ALWAYS SUNNY FONT: the gang goes to france

[cryptsleeper]

Comments

[cryptsleeper]

[The mirrors have to be tools of basic need again, not of comfort. There's time for sentimentality about it later, but for now they're about travel and about ensuring that this entire thing goes right. Alucard hates it too (he's kept both mirrors as a horrible trophy of victory, not cataloged in the Hold but put aside in his own little collection of them) but some things must be what they are.]

I would argue that Sypha also broke the castle, but that was with a boost from your family's research. Approaching this place would be starting from scratch. But...

[Alucard pauses, then tilts his head in genuine consideration.]

If it is similar to the front doors, where blood calls to blood, then we may not be in as deep as it seems we are.

[He knows. He knows it sounds like magic, and there's an apologetic look on Alucard's face, but trying to think like his father 400 years ago means relying on less elaborate mechanisms and more magic. Somewhat base. More blood and spit and who owns what.]

[miraclewhip]

Perhaps.

[ As long as there's no accusing Leon of using magic (he did. he absolutely did. but Trevor is weird about these things) he's fine with it. It makes- some sort of sense. The castle responded more strongly to Alucard than it did to Carmilla, and what is the castle of not the final, terrible result of Mathias' early research into Alchemy? ]

How long should we expect it to take for you to catch up with us?

[ Or, to put it more accurately: How long without contact before we need to worry that something's stopping you from doing so? ]

[cryptsleeper]

[Alucard's working theory is that the house might well be like the journals, in which case it can only ever respond to Belmont blood. If he's wrong, then so be it, and they're either out a place to stay (and the memories that surely must wander those halls), or else there is to be some fiercer fight.

The question is given real consideration. Relying on his father's means of travel is more complex spellwork than he's done (he and Sypha have been testing, of course, because this is vital), but there is still a certain amount of preparation required. The distance is so much longer than anything the two have tried before.]

Three hours. Four at the most. If something is truly awry, I'll find another means of contacting you both, and you should proceed as if I'm with you.

[They are words Alucard dislikes saying. Deeply.]

[miraclewhip]

Hours. Here I was expecting to be measuring the time in days.

[ He'd known that Alucard and Sypha were working on perfecting something, but he's not really been paying enough attention to understand what, too involved in the more Belmont-ish side of preparations. ]

That's barely enough time for us to find horses. [ A pause. ] And you'll be well when you do appear, all else going according to plan? No cost to it that we need to worry about?

[cryptsleeper]

There was a reason my mother always specified that he travel as men do.

[And there was some fear in going through all of those spells, giving up even an inch of that half-human portion of himself. It still sits ill, but it is the best of all options. To travel all the way to France on boat or over land would take a month at least.

So traveling as night things do it shall be.]

The cost seems to be nothing more than me actually sleeping for eight hours rather than four or five.

[miraclewhip]

Shit, all those sleepless nights of counting bricks and all you needed to do was run halfway to France and back?

[ He laughs. He knows that using his father's powers to do this can't sit well with Alucard. ]

Sypha and I take watch tonight, then.

[cryptsleeper]

And not have been asleep for an entire year, yes.

[Trevor gets a very gentle elbow for the comment. For all the man claims and often is total garbage at giving actual support, he does know certain things and is more than capable of responding to them appropriately.]

Four and four. You don't take a double shift.

[miraclewhip]

I don't promise to be capable of waking her up for hers.

[ That's a 'we're going to have to argue about this, aren't we?' tone. ]

[cryptsleeper]

We're going to have this argument later in the middle of a forest where Sypha and I can both yell at you and shame you for making us raise our voices in case we draw attention to ourselves.

[Okay, so maybe he just totally revealed the battle plan, but this system's worked in the past.]

[miraclewhip]

We're going to have this argument after you've slept for eight hours, though.

So I'll already have done what I want.

[cryptsleeper]

Sypha takes first watch, this entire exchange is pointless.

[miraclewhip]

And then she won't wake me up. You know how this works.

[ Srry Alucard you're stuck wit two self sacrificing idiots. ]

[cryptsleeper]

Why are you both like this?!

[miraclewhip]

You took full watch practically every night between the boat and here. We learned it from you.

[ It's nice, to be squabbling like this. No edge to it, no anger behind it, just throwing words at each other. Horrible things bring out either too much softness or too much anger in both of them. This argument means that despite everything, for now, they can still both believe that all is going to be well. ]

[cryptsleeper]

You two absolutely did not, this was an issue you two developed traveling. Don't even think of pinning it on me.

[Is this the stupidest argument they could have before all of this? Oh, there are doubtlessly stupider. But it's this argument they'll die on little fake hills on before everything must be serious.]

[miraclewhip]

If we developed it while traveling, when did you develop it?

[ Excuse you they were both always like this. It just never came up on the way to Dracula because Alucard barely needed sleep at all. ]

[cryptsleeper]

The first time we met because someone can't keep his guts inside himself.

[miraclewhip]

[ Well played. ]

Look, maybe I thought that they'd look nicer on the outside. If I end up taking full watch the tonight, I'll let you and Sypha take watch tomorrow. Fair?

[cryptsleeper]

Is this all based on your regrowing legs theory? If so, we really need to have a long talk.

[But the offer is...that's fine. And Alucard relents.]

Very well, that's fair.

[miraclewhip]

[ It's still fun to annoy Alucard, after four years. ]

Maybe it is. Good a defense as any against being disemboweled. Once your guts are out, they can't get any more out.

[cryptsleeper]

Yes but at that point you're also about to be very dead because, and I must emphasize this, those things ought to be on the inside.

[How does he share a bed with this.]

[miraclewhip]

I'll have you know that all the best things that happened to me started with my guts being on the outside.

[ IS THIS BULLYING? IS THIS FLIRTING? It's probably both. ]

[cryptsleeper]

[BOTH ABSOLUTELY BOTH]

Flattery, in this minute, gets you absolutely no where but exiled to the carpet for extreme stupidity for defending things you patently know to be false.

[miraclewhip]

I'll have you know that I've never known anything in my god damn life.

[ And he leans in close to kiss Alucard's cheek and whisper- ]

And I'm taking full watch tonight, so you can't exile me anywhere.

[cryptsleeper]

[....Shit, he's gone and won the argument. Alucard mutters a soft protest, even if the kiss makes up for the loss just a tiny little bit.]

Fine, but this matter isn't done.

[No, it's done, he just refuses to relent.]