Chapter 103
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 102
Uncertain what to talk about, Vlad sits silently for a few minutes until he feels he can hear the awkwardness in the air as clearly as he can hear Arthur’s heartbeat. “Would you mind if I take a look at the library? If it is not too much of an imposition.”
~~~~
“Oh, um, yes, of course!” Arthur agrees, relieved. If Mr Basarab browses the library, it’s not impolite for him to work on his notes… right?
~~~~
Vlad’s ears pick up on something long before his conscious mind does, and it takes him a moment to realise what it is: his own breathing speeding up. Which tells him two things: He still has some very old habits, apparently, and that he is completely and utterly nervous about the fact that he can hear Mina and their son approach.
Hasn’t he been daydreaming about this moment for years?
It was so hard for him at the theatre to keep his calm the first time he saw Quincy. His son, his first son in hundreds of years, and the boy made a beeline for him. Did he want to pull him in close and hug him? Yes. Did he know that he’d invite only more trouble with the awkward dhampir family weakness? Yes.
So he had tried his best to be warm but not too close to Quincy. Played just the friendly older actor when all he really wanted to do was let his drac run happy circles around his son. Keep him safe, make sure that he didn’t hurt himself and awakened in a horrible accident he could never make go away. Even when he learned about Quincy’s… leanings, all it did was make him want to protect him even more.
He wanted to cry at God giving him a son like that. Not out of frustration, but because he feels it is another chance. Maybe a way to atone for some of his sins. But it also meant watching his own son flirt with him, get only ever more obsessed with finding ways to maybe catch his attention, and the more he observed the way everybody else used Quincy, the more that hurt.
He could hear Quincy’s heart beat from the door when he brought Darcy. After centuries, he can read emotions that way nearly as well as if his mind and heart craft were any good at it. He can hear hope shatter, and he feels like it is his fault. No matter that he can’t change it. No matter that he suspects he knows why his boy struggles with falling in love. But maybe, maybe telling him will help.
Then he sees them come in through the door and the way Quincy is holding himself, straight back, head held high, despite the obvious insecurity and turmoil his breathing and heart beat are giving away. That’s his son, not just the fellow actor, his son, every inch the proud image of a Draculesti he could wish for. Even without any involvement on his side in raising him. Of course he could trust his wife to raise him to be their pride and joy. He’ll never get back the years he lost with him, but finally, finally he is there and he cannot stop himself from walking up with a hopeful: “Son, please let me explain.”
~~~~
That word cuts into Quincy like a dagger right through the heart. It’s the last word he ever wanted to hear from Basarab, and it must show, because he can see some of the hope on Basarab’s face shatter as hard as his own. A small, vindictive voice like snowy whispers at the back of his mind tells him that that’s good, that he should rejoice at seeing the same carnage wrought there, but… This is the man he had hoped to love and seeing that pain, no, it hurts.
It hurts? It makes him feel something, even if it’s pain. Anything is better than that sense of hollowness he had before. That helps with allowing him to remain standing, with not bursting into tears, with managing to sound only hysterical, not distraught. “You better.”
~~~~
It’s not a very happy reunion, but then Arthur doesn’t know what he’d feel if someone showed up who turned out to be his father. Well… He feels a tiny, wistful pang, because finding out he wasn’t actually related to his father would be nice. He’d maybe hope that someone else would be better than that? But that’s not in the cards for him, and he’d like to know that explanation, too, so he sits quietly and pays attention.
~~~~
Mina takes charge of her two adorably emotional men and pulls Quincy along to the sitting arrangement, feels Vlad all but slink after and decides that it seems Vlad needs her support even more than Quincy does, so she takes the seat at his side, takes his hand, too. “I never was in danger from your father during all the things you heard Jonathan talk about. I still have hardly a minor section of things I should remember, but when I saw your father, there was an unmistakable sense of recognition. Despite all the things that Jonathan specifically had accused him off, I knew that there was more to him than the apparent villain.”
