn't return to his side or reach for his hand just yet. If they were at home, she'd already be draped down his arm with her head resting on his shoulder — but this isn't home, and here they are.]
Is it a waltz, this one?
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[They'll cheat because they can and who will say a word? Alucard's quiet for a moment more, and here he does need to offer his arm instead of his hand because that's more proper for dancing.
Dinner will be in half an hour yet, which means that if they go for ten minutes in dancing, then while away the remaining twenty, they will be a third of the way through the night. It is silly, counting down, but it helps Alucard remain so very sane and so very, very grounded in what he must do.
This though, as much as this is politics it is also pleasure. Because it is an excuse to be close to her, to have her body pressed against his, to ignore the world for just a few precious minutes while the noise and the music and the heady smells drift over them both. They can ignore all of those things and focus on each other.]
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It's a risk, because everything is a risk. But there's a stubborn, selfish recklessness in her over it, too. Let them see that she belongs here, she thinks fiercely. Let them see how loved she is.
She realizes too late how much it must make him resemble his father, in the eyes of the old ones who remember.]
This is nice.
[She says it softly, pressed up against him, for no one's ears but his own.]
I like dancing, if it lets us be like this.
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His thoughts are on her, not what they resemble. That's for the drive home.]
The dances will be faster after dinner. Modern.
[He sighs, and it's one of those sighs he makes when they're alone and in each other's company. Not talking, usually just reading in the vicinity of each other, some drama on the radio.]
I'll find every excuse to be here with you then.
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[She wants so desperately to kiss him. It would be so easy to bring them to a standstill, reach up and draw him down and do it, and if they were at home, she would.
They're not, and she can't.]
You're perfect, you know.
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[On less formal nights, he'd indulge every urge that says his mouth needs to be on Sypha's. Now. And for the next several minutes. Tonight is too formal, too high in expectation, and he makes a note to cover her in kisses when they stir tomorrow.]
As are you. Beyond it.
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[She can feel the tension between them, the ache and the want pulled taut like an overtuned E string, trembling with every breath and held back only through sheer force of self-control, mostly Alucard's. He doesn't look like himself tonight, she muses idly, even as the rest of her unfinished thought slips away into nothingness, replaced solely by the glitter-glow of the magical lights and the glint of the gold of his eyes. He looks like a vampire prince, more statue than alive, straight out of a story breathed into being with the rise of the moon. But looking at him makes her long for her Alucard, with a softness in his features that isn't there tonight, and a boyishness to the upturn of his lips that runs warm instead of ice-cold.
She wants to kiss this prince until the spell breaks and he becomes hers again. This is perfect, it's all too perfect, and she wants to rip it all apart until he's her Alucard once more.
They're perfect. Together, they're perfect. And perfect is what the eyes on them will see, for the rest of the night, but for just this one moment she falters, fractures just enough to remember the rest of her earlier thought, and finish it.]
I'm glad I came back. From the train. Back to you.
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He'd rather be curled up talking theory right now. Those lights, how to make the microwave heat more evenly because there's cold spots even if the plate's burning, anything. Their life is perfect when there's no one else around to observe it. Observe them. Alucard's presence at these things in the past has always been limited. When he has popped up in circles they have always been the intellectual or the magic ones, because that's what fascinates him most. Never politics. Never this.
Yet this is how it must be. Slight of hand, even as that slight of hand is perfection.
He can't sigh with the terrible longing he feels right now.]
And here I thought you might've heard a story or two about what happens when you go to a vampire's castle for business and not bothered.
[He likes laughing about the book. His father, less so.
The song does end. Dinner is called exactly when Alucard expects it to be, and there is no luxury spared for the meal. Blood at the start for those who require it (he takes his in full view because he must.) Courses tailored for everyone's needs - vampires with blood sausages and blood soups, those more mortal have finer cuisines that include a bevy of seafood served off bone white china - wines that match each selection. There is small talk, but Alucard is quiet for most of it. When he can, he touches his foot to Sypha's. A promise that he isn't in his own head.
It is all such fine food. The music that comes after is just as fine and cheerfully, proudly modern, allowing those who are older to depart with grace and dignity while those younger can enjoy the rest of festivities until dawn. (He catches a few mutters. That dancing, if it wasn't for the hair you'd swear they were his parents. His heart stops.) Alucard still must circulate and take all remaining conversations, but those fall off as dawn approaches. He is apart from Sypha, but never for long. She needs that time apart to plant her feet in this society as her own person, not just as the Speaker who is with Dracula's son. There's one or two vampires that approach that he can trust to engage with her levelly (thank God for James and his shit science), and that is a place to grow.
Dawn threatens. They are the last two to leave, save Theodora and her kin who must, must retire. The goodbyes are scant but warm, and the two are shuffled out into the dawn.
Home then. Home with no incidents. Home where all this artifice can be shed.]
