With matercula

[cryptsleeper]

Continued from here!

[The way back to the castle brought no surprises. No mobs. Nothing. There was only the road and there was only silence. For most of, Alucard slept, stirring only when there was a change in terrain or something felt off. His sleep wasn't deep. It was just enough to take the reins from his mother if he absolutely had to.

That never came to pass, and in the foothills of the Carpathians, familiar spires rose above the treeline. For any other travelers, the word to describe the spires would be loom. Alucard considered them welcoming. They were home, the horrors far, far behind them and any church hounds were equally distant.

Alucard sleeps for a solid week, having not bothered to eat before collapsing on his bed and only taking a cursory five minutes to try and remove all the blood from his person. (The tattered remains of his shirt and trousers were exchanged for sleep clothes, at least.) It's longer than he expected, the expanse of energy hadn't felt that intense at the time. But it was, and his body decided that those same abilities that had propelled Alucard ever forward needed that much time to reset.

When he wakes, there's an uncertainty that everything before wasn't a dream. It's only when he walks over to the mirror to look at himself, enough blood still there (his hair's a matted mess, it's not a good look) to remind him: yes. Everything transpired as you remember it.

The next part is routine. Cleaning all the blood off. Finding clean clothes. Changing the sheets on his bed not because of the few spots of dried blood, but because the stink of it is alarming at best. It helps keep his mind away from the next wave of emotion that he knows has to hit sooner or later. The emotional one, the one that's going to take more time to get through. Guilt, grief, anger, relief, all of it, a churning mess that will interact with two others and make those same feelings flare like wildfires. He ought to eat first.

But he doesn't. Alucard walks the halls of the castle instead. His parents should know he's awake.]

Comments

[cryptsleeper]

It isn't on purpose, I can assure you. On these topics, I would be content in ignorance.

[So much ignorance about the foot thing.

There's a few books left in the crate, and Alucard grabs the next one. It doesn't go on the shelf though, this one he offers to his mother.]

This wasn't in the order. It caught my eye as I walked in.

[The binding isn't flashy either, and within is no medical glory. Instead it speaks of only the skies, of stars, and what patterns live in them. None of it is new information. What is new, why it caught her son's eye in the first place are the woodcuts. They're rendered lovingly, but more than that is the deft hand of a colorist who has taken great care to give a sense of depth to each image.]

[matercula]

Oh?

[Curious, she takes the book from him, nestling it carefully in the crook of one arm as she opens the cover with the other, and as soon as she does, she understands instantly why her son was drawn to this one. The stars, the night sky — they'd always given these things to him, even from the time when he was only an infant, painting the decorations in his room with constellations and rewarding him with glimpses through his father's telescope after moments of triumph and success.

It's a beautiful book. The illustrations are delicate and finely crafted, with that fragile and minimalist sort of look that art of its nature always seems to carry. And page by page, she traces the very tips of her fingers over the images, wondering at their delicate beauty.]

...Oh. It's beautiful...

[No wonder it caught your eye, is the implication between the lines.]

[cryptsleeper]

[Alucard can't help but stay where he is, looking up at his mother goig through all the pages of the book. Astronomy was as much a part of growing up as all the other sciences, but the art of depicting the sky, that's something that seems to always be a skill, the knowledge of how it all works be damned.

He remembers the books at home. The illuminated manuscripts (he always wondered how his father acquired them from monasteries), the rarer things on papyrus. This is just a continuation.]

You could keep it open on one of the spare tables. It might spark some interest.

[matercula]

Or make a fine litmus test for deciding which of my patients we like and which ones we like?

[She turns the page again, lips parting slightly in a silent, pleased intake of breath at the next page.]

Look at this one — an aurora. It looks like the glow of a fire below the horizon.

[cryptsleeper]

It can serve two purposes.

[The description of the next page is enough to actually prompt Alucard to his feet. It was something read about once or twice, but there had never been any particular images so far as he could remember. Within a moment he is standing besides his mother eyes looking down at the page.

It is remarkable. And he can't help but grin.]

Remarkable. I can't believe the patron that originally requested it decided to leave this behind.

[matercula]

Their loss was your gain, it seems.

[It makes it easy to share the pages, the fact that he's taller than her. She fits in easily just a little bit in front of him, so that he can look over her shoulder without difficulty while they both examine the pages.]

We came close to naming you Sirius, you know. It didn't stick in the end, but it was a favorite for a while.

[cryptsleeper]

Yours, actually.

[It's an important clarification. It's also nothing compared to all the books that Alucard got to grow up with, but it's a tiny little start.]

I...hm. [He stands there for a moment, considering the weight of this name versus his own, then shakes his head.] The flow of it doesn't work at all. Whose suggestion was that?

[matercula]

Ours.