~~~~
“I never meant any harm to Jonathan. He had caught a fever during his travels to my castle and as I was eager not to miss my travel arrangements, I left him there so he could recover in his own time.” Turning to Mina, Vlad gives her the slightest smile underneath his moustache. “I had bought property in London for one express purpose: Searching the world’s most populous city for my wife. As I have done for the last four centuries with each large city I could gain access to.”
Turning back to Quincy but taking Mina’s hand, Vlad goes on: “Your mother, you see, is so much more than her current form reveals. Wilhelmina Murray is but the name of her human reincarnation. I met her centuries ago, when she heard my plea to God to help me against the impossible odds I had to defend my lands from. Instead of an angel, I was sent a fey lady.” Kissing her hand, he adds: “Although I certainly believed myself in the presence of an angel at the time, until she clarified and bound me in a contract.”
With a chuckle and gentle nudge of rebuff for the romanticism, Mina takes over from him for a moment to explain: “I can’t remember that, but I can remember the contract. Every word of it from the moment I saw him again. I cannot explain it, but contracts seem impossible for me to break. And I had a marriage contract with Jonathan by the time my true husband found me.”
Trying his best to keep his voice even, although he has a suspicion there is that slight treacherous twitch to his moustache that he’s tried to train himself out of for longer than he dares to admit, Vlad continues: “I knew that her fey nature would not let her go free of the signed contract, so we compromised. Knowing that Harker was only mortal, I promised to keep my distance until that contract had run its course. But, son, I grew too worried for you. I see from your eye colour that I could not prevent what I had hoped to by finding a loophole to still be close. It is dangerous for a dhampir to not know what he is. Hunters, vampires, even just awakening might be fatal. I could not bear the thought of leaving it up to chance. I never meant to deceive you, it was the only way I had.”
~~~~
Great, just bloody great! That explanation didn’t do anything to make Quincy feel any better. He just about manages to sit through it without exploding into shrieking and hissing… or worse, tears.
Gothic fairy tale. Cycy fucking put it right!
He had to live with Harker for that long, had to live through all the things this grey world threw at him because his mother couldn’t rip up one measly wedding contract?! And his father isn’t just a noble, no, he’s a centuries-old noble, he can guess how thrilled he must be to get him for a son! Protect him! Sure, protect the little molly you probably believe is too weak to look after himself!
~~~~
Vlad can hear the shift in Quincy’s heartbeat, can see the way he is unconsciously bending his fingers, claws not really obeying him, and he knows that again, once again, as they always do, his words make those closest to him hate him. He tries once more, has to try once more, and dares to reach out. He’s noticed at the theatre that Quincy communicates in touch, so maybe…
~~~~
Is Basarab kidding him?! Quincy slaps the hand away. “Now you’re trying to comfort me? Now you’re trying to touch me? A week ago, I would have thrown myself at that hand! A week ago, I thought Harker was my biggest problem! Well, him, or the police, or any of the other ways this bloody world pushes me down. Mother, how could you?! I had to think Harker was my father! I was on the streets for four bloody years! Me! Your dhampir-fey-whatever-I-even-am son!”
Turning to Basarab and not giving a bloody shit that his voice is a shriek, and the tears spilling over anyway, Quincy adds: “Oh, and in case the incessant flirting hasn’t made it obvious, your molly son! You’ll probably hold me in as high regard as Harker did!”
~~~~
Vlad manages to answer that as a vampire, his society has different morals. “Loving who you do is less of an issue than being a dhampir.” And then he realises the mistake in his formulation as Quincy storms off with a yelled: “I don’t know how to love in the first place, so what does it matter!?”
He wants to run after, to apologize, to try maybe one last time, but he knows that prideful tone. He knows how he himself at that age would have reacted if he felt disrespected, so he sinks only lower into the chair and needs the supportive hand Mina puts on his shoulder again.
~~~~
Well, now Arthur’s sitting here, feeling kind of sorry for a big, scary vampire. That’s weird.
Also, he kind of feels like he’s intruding, having witnessed that. And of course, he has so many questions.
