Chapter Text
Dreams came rarely if ever for Quinlan. Even if they did, when he finally experienced them they were nothing more than quick flickers of images, hazy as if he was looking at them through a small and dirty glass with no way of taking part in them. It was almost as if his own imagination refused to do its job when it was allowed free reign over his mind.
On the other hand, memories repeatedly kept haunting him. Mixed with desires and the regrets he had tried to push away to the furthest corners of his mind, they waited patiently and when they appeared again, they spared no time to avenge their neglect on their owner and creator. Torturing his heart, they left behind nothing but tears when he found himself alone with his own emotions and cold sweat covering his back.
No matter how many times they decided to visit him, they always managed to make him miserable in one way or another.
He still remembered being a small kid, sitting confused in his bed and not really knowing what to do with the dream that appeared for him. It was like opening a small bottle full of bitter memories that he had thrown in the ocean so it would never resurface again. Yet the waves were cruel and instead of taking the unwanted emotion far away from him, they would throw them back at the most unexpected moments.
The dreams kids around the same age had were full of fun adventures, fantasies and joining their favourite heroes in a quest, yet somehow these never presented themselves as an option for Quinlan. His memories walked a rigid course, never changing and barely showing more than what was wedged into his brain. In a way, he always arrived far too late, just when the story had already ended and its consequences were presented to the hero.
This hardly ever changed over the years aside from the fact that his bad memories stemming from childish naivety was gradually replaced by the mistakes of a scatter-brained adult, who somehow always managed to fail the people around him, no matter how hard he tried. In the end, he had to admit that vampires were unable to dream and he unfortunately happened to inherit this trait from his father’s side.
Accepting his predicament, he learned to take them as they invaded his sleep, taking the possibilities they presented in preserving the past and using them as a reminder and keep himself grounded without drifting away from the path of humanity. As long as these nightmares made him feel something, he knew he was safe from becoming jaded and dull like the Count and the rest of the vampires around him.
A victorious feeling of overcoming a hurdle through something that was supposed to be a curse from being born from the love of two vastly different families of monsters. Dreaming of the past while being conscious about its events and keeping them close to himself as if he was the chronicler of his own sorrow.
He thought he was able to handle it. That everything was under his control and he had made a tool out of something that was supposed to be a curse put upon his kind.
However, his theory was proven wrong the moment one bottle of bitter memory resurfaced in his sleep and forced him to remember someone who stood closer to his mother than he ever did.
In the past there was a cat loitering around in the house, sleeping at every sunspot it could find for itself and appearing at the weirdest places and situations at times, climbing into her mother’s arm when his parents could no longer bear each other’s differences and the tension between them grew into a storm.
One thing Quinlan couldn’t deny how well-tuned the cat was to react to its witch’s emotions.
If his mother was angry the cat would curl around her legs like a fluffy snake winding around her ankles by making rounds. It would settle on her lap if it felt that its owner’s mood was down and needed comfort. It was an annoying creature that refused to allow anyone but its owner near and made a big fuss about almost everything that did not go its way, but in turn it enjoyed attention nobody else in the family did.
And how jealous Quinlan was! The cat might have been before him but at the end of the day it was nothing more than a pet! The cat had spent almost a decade with his mom now it was his turn to be the centre of her affection!
But then again it was only the matter of perspective who was jealous of who.
The creature hated him to its very core as it quickly connected the child with the source of tears, frustration and loud shouting. It saw Quinlan as the sole cause of the unhappiness of its owner so whenever it could it would loiter around his mother, taking up the place the three years old dhampyr should’ve as if it wanted to prevent him from causing more trouble for his mother.
“She is my familiar, of course she is going to be here with me,” his mom said when he went up to her, desperate for affection, clutching against the fabric of her dark skirt in an attempt to make her turn around.
“But muuuum, I want to go outside. You promised!” he tugged at the skirt as his voice cracked from the tears.
“Quinlan, quiet…” The grey cat appeared out of the blue, glaring at Quinlan from the counter as if he was nothing but an annoying nuisance.
“Mum!”
“I said quiet!” she raised her voice, before quickly quieting down once she realised she had shown an unpleasant side of hers. Forcing a smile, she gently took the fabric out of his hands, “Quinlan, dear, I don’t have time to play right now, go find something within the house. You are a creative lad, so it shouldn’t pose a challenge to you, right? Just for a little bit.”
“But I want to go out now! It’s not fair!”
“Well, life is not always fair and eventually we all have to get used to that whether we like it or not. Now go and play somewhere else, please.”