[It's a little bit like his earlier they — keeping the important components together. We, us, our. Togetherness. Family. It's also wholly unconscious, and because of it, it takes her a moment before it occurs to her why he'd made that particular clarification in the first place.

The fire took so much of what was hers, didn't it. And the things she has now, many of them are shared — which isn't a bad thing by any means. But this...this is hers, he says, and means for her, just her, without needing to be shared. Just hers, to make her happy.

She pretends like she's shifting to nudge him playfully, but lingers and turns it into an affectionate lean.]

Oh, but the name — that was one of your father's attempts. I recall it was when we were painting your room, and he started to look more and more lost in thought, and was painting less and less. I could tell he was utterly preoccupied with something, so I let him ponder it until he finally offered it up.

[She shrugs a little.]

I only ever heard him admit to it once, but he said under his breath that it would be fitting for you to be the brightest of stars. The name itself didn't stick, of course, but the sentiment lingered.

that was the cutest fucking tag i can't deal

[cryptsleeper]

[He's about to correct, insist yours, but Alucard doesn't have to. His mother figures it out, and to not have to repeat the word again is a mercy. All of the events that lead them here still loom, and it's why the castle has seen less of the three of them since they've moved. There's still the underlying terror that stepping away for even a moment will invite fate to pick up where it let off.

The nudge is met with a gentle hand on his mother's shoulder, all the warmth of the gesture contrasted against Alucard's colder temperature.]

That is...very him.

[It's also very embarrassing, because when his parents want they can really be the schmoopiest people. And because they're still like this, Alucard smiles through the total embarrassment.]

The way he came about it and the sentiment.

awkward dad vlad is trying his best

[matercula]

It was easier for him, I think, when you were young. He was more at a loss of what to do with you in other ways back then, but it was simpler for him to make you happy. All it took was to pick you up or hand you a toy, and you would smile at him. He liked to make you smile; you might have been too young to remember that, but I do.

[And perhaps work on the clinic is going to stall out for the time being, thanks to this reminiscing, but there will be plenty of time to get the downstairs in order. Right now, the reminiscing adds warmth to the way she's still idly leafing through the pages of the book, glancing over the woodcut images as though taking stock of which pages she wants to peruse more thoroughly later.]

I know it's harder for him now. The sentiment is still there, but he can't simply win you over with a toy or a pat on the head anymore.

he's doing great we're proud of him

[cryptsleeper]

Adults are much more complicated.

[He's much more complicated, and adrift in life in the way all 20 somethings are. Before the fire, before everything, Alucard was unsure of what he might do. Travel as his father did, perhaps. But beyond that? A professional life, or something quieter? He was never quite sure.]

And I think that he forgets that for all the parts of himself reflected in me, they've been shaped by very difference forces.

[That had been one of the quieter takeaways from the argument that was not. The way they saw the world, it was both impacted by Lisa. Alucard had come by it naturally, his father had not.]

at this precise moment in the thread he is probably haggling with a baba over the price of carrots

[matercula]

Yes. He sees me in you, but you aren't me. And he sees himself in you, but you aren't him. But I think, more often than not, he's glad when you take after me more than you do him.

[Which is not always apparent, perhaps, on the surface. But Vlad is, after all, a difficult man to crack, and his true intentions are often challenging to read even among the people who know him best.]

He'll never say as much, of course. And when he shows his affection, he always wants to show it through protectiveness. But you don't need his protection anymore, not the way you used to. So he harbors his feelings without knowing a different way to show them.

vlad is a very skilled haggler and it's a problem for the economy

[cryptsleeper]

I compared it to light refracting to a prism once. I think it still holds, in many ways.

[The gladness of taking after his mother more often is something Alucard doesn't quite believe. The disapproval after everything is not a good way of judging it, of course, but it sticks hardest.

That protective trait, using it to show affection, that's been so very inherited. Having a large wolf at the front door is proof enough.]

...You know he does still pat me on the head if I'm by the door in the mornings.

somehow they ended up paying him for taking the carrots and everyone is a little confused

[matercula]

Which you are, often.

[Seeing Alucard take on his different forms is always a little — well, it's taken some getting used to, and she's still getting used to it. Most of his abilities she takes fairly well in stride, but there's always something a little jarring about seeing a bat or a wolf and knowing that it's simply her son in an adopted form.]

I always feel a little bad to find you've been sleeping on the floor. But I know why you do it.

[And a small part of her, one that she's always a little ashamed of, feels reassured for it.]

alucard has to go return some of the carrots it's just a Lot.

[cryptsleeper]

You both encouraged me to learn the skill in the first place.

[And the wolf form is warm, content to withstand the chills of not having the castle's heated floors, and enough to give a man pause.


It goes back a ways anyway. That one toy in his bedroom, it was a favorite.]

