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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I know. And we all really do need to eat.

[Alucard squeezes her hands once before he lets go. It's only so that he can turn around. So he can pull Sypha into his arms, his weight rested upon the counter and feet floating off the ground so that there is no strain to the one injury that remains.]

He probably needs the time alone.

[He is a Belmont. Who has gone up against Dracula three times now and has survived. That must be a family record, even if it's likely to end badly.

It has not escaped Alucard that Sypha's voice is much too small. That she's still so warm, but not as warm as she usually is. A dimmed hearth, and he shudders the moment the thought enters his head.]

So it is. [Just as it began.

She's here in his arms. That's as good a reason as any for Alucard to bury his face into the top of Sypha's head.]

[ He looks up in the direction of the sound, and he's shaking. Sypha is- somewhere. Somewhere ahead. And there's glass. There's glass there. There shouldn't be glass there but there is glass there because he can't manage the simplest fucking task. A task that every fucking creature on the planet can achieve. He can't move water to his mouth without failing and making everything worse.

The air feels cold in his lungs. He's breathing too quickly. He doesn't feel like he's breathing at all. ]

-there's glass. [ He manages, and it's the smallest his voice has ever been in Sypha's presence. ]

Oh, I imagined that much.

[He says it with a stupid, overly fond warmth that the vampire always reserves for the other two in the hours that they can simply be themselves. There is a moment of the vampire shifting so he can put the book he's reading aside, and then there is a hand on Trevor's back, the other resting on his shoulder.]

I was able to locate an appropriate painkiller for the situation, but it needs to be taken on a full stomach, which means breakfast before we can see about dulling that issue.

[Nothing in the room smells like breakfast, but that is neither here nor there. Alucard simply falls quiet, letting Trevor become more comfortable in being in the waking world in spite of the darkness around him.]

Or he's being noble.

[She hasn't forgotten what he'd said, either, when that awful compulsion had descended on them both. How he'd promised he'd take her away. Take her, and leave, and — so no, perhaps it's not just Trevor wanting to be on his own, but Trevor causing the two of them to be together. Trevor, making things turn out the way he thinks they ought to be.

This time he's right, perhaps. They needed this, the both of them. This gift, this memory of how things had been, back in the very beginning.]

You could kiss me, I think. If you wanted to.

[There's no ban on that, is there? Kissing is the antithesis of plotting. And there's no law yet passed that says she can't.]

— Yes, there is.

[She only just barely bites off the words that are her instinct, which are don't move, because he's shaking and he's small and the last thing she's going to do at this point, the last thing, is trap him behind words as well as behind broken glass.]

Trevor, I'm going to come to you. Please, will you stay still for me? Please.

Don't really- [ He frowns, then tries again in French. He's not trying to English with the headache he has right now. ] -don't really feel like breakfast.

[ He manages not to flinch at the contact this time. He had the energy to flinch last night, all full of terror. Now he just feels drained, lifeless. ]

-still can't see.

If he's not down here by the time lunch is done, I'll go get him.

[Alucard doesn't know how much of those awful fucking words he heard were compulsion and his father's bullshit magic versus genuine. He doesn't care to know, he's been trying not to think about it. They were details. Fleeting, tiny details that didn't matter when the only important thing was surviving the month.

He's lingering where he is, memorizing every hair, how it tickles against his nose, every little thing. Mine. Ours. Those details matter even more now.]

Needed to do this first.

[It's a slow thing, moving his head up. Easy to hide emotions when there's an entire head of beautiful, perfect hair in the way. But kissing is good for that too. Much more important too, and so when Alucard leans in to follow the most important directive given for the day, he's aware that the muted fear on his face is going to be obvious, if only for a split second.

His kiss starts with all the stupid nerves that it did back then. Unsure of what's right anymore, but it fades after just a few moments. Morphs into that much calmer, confident knowledge of love and that this is how it ought to be.]

I know, but you unfortunately need to humor me and eat regardless.

[Alucard's bedside manner needs some work. But he can pay attention to little things. French is fine, so long as Alucard can reply in English. The problem is body language.]

We'll give it a few more days. Research is going to be slow going too, I'm afraid.

[ He swallows, nodding. And he tries. He tries not to shake, and he tries not to breathe too fast. And there's glass. There's glass and he should know what to do about glass. But he doesn't. There's glass and water and it may as well be fucking Dracula himself for all that he can do about it.

