cryptsleeper | 20s AU Post

20s AU Post

Current Carmilla plot outline
--Post-fire, Carmilla and Mr. Peanut team up mostly to use each other. Carmilla's spent the past several months (since November, it is now February 1925) networking, and it's clear to her that Alucard's not suited for the position and that the other two are the obvious weakness. Mr Peanut needs something back, so this is perfect on her end. Mr Peanut can only imagine the joys of vampire blood in his work, and he'd like an army of vampires for his own ends.
--Shit stirring from Mr Peanut (all of March?)
--Mr Peanut also begins to sell mis Miracle Serum, which has vampire blood in it.
--Gang is very much trying to murder Mr Peanut during this.
--Start of April, vampire gets a call from one of the blood bank contacts that 3 patients have come in and are displaying some bizarre signs. Investigation yields the fact that they're in process of turning, and they've all taken the same serum.
--Additional investigation reveals O FUCK IT MR PEANUT
--Meanwhile Carmilla's been made aware of a familiar she didn't sire, so she knows something's up. Big fight with Mr. Peanut and thus Mr. Peanut is left depowered
--Gang commits a murder
--Carmilla's well sured up on her contacts now, and it's time for open rebellion (mid-April)
--In a more subtle attempt to let Alucard just step aside, she cuts the breaks on demon car and shows up to gloat/suggest he not pull a dad and go to deal with his grief quietly while she runs the city. The how he wants to do it is up to him (black widow joke goes here.) Treffy and Sypha walk in.
--1 week of straight up rebellion; feedings, no help from allies, need to do damage control instead of fight carmilla, every dracula rule is
--MEANWHILE IN GRAVITY FALLS, triangle shows Vlad what's up to try and psyche him out, somehow this finalyl snaps Vlad out of his depression and he heads home
--Just in time for Alucard and Carmilla to be tearing each other to bits in one of the bayous, it's not going well
--Vlad coming in means the king of vampires is accosted by a belmont with a pair of blessed knitting needles and a speaker with a fucking gun and he's just like what the shit happened to the world while i was gone
--Wards around the fight means that only demon car can break the wards, everyone has to pile in.
--Carmilla gets her ass kicked AND SENT TO THE JUSTICE DIMENSION

THEN THERE WERE FAERIES.
--Prior to all of this the vampire and Sypha have done a shit ton of research on how to get their Belmont back
--Sypha has also been practicing debating with dad, which leaves everyone Very Tired.
--When Trevor is actually snatched up (1 year after marriage, it takes fae effort. Taking Arn's shape fails, so it's a lot more kidnapping by force), Sypha and Alucard go into Faerie
--But they're playing this as politics, not as heroes rescuing their damsel, so that means the faeries are just "wait what now excuse u?"
--There are 3 gates and 3 trials (the particulars we're still bullshitting.) Each is asked to sacrifice 3 things. (Alucard: voice, his titles as bestowed upon by his father and his people, i forget the third; Sypha: her human form (she's a birb), fuck what were the other two)
--They enter the court at the end of the third trial. After LITERALLY ALL THE TITLES Sypha declares she Speaks for Trevor Belmont
--Claim debate over Trevor, turns out that the rules are in Sypha's favor.
--But that means debating to leave Fae without giving up what they've chosen.
--Sypha lawyers it all out, Alucard is a safety deposit and hangs out with Fae!Trevor
--In the end, safe passage out of Faerie consists of Sypha giving up her memory of the necromancer (billed as a great mage she studied under), the vampire gives up his immortality, and Trevor is replaced with Carmilla (dad was aware of this option and OK with it), but Trevor has his ability to swear taken. He now soundslike a rubber ducky when he tries
--Everyone gets home okay, except for the AU of this AU where the gang fails, but Trevor's on their doorstep like a bat out of Hell because time doesn't work right and he's been in Hell for a WHILE.

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[Alucard's focus is not on his father. He looks to Trever and to Sypha, and there's a quiet request. I'm not saying yes without both of you being okay with it.

Then he buys just one more minute for the two to make their calls. Trevor's nature has taught him the value of exact words]

Before anyone says yes: define earned trust.

