Before him stretched the main floor, the double front doors ahead glistening from recent waxing. And beyond them? Rain-slicked driveways and garden paths leading toward freedom— toward her. He didn't bother announcing himself or saying goodbye to anyone. No one needed to know where he was going, not that they’d dare question him anyway. Yet he still needed to grab the car keys. He didn’t own his own car, not he could t afford one but he just chose not too. He didn’t travel much, and when he had to, his mom’s weren’t ever using them. He assumes they work from home at this point, because he never seems them leave the house either. But, he had to find out where those keys are, and he’d want to get them in his possession as quickly as he can. Sangre pivoted sharply to start and walk toward the side hallway that led to the private family wing. His mother’s study was there, a cozy but elegant room she used for paperwork and quiet time, that’s where he assumes the car keys usually lived.
The living room smelled of old books and vanilla candle wax, but as he passes the couch the thick smell of alcohol hits his nose, and he turns his head to look down at the source— the sight hitting him like a punch to the gut. There was mother, usually so poised and regal, sprawled across the velvet couch in rumpled pajamas and an arm dangling off the side. She wasn’t simply tired, she was out cold, drunk enough that her breathing was slow and uneven, cheeks slightly flushed beneath her pale skin. He froze for half a second, stepping around quietly, careful not to make noise as he grabbed what he came for: the car keys. No anger flared in him yet, not right now anyway. Not with having different priorities now, but yeah… this? This stung more than it should’ve.
Over he reaches to whet she sleeps on the couch to dug around her to see if she potentially had the keys on her, being careful as she looks through her pockets so that she didn’t end up waking her up. But both pockets of her silk robe came up empty on either sides. No keys, no nothing. He exhaled through his nose, low and quiet not frustrated with her in particular, but more disappointed. She was always so organized, usually kept everything in the same place. The fact that she didn’t even have the keys on her meant they had to be somewhere else. He glanced back at his mother one last time, the rise and fall of her chest steady despite how uncharacteristically vulnerable she looked right now. He was about to give up and look somewhere else for the keys to the car, but a subtle light stars to catch his attention as she stands over this mom. The glow was soft, almost ghostly. A pale white light like moonlight given human form shimmered around a figure standing just behind Sangre.
And then, she appeared fully standing behind him, his Mama. Not the woman on the couch, but one that could almost be described as a spiritual counterpart. A being of quiet grace and ancient warmth with eyes full of love older than bloodlines or time itself.She didn’t speak, her gaze landing gently on him as she observed what he’d been doing— searching through his sleeping mother’s pockets for something important.
He mumbled back to her as he stuffs his hands into his pockets of his jacket at her appetence behind him, not necessarily scared by her arrival, because he saw her coming before she even appeared behind him.
“Have y:u seen the keys?” He watches as she crosses her arms over her chest for, staring at him back as they kept beside his other mom sleeping. “I’m g:ing :ut t: hang :ut with my girlfriend.”
His mom didn’t blink nor frown, just held that quiet, knowing stare. The kind only a spiritual mother could pull off, partially wisdom and judgment coming from a place of love.
“That’s Fine, I Just Wish You Would Have Came To Me First.”
She wasn't trying to stop him from going, she trust him more than enough, but she simply wished to see him before he ran out of the house, feeling more comfortable knowing specifically where he was off to in such a rush. The air in the living room was still and thick with the quiet weight of parental expectations. His mother didn’t move, her long horns casting soft shadows across the wall as she studied him. His shoulders stay slumped, his tone was low and bland, but that nervous energy he thought was subtle. She exhaled through her nose, a quiet sigh, and without breaking eye contact, she reached to one of the ornate pouches on her belt and pulled out the car keys she kept looped around herself, holding it between her two fingers. He took the keys, his fingers brushing hers as cool and smooth as polished stone. His mother never wore her rings on fingers, but her hands carried centuries of quiet strength in their lines.
She asks him as she hands the car keys to him without much of a confrontation, simply curious of his endeavors.
“I’m g:ing to pick my girlfriend up t: take her t: a friend’s h:use. We’re g:nna just hang :ut at their h:me.”
She nodded again, slower this time, processing his explanation, keeping her eyes on him as she talks to her son.
she asked calmly as a mother documenting details the way a general maps terrain before sending troops into motion. Her ears twitched slightly beneath her hair, a small tell that she was listening carefully now. Not because she doubted him, but because if something happened? She’d need to know exactly where to go first for him. She didn’t ask for names yet, that would come later, but the address? That was non-negotiable intel. Her eyes flickered toward her when wife briefly for a moment, still asleep on the couch where she’d fallen after midnight She wouldn't wake her unless absolutely necessary, but if something happened to their son, all hells would break loose before anyone could blink twice.
“The um… the :nes that friends with that man with the red jacket,”
He stumbled over his words for a good moment, snapping his fingers as he speaks to try and re-spark his memory while talking with his mother. Even for being childhood friends with the family, the friendships spanning nack before even his birth, he still didn’t know their last names by heart at this point, he just never had a reason to care about it so.