He just nods again, squeezing his eyes shut, for all the difference it makes right now, and trying to breathe slower. He's going to suffocate. He knows he's going to suffocate. ]

[He's afraid. They're all afraid, they're all so afraid and it isn't fair, somehow, for it to be like this. It was only supposed to be like this when Dracula was gone, and the weight of the city's future had been left to be borne on Alucard's shoulders. Dracula's return was supposed to be the end of it, the liberation from it. It wasn't supposed to be like this, even more terror and sadness than before.

And yet there's a gentleness to this, too, that they find in each other, that they both must be craving. He buries his face in her hair and for a second she finds herself remembering how he'd looked when she'd turned up at his door after leaping from the train, with his stitches pulled and his hair a mess, and how he'd looked at her like the only thing in the world that could calm the raging storm he'd found himself in.]

Adrian.

[She can feel his lip tremble when he kisses her, at first — that slight little quiver of anxiousness. But then things slow, and smooth out, and mellow, and she leans up and into him with quiet acceptance, wanting more of him just as much as he does her.]

-at the table. I want to walk to the table. I'll eat if I can get there.

[ He's bargaining with himself as much as he is Alucard. If he can manage to walk to the kitchen table, then he isn't hopeless. Food won't be wasted on him. ]

[Fear will transmute into something in the next few weeks. What it will become, none can say. Another demon car, perhaps, or some other thing born of magic because they have all gone stir crazy from home becoming a jail. It won't help anything, but it will distract.

His mind isn't on the train, of what can come next when they manage this month, or anything else but Sypha's weight and warmth against him. How she leans against him, lets him bear her weight even if neither of them should be doing it, how want isn't want at all but need so stupidly and desperately, just as much as before if not more.

He pulls away only when the need for air outweighs the comforts of having her lips and tongue against his own.]

Sypha.

[He breathes her name out softly, like it's a prayer unto itself. Then there is a noise that might be a laugh in happier times, equally muted.]

Just Adrian now. And all that really entails.

Trevor.

[She's barefoot, which is going to be a problem when it comes to the smallest grains of glass shards, but she's not about to leave him and go find a pair of shoes at a time like this. She looks around briskly instead, finding a chair that she can drag into the middle of the shard river, and clambers up onto it to create herself a safe bridge over to him.]

Trevor, I'm coming.

[She's watching his shoulders, his torso; she can see the way it's wracked with his erratic breath, and how hard he's fighting to keep it steady, and how badly he's failing at it.]

I'm almost to you, Trevor. Here I come.

[She shuffles around in a crouch, extending her leg as far out as she can as she crosses over to his side of the kitchen floor, moving closer step by step with shuffling footsteps to avoid bringing the bottom of her foot down onto any sharp shards.]

Okay. But you're taking my hand on the stairs. Is that fair?

[ Something scrapes across the ground, and he flinches at the noise, and then he can hear her voice coming closer. Her voice is coming closer and that means that she's trapped, doesn't it? Like he is. Because she doesn't wear shoes in the house. Because he's still in his bedthings. And because there's glass.

He wants to tell her to be careful. To- there's a way to deal with glass, he knows it, he just can't make his brain find it right now. He isn't existing in a world with dustpans and brushes, not right now. Just one with glass. Glass that he put there because he can't drink right. Because he can't stand up without overbalancing. Because he's useless.

He's trying. He's trying not to shake, but the effort only makes him tremble more. His lungs are burning and cold and he has to stay still but he can't. ]

Sypha- glass.

Fair.

[ In truth, he's not sure if he'll be able to even make it to the stairs without help. But he has to try. He has to prove to himself that there's at least something left in him. Enough to make it that far. If he can make it that far, then that's something that can be improved upon.

He feels around for Alucard's arm, following it down to the hand on his shoulder. ]

When you're ready.

One second.

[One second to move a few more books. One second to kiss the top of Trevor's head with a too light kiss, because there's so much swelling that more pressure would be unwise. One second to unwrap himself entirely from Trevor, and to hope that this isn't the horrible attempt that it's likely to be. To pray quietly that his Belmont is going to just get so into his head, declare himself useless and then be lost for weeks.

Alucard lets go.]

I'm ready. Edge of the bed is to your right.