The gun, the whip, and your blade are locked away. The three of you will not make war upon me. You will not plot. Whatever decisions I make as I bring my kingdom back under heel will not be questioned. The humans will cease to interfere in my efforts to tend your injuries. You will recognise that my word is law, and you will ensure that they do in turn.

[ His eyes narrow. The moment is fading, along with his patience, with the humans acting as themselves again.

The Belmont turns back, lips pressed into a tight line, and nods. ]

Am. I. Clear?

Will it make you happy?

[Trevor had managed to get his bearings back quickly, once the spell over the two of them had dropped away, but Sypha hasn't yet picked her head up; she's still considerably shaken, so overcome by the weight of Dracula's compulsion that she can barely seem to gather up the words to speak. Even now, she gives off the impression that whatever was done, she's still reeling from it, feeling it like a physical burden to be overcome.

But she fights to find words, and she whispers.]

If he does what you want. If he lets you keep him safe the way you see fit. When you have done it...will it have made you happy?

[ Such a simple question. ]

No.

[ And such a simple answer. ]

But he will be safe. Protected. A monument to the one thing that ever did.

[ He settles against Alucard, and it's easier like this. He shouldn't be able to see Alucard like this anyway, after all. He still flinches, from those awful bruises making contact with anything rather than from alarm, but Alucard is cool against him. It's as pleasant as anything could possibly be right now. ]

At the port. They said there was no use for a man who couldn't work. Sent the people they didn't want back to Greece. Would have sent me back, if I'd not passed the eye exam.

[ Even with vampire hearing, the last is barely audible- ]

How long will you keep me, if this is permanent?

[Alucard's arms cannot pull Trevor as tight against him as he would otherwise. Such as it is, Alucard's arms rest with one around Trevor's waist, the other underneath Trevor's head to give it support and to make it clear that the vampire is here.

God. Of course he's fixated on the fucking eye exam.

There's another kiss, this one to the top of Trevor's head.]

Always. Forever. Mine.

Then.

[She keeps her head down, her voice soft. At the torture house, she'd met fire with fire, threat with retaliation.

There's none of that, now. Just a lump in her throat that's difficult to speak past.]

Will you also name your price, for him to be your son? How long will it take...and for what cost...? I would like to know. So that I can pay it...if I can.

Lisa Tepes.

[ He answers immediately, and with absolute certainty. ]

Nothing less. You have a month, Speaker.

I understand. And I accept.

[She nods, and that marks her assent as well.]

[ It doesn't make this better. But it helps. Just a little, to hear it. ]

Yours.

[ It helps. To know that for the first time in his life he won't be thrown away once he's ceased to be useful. Everything else still hurts. His head is still swimming. He's still terrified. But he can't ever be broken so entirely that he's thrown away, and that's something. ]

[Alucard shakes as he finally turns around to face his father. He doesn't try to hide the fact he's still so very, very scared. He still has his arms around both of them, is using Trevor to take the weight that he would be putting on his injured leg.

His voice is raw (his throat is killing him. Alucard is exhausted. A new week long depression nap sounds amazing right now.]

The three of us are in agreement then.

[Alucard hates this. He just wants permission to leave now.]

A month.

Besides. Do you think I'm not going to go fuck around in all the weird medical stuff in this house and not come back with results?

A month.

You are dismissed.

[ He doesn't leave. None of them do. They are simply somewhere else. The castle folds around them and they are in the living room. The radio is on, playing music. There are no scabs on the floor or walls. The only things that seem out of the ordinary are the short, jagged tears in clothing, the one snipped away lock of Alucard's hair, and how very exhausted and shaken they all are.

Trevor moves first, guiding the two of them down onto the couch before sinking to the floor himself, finally starting to tremble. ]

[Alucard manages to stay upright. His hands are on the arms of the sofa, clinging to the arm of it to try and get himself together.

He manages words.]

I am so, so sorry.

[They were free. They were done. They were safe, happy, and here. And by virtue of simply being in the castle, by the same thing that got them out of the woods, they're in it even worse.]

I don't know what the hell I thought would come of that.

Edited 2019-02-28 03:14 (UTC)

So I'm, what, a test subject?

[ If he minds that, it doesn't come across in his voice. It sounds weak, fragile, but grateful. ]

No. Only proven effective solutions. I only take risks if I must.