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James is, if not explicitly kind to her, at the very least courteous. Once or twice he makes a thoughtless passing comment about humans that makes her cringe a little inside, but they quickly hit it off when he starts to ruminate on the war, and she doesn't actually realize which one he means until he brings up an old Speaker acquaintance of his — Paul Revere.
Time goes by quickly after that. She warms to James a little more when he catches her hand in his and pats it with the other, making her promise to attend the next event so that they can continue their conversation. The night grows darker and darker, until at last it gets close to dawn, and the various denizens of the night take that as their cue to leave.
At last, when she returns to Alucard's side and goodbyes are being exchanged, she can take the liberty of leaning on him a little by feigning sleepiness, now that it's only Theodora and her relations there to see. And it's sleepiness that stops being so feigned once they're back in Alucard's car, and she goes boneless with weariness in her seat while he spirits them back toward home at last.]
...Alucard. There won't be any vampires in the daylight, will there?
[Dawn is breaking, as they drive. She lifts her head and looks at him, slow and drowsy and reminiscent of slow-burning embers and fireglow.]
Pull the car over? Just for a minute.
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[They're so close to home. Just five more minutes. He doesn't want to stop at all, he just wants to finish this. Exhaustion is creeping on him too, this night has been nothing but. He nods to confirm that there's no more threat of vampires being awake now. Dawn has come.
So he pulls over. Unsure of where this is about to go.]
What is it?
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They're exhausted and burnt out and run ragged with perfection, and somehow still perfect is her awful red lipstick that matches his accents and it won't be for long, as she slides across the seat to him and takes his face in her hands and kisses him like she's starving.]
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He kisses back. Terribly and desperately and both his arms wrapping around her, clinging for dear life because that's all he wanted to do since before they even left. He is tired and exhausted and still so scared of the thing he's taken on, and Sypha is here and there's no complication and she deserves all the affection and adoration in the world.]
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She could, but none of that has anything to do with why she's kissing him now.
The sentiment is so raw, so aching, that she (she! she, of all people) can't even fit words to it. She needs him, and he needs her, and they've needed each other all night but they couldn't, it couldn't be allowed. But now the rules are lifted, because they're safe here, and there's no one to give a damn if her fingers are slipping down the line of his jaw to his throat, to the buttons of his shirt, loosening them not because she wants to reach under it but simply because she can't stand how perfect he is right now, and wants to be the one to dishevel him.]
Adrian.
[She smothers the word against his lips, smudging her lipstick on his mouth as one kiss turns to two and to three in an ever-lengthening chain. There's the faintest hint of a copper taste in his mouth and she doesn't let herself think about it. She comes close to cutting her tongue on the tip of one of his fangs, and she doesn't let herself think about that either.]
I will kill you. If you take your hands off me.
[Not that she thinks there's any real chance of that, but it bears remarking, just the same.]
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He can't even bring himself to try and touch her clothes, tug at that high collar because it's ridiculous, he can only drag her closer towards him until he can't put her on his lap. Steering wheel is in the way.
So they'll just have to continue at this terrible angle, chasing the night away with every kiss. There's detailed ignored because they're not as important as this, as being here as the sun rises high, as morning unfolds in full.
Alucard doesn't know how long they sit there like this. He knows that to break all of this is a sin, but they're out of places to go.]
We'll be more comfortable for this when we're in our own bed, Sypha.
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She just wants to look at him. For a little while, that's all she does, is just look at him, beautiful and flawed and weary prince that he is, shedding his perfection with the light of the dawn, as though the sunbeams crawling up from the edge of the sky are burning away all the marble rigidity in his frame.]
Yes, I know.
[She breathes in deep, filling her chest with it, and lets it out again in a sigh that makes her shoulders sag and her expression soften. It was good to kiss him, and she's sleepy-sated now — for a little while, at least. Until they can make it home, perhaps.]
You look better like this.
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He's breathless when she pulls away. Just looks at him, and there's not an ounce of shame in letting her witness everything that's truly happening in his head. He is tired, he is scared, he is so glad for her, for this moment, and he wants to hold onto that moment for as long as he can now.
At her judgement, there's a breathless laugh.]
You're the expert on when I look my best.
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[There is a benign way to parse that sentence and a scandalous one, and either one could apply here. Perhaps they both could. Perhaps that's exactly the point.
She rakes her hand through his hair, rumpling the strands, petting him loose.]
Which is where we should hurry to be. Home, and to bed, and not to get up again for at least half the day.
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He starts the car again. There's never been any kind of magic modification done to it, but it roars to life in an instant. It allows for just enough time to steal another kiss. To make sure Sypha's aware how much everything has meant tonight. He worries about so much, panics about making her the guardian of his emotional well being in many ways. That the need is sometimes too much of a demand.]
I'll be there until moonrise, I expect.
[At least. To be in the arms of sleep is a thing to be wishes. So he drives them both home. Just five minutes. Five minutes to get home, pass through the gates, put the car in the garage. To slide out and then refuse Sypha even a moment to get out under her own steam.
She's in his arms. Where she ought to have been all night.]
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