Mrs Harker is fey? Like… like Llew and Eluned? Which is why she didn’t just… ditch Mr Harker if she didn’t like him that much, apparently, anyway?
And what’s this about four hundred years and reincarnation and all?
And why does a marriage contract mean Mr Basarab couldn’t tell Quincy about stuff?
And Quincy’s been on the streets for four years? Arthur has the thought that if he’d known, he would’ve invited him to come to his house, but… no, probably the streets are better than being under his father’s nose.
Then Mrs Harker asks if she could have a moment alone with his husband before he has to leave for the Court to look for information to help Darcy, and Arthur stands hastily and assures her that, “Of course!”
He nods at Mr Basarab, and makes his get-away out of the library. Then he’s standing in the hall and wondering: Now what?
Check on Darcy, he decides. He’s only seen her from a distance, and of course someone would’ve told him if she was injured or something, but still.
As he heads for the stairs, Katharina comes traipsing up to him from the kitchen, and he smiles, lifts her into his arms and hugs her close. He only has her thanks to Darcy, and the animal hospital. Her fur is grown in again, now, though the sections that were bare are still shorter than the rest, so she still looks kind of patchy- not helped by how it’s turned out she is white with black splotches. But he doesn’t mind, he’s just glad she’s healthy again.
He’s not sure where John took Darcy, but sees Darcy’s door ajar down the hall and pokes his head through, and yes. There’s John, sitting against the headboard, face a mask of concentration, and Darcy next to him, curled up and asleep. Arthur’s not sure whether he should knock or not, doesn’t want to distract John, doesn’t want to startle him. So he offers a quiet: “Hi,” and dares to slip into the room.
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John hardly reacts, just a very short flick of his eyes towards the movement, just making sure he doesn’t have to protect Darcy, but he thinks that shape is Arthur, so he goes back to building Darcy’s dream world, goes back to letting her have what she wants so that she doesn’t get suspicious. And he hates every second of it, because it’s obviously Radu she wants.
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Arthur sits down at the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle them and break the contact where John’s hands are resting on Darcy’s temple. Darcy looks… fine. She’s tucked under the blankets to her shoulders, so he can see the frilly top of her… uh, well, that’d be her under-dress, or whatever it’s called, wouldn’t it? Or a nightdress…
He blushes, but only a little, because it’s hardly the first time he’s seen Darcy in her nightclothes. And her face looks peaceful, asleep, content. Really not like someone who’d jump up and attack them for some insane vampire. He knows well enough that appearances can be deceiving.
It makes him kind of… hurt and mad that this vampire took her away from them. She’s his friend, not some kind of game piece for some scheming old bastard to use in his stupid feud. Her mind and her emotions belong to her.
And he’s going to do what he can to get her free. Even if it’s scary and he doesn’t know what that actually is. He for sure can’t just set the arsehole on fire.
For now, he asks John: “Anything I can get you?”
~~~~
It gets through to John like from the other side of a bog, but he understands it well enough (and in contrast to Quincy, this was just one little question), so he shakes his head. Even if he needed something, he doesn’t dare let go of Darcy. Not now that he started the dreamscape for her. He could just about keep her dreamlessly asleep for long enough to get her undressed and tucked in, (yes, yes, Quincy helped,) but now he can’t chance loosing concentration and Darcy realising that she’s in a cage of lies.
He doesn’t even dare go in with her, he doesn’t trust his own body not to betray him and her waking up before him. A second is all it takes at her speed. No, he’ll have to sit here awake for however long it takes until the others figure out another way.
~~~~
Arthur nods, then adds, because he’s not sure John can see him with his eyes mostly closed like that: “‘kay. I’ll check in again later.” He knows how it is to concentrate like that, so he leaves quietly with Katharina, scratches under her ear as he wonders: Now what?
There’s no sign of Quincy anywhere, and he didn’t look like he was in the mood for company, anyway. He doesn’t know what to do to help Darcy, and he knows there’s no use looking at their vampire books again, they don’t even mention enthrallments.