[Alucard knows that there are medical journals that are effective and others that are experiment only. He intends to start with the former.]

Right now, I won't put any more risks on your head unless I absolutely must.

I trust you. And- sorry. For forcing this into your hands.

[ He wants to think as if things are temporary, as if even if it isn't, there'll be something that Adrian can do. It's difficult. He doesn't think like that. Doesn't assume that things will work out okay. He doesn't say anything more for a while, breathing becoming steadier. The only indication that he's still awake is the way his fingertips graze over Alucard's hand. ]

[He apologized to them both until he fell asleep. It is an accomplishment of sorts, but never one to be proud of. It only demonstrates how deep in the shit all three of them are now, far worse than anything that has come before.

Daylight hours. Alucard had said he would start to keep to those only a few days ago, and now seems like the best time to start. It allows precious time to process how to move forward with this knife's edge of a month, and how to move forward. Speaking about it outloud probably counts as plotting, but he can make decisions under his own steam. Daylight hours means less time around his father, means less time to offend. Fewer chances to fuck it all up.

No one is hungry at breakfast. Noon rolls around, which means lunch does as well, and the vampire is in the kitchen. There's a cuttingboard in front of him at the moment, and a mix of vegetables on it, diced into fine pieces. Onions, celery, green peppers, plus a few other bits and pieces to make pilaf. A plate with chicken breasts await it's turn, and Alucard's hands move with careful precision as he gets into the last of the red peppers that need to be diced. They all need to eat. Even if they don't, there will be leftovers, and that will be something.

Talking has been minimal. Understandable. And Alucard thinks quietly about how to deal with the practical things first, like groceries. (They're so low on everything.) He'll...stay within the castle grounds for the month, to show a willingness to compromise. Give Trevor the car keys and sacred list duties. That's an easy decision.

Softer footsteps are behind him. When Alucard opens his mouth, the tone is so very soft.]

Sypha?

It isn't as if we expected this. There's nothing to apologize for.

[The vampire keeps talking after that. Filling in the 45 minutes with nothing in particular, mostly just stories of Sypha's life that she has shared with the vampire. A few stupid things they did before Trevor was even in America, how dumb the dates were. He avoids mentioning how on edge the city was, because that's the route to selfish fucking princeling.

He's there when Trevor rises, having at some point made sure that between the vampire getting up and that moment, Trevor's face was using Alucard for a pillow. On the vampire's side of the bed are piles of books, and they make the mattress sag terribly.

They smell like old library, but without an oppressive musk to them. Just aged paper and vellum, the faintest bit of wood polish from their shelves. And Alucard remains where he is until Trevor makes any noise or indication that there needs to be a change in position.]

[They've done this often enough, haven't they? All those days, even back before Trevor found them — so many days spent just like this, Alucard in the kitchen making breakfast when she came to find him, the near-silent pad of her feet on the floor as she crosses over to him and presses herself up against his back, face buried between his shoulder blades. How often have they done this? How many days in how many weeks, months?

She's always warm. They call her fire, furnace, little flame. She's always warm but she only just feels cold now, chilled to the bone from the icy breath of the past few days' events and the magnitude of what they've wrought.

Even now, her voice isn't what it used to be. The strength has been sapped, just a little. Just enough that it shows just how much of a strain she's under, just how much fear and anxiety and tension are still creeping in.]

Adrian.

[She isn't even sure if she's allowed to call him that, anymore.]

[Their ritual. The one that's just for the two of them, because Trevor's too safety conscious to ever sneak up behind someone who's doing work on a cutting board with any sort of knife - never mind a chef's knife.

The hand that comes to rest on top of Sypha's has to pause to wipe off red pepper juices first, and then it wraps around hers tightly. The other hand puts the knife down, and now both are covered by slender, colder hands that even with a light touch are so much more possessive than usual. There's still the brush of the ribbon from before on his ring finger, because that's yet to be removed. (He will remove it when his father is awake, but only then.)]

I know no one's hungry, but I needed to busy my hands.

[He'll move her onto the counter in a minute or two. Right now they need this. The littlest thing that's theirs.]

It will keep. You never cook anything that can't be saved for a day or two after.