I admit though, I've been taking one of the pillows from the sofa with me. That's why it's been covered in all the fur.

he's just apologizing like i'm so sorry he's just Like That

[matercula]

I had been wondering about that, the fur. I see my suspicions were fairly close to accurate.

[It's sort of cute to contemplate, really. Mostly from wondering if he moves the pillow as a human, and then transforms into a wolf with it already in place, or whether he transforms first and then goes to fetch it in his wolf form.

The latter, obviously, is an almost stupidly charming mental image.]

Do you only do it in the house, or have you been sneaking out that way to go exploring, too?

somehow this 200% adds to dracula's reputation but in the goddamn weirdest way

[cryptsleeper]

If need be, I can find some spell to remove it from the furniture.

[He absolutely walks around with a pillow in his mouth. One day his mother will witness this action, and it will never be lived down.]

Only in the house. I'd attract too much attention in the city in that form.

he will suck your blood, burn your villages, and somehow convince you it's bogo on cabbages day

[matercula]

You could also find a brush and about ten minutes of effort.

[She loves her vampire men dearly, but sometimes the teasing comes altogether too easily. Find a spell to do the housework. Only in the house of the Draculas.]

I suppose there'd be no convincing anyone that you were simply a rather large and menacing-looking dog, would there. Except around children too young to know better, perhaps.

and in this economy it's the bogo that kills the most

[cryptsleeper]

You're asleep and I am fairly sure the other option is the highest heights of comedic hallucinations.

[The mental image of brushy brushy with Dracula and wolf son is just too much, and Alucard can feel his own brain trying to deal with it. He's horrified.]

As I said. It's too risky, and the bat thing is...I don't care for the form.

truly he is a capitalist scourge on the land

[matercula]

You never know. He might enjoy the opportunity to spend that sort of quality time together with you.

[...Yeah, okay, she's absolutely just fucking with him at this point, but at least it's funny.]

Perhaps you can learn something a little more domesticated while we're here. You'll have the time for it, I'm sure. A housecat, maybe.

comrade dracula, a joke only funny until you remember communist romania was real

[cryptsleeper]

[It is funny, but Alucard needs to move on before this is all he sees tonight as he tries to fall asleep.]

Mother, is that commentary?

see i keep going dracula + vegetables -> vampire rabbit -> bunnicula which is arguably funnier

[matercula]

A suggestion, and that's all. Take it however you will.

[As she says it, she finishes leafing through the pages in the book, then flips back through to find one or two that had immediately caught her fancy and admire them.]

I don't want you to feel isolated here, is all.

That's the superior train of thought here tbh

[cryptsleeper]

Mhmmm.

[He is not convinced, if the tone is anything to go by. But the word isolation brings up a deeper sigh, one of those noises that mean he has been thinking far, far too much and been keeping everything tucked away close to his heart.]

It's a city filled with people, mother. I don't know if isolation is actually possible.

[But he has held this city at arm's length since they've moved in. Explored yes, but interacted with most people? It has been about the same amount of time as his father, and the rest spent here. Home.

And checking on the horse every so often, because they've still got the horse. The horse is probably the most honored guest to pass through the castle wall in centuries.]

if it helps i also picture him wearing a hawaiian shirt and bermuda shorts like disney's merlin

[matercula]

[It is a most cherished horse. Worthy of accolades. All things considered Vlad probably likes the horse better than he likes most of the members of his court right now, because at least the horse has proven itself useful and doesn't complain.]

There's isolation, and then there's isolation.

[She knows his habits, of course; he's her son. She knows how he and Vlad both withdraw in their ways, detaching from the world around them and putting up their walls, and only emerging when someone arrives to knock them down.

It really is sort of strange, how she's the one most personally affected by the events that had transpired, and yet somehow also the one most willing to continue engaging with the world around her in spite of it.]

You can come with me, if I need to make a house call. Some patients won't always be able to make it here to the clinic. You can be my assistant.

IM GONNA FUCKIN DIE THIS IS AMAZING

[cryptsleeper]

[The horse gets fed from a bucket of gold. This horse is probably the most sacred thing to ever enter the castle. The Best Horse. And there's zero doubt that Vlad likes the horse more than everyone else who isn't immediate family, he's made it pretty obvious. (And watching the court get upset about a horse is the height of comedy.)

But leave it to his mother to call Alucard out on exactly where he's at emotionally right now. It's easier to hold things at arm's length right now. Not only because they are in a new place, but because this can all still go so sour, and then where shall the three of them be?]

I...I'd like that. [It's safe. Because if something happens, he's there.

But there's something else, and his mother has already called him out on staying just outside of the human world. There's another reason for it, one that's less concerned with his mother's well being.]

How long, do you imagine, it will take for others to notice that I have not aged at the rate men do?