The next time he opened his eyes, he could hear a kid crying but he couldn’t see him anywhere. It took him a moment to connect the small hands of a child with himself trying to grip into his mother’s skirt again, just to have any sort of connection to her as his shoulders shook from wailing.
A new and unwelcomed experience.
Usually, he saw the memories as an outsider, someone who relived his own life by being a mere observer with no chance to intervene with its events nor interact with his surroundings. But now there was anger bubbling in his heart, directed towards the woman towering over her only child and the cat that gave him a knowing, yet condescending blink from the top of the kitchen counter.
“I hate you. I hate you and that stupid cat!” He cried as the tears finally broke free from their containment as he angrily pushed the skirt away from himself making it flutter to the side before the fabric fell back to its place. His foot was in pain from stomping the ground, but no matter how much energy he had put into gaining attention his mother just worked as if nothing happened, grinding some sort of strong scented herb in a bowl.
Seeing how he had no chance to get what he wanted Quinlan eventually gave up, storming out from the room without even bothering to close the door behind him only to end up in the same kitchen.
This time everything seemed to be smaller and the warmth seemed to have been completely stolen from the room. What was left in its wake was nothing more than a memory of its former selves. The plants that lined the window all wilted, their leaves pitifully turned downwards and curled up around the edges as they started to go brown from neglect the same way they did before he had met his rabbit. Yet even if he had noticed one or two new plants between them, the environment his mind had made up for them made no sense.
In the present, the kitchen was even tidier than it was in his childhood when his parents were still around as Joker did not tolerate the mess he had created over the years. Quinlan was no longer allowed to have a collection of dirty teacups lined up on the kitchen table, nor was he locked away from the sunlight due to the window being covered in decades of dirt and grime.
This was something new, he noted to himself as he walked around the kitchen, looking around as he tried to find anything he could cling onto and serve with an explanation on what he was seeing.
However, nothing was at its right place.
The memory refused to reflect the past, nor did it show any more similarities with his current present than the twisted mirror image. Somehow this small irregularity frustrated him to no end, suggesting that what he was seeing was not just a mere memory.
Opening the drawer he found it empty, the utensils did not let out their familiar clattering because somebody had taken all of them. The cupboard, where he had kept a collection of tea leaves, was filled with teacups, their sides broken and dirty.
No, this was not possible. Not in the past, not in the present.
Just before he was about to search further, he noticed a silhouette in the corner of his eyes making him jump back as his hips hit against the wooden counter.
It was his mother’s cursed familiar, the grey cat that was looking at him with its condescending look from the kitchen table as if it were to laugh at his attempts to find the parts that were missing from his own home.
“…What do you want?” the words found themselves to him, but the cat barely heeded him any attention. Only the tip of its tail flicked to and fro nervously as it watched Quinlan take a step closer and when he got too close, with an elegant move the cat jumped off the table, landing almost soundlessly on the floor before it leaped towards the door that somehow opened without him noticing.
Quinlan drew a sharp breath and ran after the cat, following the soft patter of its paws in the darkness as the cat led him through the narrow hallway that opened to the salon. However, once he stepped through the door, he was once again standing in the kitchen with its cold interior and lack of colours and a woman who sat at the table staring at the small wooden box in front of her with a somber expression.
She looked nothing like the person who lived so vividly in his memories and who always reminded Quinlan of the warmth of the sun that he kept chasing in all his childhood. Her red hair was a mess, with lone strands breaking free here and there, creating a spider web-like feeling to her, as if she had been sitting there for years, never moving even an inch away from her seat.
Seeing her like this sent pain through the dhampyr’s heart, making him take a hesitant step back in disbelief.
“Mum…”
“Darling, mum doesn’t really have time to play with you now. Go find your father. I am sure he would be up to whatever you had thought of,” she did not even look up, nor did she notice that the person standing in the door was no longer a child that needed her attention to chase his boredom away.
“There… is really no need. I think I am fine for now,” he lied, hitching the corners of his mouth into a faint smile.
“Are you?” his mother let out a small chuckle as she shook her head, linking her fingers beneath her chin. “A demanding brat like you? How curious.”
“Well, maybe I was demanding because my needs were never met in the first place,” he answered in a thin voice, only realising what he had said way later, when their eyes finally met.
He only noticed what was in the small wooden box when he was about to step closer to his mother to mutter a quick apology. The cat that seemed to be immortal next to his mom and followed her through most of his life would no longer be able to move and cause trouble. Its fur lost its glossy shine and its back no longer rose and sunk with its breathing.