Maybe he could figure out a way to communicate with Dr Seward and Art and Lucy? …Some kind of scrying, or something? It’s not any sort of magic he’s familiar with, but… But it’s something to do, so he turns his steps downwards, to his lab. The house can get him any relevant books from the library, he doesn’t have to disturb Mrs Harker and Mr Basarab, after all.
~~~~
It’s dark out here in this hick town. Quincy can’t remember seeing the stars as clearly ever before. He can focus on crying his anger at the moon overhead, at challenging the Divine and feeling better for it.
At least he could until, of course, Cobb flips back into clingy!
Which bloody part of “Don’t try to push your fussing on me! I don’t want to talk to anybody right now!” is so hard to understand? And for crying out bloody loud, if the arse can’t even be bothered to be there to know what upset him, then he shouldn’t make all kinds of strange assumptions! Ugh, let alone being self-obsessed.
Where did that drivel about Cobb not wanting him to leave come from? Wait!
Wait wait wait! Hold up! What the ever loving hell?! Did Cobb just… yes, oh bloody Divine, yes, Cobb just decided this would be a sensible moment to howl at the moon that Quincy can’t leave him, he loves him!
No, you don’t!
And that rebuttal (it might have been formulated a miniscule bit nicer, that’s still his patron after all) just leads right into another wrong assumption. Namely that Quincy’s reluctance is about him worrying about Darcy. He’s getting reassured that she knows and is all supportive.
Uh huh, honey, now you are showing off that you are stupid and a liar.
Reminding Cobb that he was there at breakfast when Darcy made the whole ‘it’s only fair’-statement, he doesn’t even get further before Cobb breaks in that then it’s all good, and if there’s something else, Cobb doesn’t care!
Is that supposed to be a good statement? That cliché grin looks like it’s supposed to be one and, Divine, which alley did Cycy drag that one out of? What on bloody earth did that one do? Oh dear Divine, don’t tell him she followed an aberration fetish too far? After all, Blondie is one, too. Pattern much?
Ugh, fine. Fine! He said he’ll play that one’s affair so that Cycy can enjoy hers and what else is he even supposed to do anyway? Leave?
Pff. Where to? His dream of traveling the continent with Basarab’s troupe is about as dead as any other hopes he had there. If the rest of the people at the theatre learn that Basarab is missing because of him, he can kiss his career goodbye, too. Career, yeah, call it that optimistically. He realises that he only got his speaking role because of Basarab. And that makes him so bloody angry that he can’t even keep the shriek in!
How is it always when Cobb is around that he explodes?
Doesn’t matter, Cobb still has that idiotic grin on, doesn’t seem to mind the anger, no, there is that hungry look again. It makes Quincy feel a little bit more in control again. Maybe this isn’t quite so bad. After all, Cobb is an absolute idiot, easy to read, easy to influence, and what could be better than getting his equal deal with Cycy? Getting it and also dealing with all his issues by way of taking on a big challenge of a stray.
Cobb is such a walking disaster, there are so many issues he could help with, so many ways he could feel in control and useful again. He feels that familiar urge to set out the deal… and now he wonders. Deal? Is that something fey about him? Is that urge and his need to play equal with Cycy- are those contracts?
Is that what his mother felt?
He should ask her… There’s still some anger but, she’s his mother, the only person he ever trusted. Even if there were lies, she still tried, didn’t she? She had to put up with Harker’s abuse, too. Not just him.
Fine, he’ll talk to her tomorrow. For right now, he gives in to that urge, to that need to grab control of a person and heal and polish until he lets them go. He’s the no-strings-attached guy after all. He can’t love. But he won’t let that bring him down any more than all the other things the grey world threw at him.
So he gives Cobb his usual terms. Yes, he can be his boyfriend. He doesn’t make any promises of love, and he expects him not to get too attached to him. It was meant to be sealed with yes, a kiss, but Cobb tries to pull that right back the same way he did last time Quincy offered a kiss.