[Because he always cooks too much. Because it's not just a way of busying his hands; it's a means of caring for the people he loves. It's something he can do, something he can put his heart into, and see the results of it in the relieved and delighted expressions of his guests at his table.]

It's just us for a bit. Trevor is taking a bath.

[Probably a shower, more like, but bath sounds better. Softer, somehow. Like what they all need is just a good soak straight through to the soul.]

Just us.

[ He can do this himself.

It's been two days. Everything still hurts. Worse, somehow, now, as if the pain needed time to sink into his skin. He's only a little less dizzy and the world still spins around him when he stands and standing up straight is still asking too much. But it's just going to the kitchen to get a glass of water. He's done that in the dark before. He's done that after having the shit beaten out of him before. It shouldn't be impossible.

It takes too long. If he wanted to make excuses he'd say that the castle is twisting itself around him - it can do that. He spends a good ten minutes fruitlessly fighting with the door to the deeper parts of the castle, the parts that the stories are told about, not the parts that are their home. He knows what it is, and he shakes at the door anyway until what he's doing sinks in and he stumbles away from it in horror and shame. The task of two minutes becomes one of a half hour.

And then, at the end of it, there is the sound of breaking glass. Trevor is there on hands and knees, unharmed by it, but he's behind a wall of water and broken glass that he can't see. He's fucked up again. He's fucked up the simplest of tasks. ]

[She's not...well, not yet, but she's better. Some aspects of healing come more quickly than others. Her forearms are scarred but mostly recovered by now; she's graduated from bandages to soft cloth guards that fit from her elbows to her wrists to help protect the still-tender skin from subsequent damage. She still does badly in rooms filled with long-cast shadows, but that's been easy enough to remedy. More and more now, the boys are allowing themselves to leave her alone, rather than hovering solicitously at her side. That's how they managed to create this whole great mess to begin with, she knows, and is irritable about it, but doesn't mention it aloud.

...Much.

Alucard is deep in the recesses of the library when the glass shatters, which is why Sypha is the one to overhear it. It also comes from the direction of the kitchen, not the library, which means the sound can't be Alucard to begin with, which means —

Which means it's Trevor, and Trevor isn't supposed to be up, but apparently he is.

That's the revelation that makes her hasten her pace, hurrying through the corridors until she makes it to the kitchen and can pause in the doorway, startled and taken aback at the sight of Trevor on his hands and knees, and glass and water all over the floor — a milky way of sharp-edged danger gleaming on the floor between them.]

Trevor...!

[ Some mornings, when he wakes up, he's in a thousand different places.

He's in a small room in Romania at the Transleithenian border, on a mattress that belonged to a lot of people before it was his, with a duty that belonged to a lot of people before it was his, and everything smells of leather polish and annointing oil and every door has a posy of liverleaf hung from the frame. He's in a boarding house in Bucharest, and he doesn't remember the last time he was sober and he has a bottle of- shit, he's forgotten what it is, but it's good for making sure that things stay that way. He's under the fucking earth, in a grave he dug himself, and if he pulls the taller, bonier man in his arms closer than maybe he'll escape frostbite for another night. He's at a worker's hostel in New Orleans with a broken wrist and no good reason to wake. He's chained to a wall and there's a stabbing pain in the side of his neck and he doesn't care.

It's harder to figure out which of those places is real when he can't look around.

The thing under his head is- something living. Ill, maybe, being so cold. (Arn? Is he going to be ill again? He's not sure he can manage another bout of sickness.) There's a weight to one side, something pulling down the mattress. (Not Arn, then. He took pride in never having slept anywhere but the earth beneath them.) It smells like the hold, almost, but he would never be lying with someone there. Even he isn't shitty enough to-

It's that self deprecation that brings him back to reality. Because of course it is. This is Alucard. Definitely Alucard, Sypha isn't so bony and certainly isn't so cool to the touch. And he's reading, by the sound of pages turning and the smell of old paper. Reading a fuck of a lot, if the weight on the mattress is anything to go by (It's not Sypha, that weight. Her weight moves with her breath). ]

...still hurts like fuck. [ He says eventually, unsteadily reaching out hands to figure out which part of the boyfriend he's lying on. Chest, apparently. How the tables have turned. ] In case you wanted an update.

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20s AU Post

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