“Y:u know C:nall, the d:g hybrid b:y with his m:m side :f the family.”
His mom’s eyes narrowed just slightly at the mention of his mixed species friends, not because she disliked him, quite the opposite, but because Conall was from a much more… eccentrically chaotic family. And she should know, because his parents are technically family to them as well, even without the blood connection. He was the kind of friend that was a reliable person, but also someone who brought chaos around with him wherever he went too. That’s at least her interpretation of him. But she didn’t say that to her son’s face. She exhaled through her nose again as her gaze lifted back to him fully, assessing his readiness to go on this outing and tagging along with his friends as he does so. Her gaze lifted back to him fully now, assessing his readiness for this outing as if it were a tactical deployment.
He suddenly asks her as he looks back down to his other mom sleeping on the couch for however long she has been passed out, knowing she’s still probably wasted and is going to wake up extremely irritable later on. He definitely didn’t what to be around to handle that himself, but then again it is his mother, and he’s still concerned in a small part of him deep down under his built up through dark layers of fabric. His mother’s gaze followed his to the sleeping figure on the couch, curled under a thick blanket that she had draped over her earlier and one arm dangling off the cushion. Her breathing was deep and even, but there was a slight tension in her jaw, the telltale sign of someone who’d been drinking too much again. Her expression softened just a fraction, not from pity or rage, not yet anyway. Shes weary, the kind that came from loving someone, even if unintentionally, that kept breaking their heart.
"She's Fine," Shes carful to avoid giving any details he didn't need right now. "Just… Tired."
She pauses again as she scans I’ve ever swims face, adding one last comment to her answer to him.
“You Don’t Have To Check On Her If You're Leaving."
Her voice held no judgment for him wanting to leave, she understands, it was better to sometimes be away from facing the negative part of the love of her life that she had to handle. But it’s not because she raised someone that was unsympathetic, not at all. She knows her boy is an Angel under his shell. He was still her sun after all.
“Y:u d:n’t have t: lie to me m:m I’m :ld en:ugh t: kn:w what’s g:ing :n.”
He exhales gently back with his arms crossing arms over his chest slightly, the keys sitting in between his fingers and holding the fob in between his disgusts to rub gently against the metal of the car key.
“I’m just making sure you d:n’t have t: deal with her al:ne bef:re I head :ut…”
His mom really looks at him for a long moment, not just in a way to study him but to see him now that he was in front of her, past as a strategist or a mother, but as a person. She had to remind herself that he isn’t a little boy anymore, and that’s a hard thing to do when she gets used to taking for such a long time. He wasn’t putting any layers up to be defensive to her at all, even despite the crossed arms he bore over his chest. Her face didn’t harden, but tightened, just slightly. The subtle flex of jaw muscles that meant she was swallowing something bitter.
"You're Right, I Shouldn’t Lie To You." she quietly admitted to her son. "She's Been Drinking Since Last Night. Didn't Eat Much Yesterday Either."
She kept her voice low so as not to wake her on the couch, but there was no hiding the exhaustion in it now, thinly veiled beneath calm authority. She reached out without thinking and brushed a strand of hair from his forehead, a small gesture from someone usually so reserved with physical affection. Her hand lingered for just a second, warm and calloused from years of work with all kinds of forms of work you could imagine before she let it fall back to her side. She studied him again, dark circles under blacked out purple shades on his eyes that matched hers now as if he walked on in hesitation around the two of them in his entire life, it wasn’t a dramatic expression, but it was shown how it wore him down.
"You Don’t Have To Stay," she repeated gently, not as a way of pushing him out but in making sure he knew that she had all the strength she needed to handle everything. “Go See Your Girlfriend."
There was no resentment in her tone, no anger at Sangre or her wife for being unreliable yet again, just a dull quiet acceptance. Because she has spent lifetimes loving imperfect people, because they still deserved it.
“Ok m:m… I’ll be back s::n.”
Out into the pouring rain he stepped, leaving the shelter of his house behind. He would rarely brave such a severe storm for anyone else, but his girl needed him. No tempest would serve as an excuse to stay inside. There it sat in the driveway, framed by the house fence, as beautiful as ever: a black 1960s Chevrolet. It was the only piece of shelter he would have as he drove for miles to rescue his darling. So in the car he slides himself in, adjusting as best he can his hair and his coat to get comfortable in the thick leather seats to slide the smooth seatbelt over his chest and waist and stab the car with its key and get the engine of this old beauty roaring up as he approaches the fence of his home. He uses a remote opener in the car, slit just above his head on the shader mirrors to allow the fence to slowly open up to the road once more, adjusting the radio in real time to an alternate station as he patiently watches each metal bar on the fence slowly slide behind the marble pillars that posted on each end of the road.