“I am sorry… I-I did not know…”
“Of course you did not,” his mother looked back at the dead cat in front of her, then stroked its fur, her nails scratching the base of the cat’s ear as if it would suddenly perk up and respond, “You vampires always had a hard time understanding human emotions like loss, because you never truly lose anything in your life. Hundred years can pass in a blink, and yet the people around you remain the same, unchanging in soul and body. They enjoy a leisure life, while us, witches are constantly chased by time itself, being torn away from those we love more than anything and have our lifespan shortened with every action we take to seize control over our fate. We can extend the life of a familiar through our own, hand them a bit of ourselves, but even that won’t grant more than ten or so extra years.”
She sighed, finally looking up at her son with a self-mocking smile.
“Of course, you wouldn’t be able to understand this. Right, Quinlan? For you, a familiar was nothing but a headache. Your mother’s temporary whim instead of her lifelong companion.”
Companion. The word hit strangely in regards to the witch sitting in front of her and the memories that Quinlan had kept of his parents, those small faint pictures that had already faded and frayed over the years. He was born out of love and adoration his parents had felt for each other, there was never a question about how they would have crossed flames for each other.
However, as a child, he failed to see just how temporary everything was in their home and the sacrifices both parties had to face in order to provide the disguise of a carefree childhood for their son.
He pulled out the chair, lifting it a bit so it would not make too much noise, before he slid onto the seat looking at his mother.
This is not how he remembered her at all, but maybe, it is just not how he wanted to. The depressed woman grieving and grieving over her loved ones, while being dragged along by the banquet of vampires with no way out.
The same way he selfishly dragged the Rabbit of Babel away from his own place in time and forced him through a contract without his consent.
“I might not be able to understand what you had to go through, but I do understand the feeling,” he admitted averting his gaze, but he had repeatedly found the box, a cruel reminder of passing time. “I think even selfish brat like me eventually understood the weight of loving someone as a vampire and the consequences it might bring.”
“Doubtfully,” his mother shook her head, her green eyes full of pity. “Quinlan, your father raised you with a silver spoon in your mouth, and the Count did the same. What makes you believe that you would ever experience the same tormenting sense of loneliness and grief that I had?”
“I…” He was about to answer, but his mother halted his words.
“Dear, don’t even try to comfort me. You cannot comprehend losing someone, if you have never lost anyone before.”
“Dad was killed right in front of me…”
“And you were immediately taken in by the Count, who made it his sole goal to raise you into a proper gentleman, didn’t he? So where is your so-called loss?” his mother argued, making him feel utterly wretched as her words tore into his heart, taking what little tools he had in this argument out of his hands.
He wanted to counter her words somehow. But deep down he knew she was right and even if she was not, she would find a way to turn his own statement against him as if she knew everything he was about to say.
Perhaps she sensed his helplessness, the woman in front of him sighed and massaged the bridge of her nose in annoyance as tears kept streaming down her face.
It was futile to keep arguing, yet her words struck a chord within Quinlan, filling him with the sort of anger he had never experienced before. Sitting upright, he straightened his back as he linked his hands together in front of him on the table, thinking on what to say, now that the possibility presented itself.
“Every day, I live with the fear of losing the people around me,” he admitted in the end, lifting his head, just to meet those same uninterested green eyes. “And just like you, I have my own familiar to take care of. A familiar who was so stupid to stick around and renew his contract when he was finally allowed back home because he saw something special in my company. You do not need to see your loved ones die, to comprehend how much losing them would hurt and nobody ought to know this better than someone who has lost his family once and almost lost the new one too.”
“A familiar, huh…” a faint smile appeared on her lips and she gazed at her cat, then back at Quinlan, “The way you talk about him… Are you sure he is just a familiar? Or is it easier to address him as such than to use the proper title for a relationship like yours? Your father had a peculiar taste in partners, so I wouldn’t be surprised if his son inherited this trait.”
The legs of the chair shrieked as Quinlan pushed himself away from the table and the fur on the cat’s lifeless body shivered as he let out a deep breath trying to contain the anger that flared up in the pit of his stomach and made his hands shake in anger.
Joker was everything. Familiar, lover, partner, anything Quinlan could think of fit the category perfectly, at the same time it was nowhere near close to how he saw the man.
“If you are confused, ask yourself; how are you going to grieve for him when the inevitable happens and you outlive him? Will he be seen as a partner or as a pet?” His mother posed the question with a hoarse voice as she continued crying, but he did not want to answer. He did not even want to think about a moment in his life when Joker would not be around let alone the possibility of the rabbit dying.
Turning around, he rushed out of the room without looking back, leaving the memory of his mother alone in her sorrow.