Oh no! Not again! Especially not with what he learned earlier from John. Yes, they kind of talked, not while he was still helping with getting Cycy comfortable. (And yes, he was surprised at how much he didn’t worry being there with her.) No, when John already was off to his duty, when he went even quieter and Quincy felt he just had to hold Cycy’s hand and talk. Talk to her, at her, about her… about them.
John had broken in, not really to yell at him but to make something clear. Even while Quincy was reeling from suddenly finding himself in a completely different spot, or his mind at least, John told him that Darcy had asked her husband for one single thing.
One rule for their relationship, despite her calling herself nothing more than Cobb’s harlot, even. (And that’s a whole different issue Quincy intends to work on.)
John explained that the breakfast statement was big because Darcy’s rule for Cobb had been that she wanted to be included at least, not completely ignored and kept in the dark. She had taken a step back from it. She knew that Cobb had broken his promise to her and she was just backing down.
Well, she might, Quincy isn’t one to give up like that. So he shoves Cobb off, picks his hands off himself, and tells him that he expects him to respect his wife. He can’t have a boyfriend if he doesn’t make sure he also has a wife. So until they can talk this out with Cycy, boyfriend yes, kisses yes, but nothing more.
No, he doesn’t think that Cycy shares that whined ‘but it doesn’t matter, he showed him to her at the start’.
And that’s that. He bangs the door to his room shut in Cobb’s face, too, when he realises that he’s too accessible up on the roof.
~~~~
Of course scrying isn’t as easy as all that, because when are things ever? But- but, Arthur still thinks it’s a good idea, an idea worth pursuing, one he might be able to pull off. If he’d thought of it before Darcy’s parents departed, he could have done it properly. Because for talking to each other, you’re supposed to prepare some objects for the purpose. Hand mirrors are a popular choice.
Since they didn’t do that… he needs to find something suitable with a personal connection to the people he wants to talk to. Of course, that’s much easier said than done, because… because he’s really not that close to them, and he has no idea what they have with them.
He has no idea how much time has passed when an insistent voice and a hand on his shoulder wakes him up. He blinks in confusion, realizes he’s still in his lab, and he fell asleep in his chair with his head on his arms on the desk, and he has a crick in his neck.
He only meant to rest his eyes for a moment, but a glance at the clock tells him it’s the middle of the night. And the one who woke him up is Gregory, he sees as he rubs the sore muscles in his neck before sending a momentary tingle of healing magic there to sort it out.
Gregory, who is all bouncing, and babbling about how Llew wouldn’t answer, and Arthur has to come fix it! Fix what? Arthur asks, but Gregory is already hauling him up the stairs at a jog.
He “needs to do something now, John can’t do this,” he learns when they barge into Darcy’s bedroom, and he stares at Gregory. He doesn’t have enough information to ‘do something’, and John is, in fact, doing this, and… what?
~~~~
This is fucking hard enough as it is! John has put himself in the least comfortable position possible he can in hopes of making sure he doesn’t fall asleep. He doesn’t fucking need to get distracted and insulted.
He can absolutely do this!
His girl needs him! He’s the one fucking thing standing between Radu stealing his girl away, probably for good, and this household.
And he can’t talk to yell at Gregory, or try to swing another fist at him! He’s been fighting with himself for hours as is. He’s going to run out of backgrounds eventually and if he couldn’t manipulate Darcy’s mind about as good as Radu while he has her in his dreamscape, she would long have noticed that he can’t answer all those endless questions she is asking dream Radu about culture and the cities he’s taking her to.
His girl is dreaming of running away with a vampire he has no chance of competing against, and fucking Gregory has the audacity of accusing him of not being able to hold out! John wants to explode and finally find out why Gregory’s been avoiding him since that first punch. He wants to know how he can hurt him because… because maybe he’s not good enough for his girl, but Radu wouldn’t have gotten her like this if not for her abusive husband!
But he can’t say any of that without breaking his concentration, wavering as it is, all he can do is snarl. Summon all that anger he has and put it on his face, hope he doesn’t look as pathetic as when the molly snarls.