[ He reaches out to his right, feeling for the edge of the mattress to determine how much he needs to move his feet. This is where he meets the first difficulty, because he needs to push himself into a sitting position. That's a motion that unavoidably means straining his back (there are very few motions, he'll come to understand soon enough, that don't mean that). He managed it last night, when he was full of terror over the sudden darkness. But now he doesn't have that adrenaline, just a quiet dread in his aching bones.

He manages eventually, with a pained groan and a few seconds recovery afterward before he immediately regrets it. The room is still spinning. Everything is spinning. He couldn't even confidently say whether he is sitting up or not. He stands anyway, then stumbles forward until he can brace himself against the wall.

He can do this. ]

[It is instinct to run to Trevor's side. Wrap his arm over Trevor's shoulder, support him, guide him along. Alucard wants to do it desperately, to be the one being leaned on for once rather than vice versa. The other two always do this for him, it's only fair he be able to do it in turn.

He doesn't try. At most he stands a few inches from Trevor's left side. A silent witness, and there to rush in when he absolutely, utterly must. He can't say anything either, because that will break Trevor's concentration, and then he'll fall, and then where will they be?

Alucard stands so still.]

For now.

[She misses the feeling of his lips almost as soon as he draws away from her; even as he does, she keeps her chin tilted up and her eyes closed for just a few seconds too long, lingering regretfully as if trying to hold on to the fragile moment between them just a touch longer before it inevitably dissipates.]

For however long we can keep it.

[Lowering her head, she steps forward into him without hesitation, bringing her forehead to rest against his chest.]

We'll manage.

[It's a month. They're one day in. They'll do it because it's all they can do. This isn't going to be easier or harder than anything else. It is different in all the details, and those are important.

The arms around Sypha squeeze her gently. There's no failure of the vampire's usual possessiveness to appear, and the gesture is barely tempered with the fear that's taken up residence in him.]

We always do.

I know. I won't step on it, don't worry.

[She gets herself free of it at last, over onto the clear spot of the floor away from the shrapnel left over from the glass breaking, and carefully lowers herself down onto the ground near him, unwilling to touch him just yet but more than close enough to, once he'll let her.]

Trevor, I'm going to put my hand over yours. Your right hand. You'll feel my fingers in just a second.

[Carefully, carefully, she edges her hand across the floor, first bumping up against the side of his, then creeping up and over it until her smaller one is covering the back of his like a blanket.

She holds it there a minute, just so that he can feel her hand there, and then slowly she starts a cadence of barely-there squeezes to his hand, just enough pressure to be felt, timed to the beat of her heart.]

[ The drafting table. A few feet to the side there's the drafting table and then the bookshelf. After that is the corner of the room, and then the next wall. Then, a little way along that, then there's the door. He moves along the wall, one hand bracing himself, until his extended hand touches the drafting table, and then measures how far away he'll have to be in order to not trip on the stool that sticks out from it a little.

This is strategy. Comfortable, comfortable strategy.

The most difficult stretch so far is here. The drafting table to the next wall. If he gets turned around, then he'll end up tripping at the fireplace to one side, else reaching the door too early and walking straight through it and being in a different room without knowing. He knows he has to be careful. He knows that he has to be careful to stay on course, but the second that he lets go of the drafting table the room twists around him and he's stranded. He's stranded in Dracula's Fucking Demon Castle and he doesn't know where he's going and he doesn't know how to get back. He stumbles forward anyway, feeling around himself, but his arms don't touch the wall when it feels like they should. ]

-Adrian.

[ Help??? ]

We're not allowed to plot.

[Which probably means not talking about the future to come much at all, or at least not about affecting it. It's hard to say what might or might not be construed as plotting, and it's not an answer they can afford to get wrong.

She lets out a breath, a soft chuff against his collarbone, and the noise that escapes her throat is soft and thin.]

But I will try to do everything I can, to stay with you. I want to stay with you, my love.

[He hates watching this. Alucard knows he can't look away, because the minute he does is when he'll be needed. So all Alucard can do is hover, and wait. He presses tiny hopes to whatever God answers to a Belmont that this will be temporary. That Trevor will at least reach the door and be satisfied with progress. That...

...that hope is garbage, and now Alucard's needed in earnest.

Trevor calls for him, and Alucard is there in a moment. One hand has Trevor's in it, the other is slung around his shoulder tightly. Trevor's progress was fine. More than Alucard expected, and he knows it was because the Belmont mind for strategy is second to none.]

I have you.

[A simple fact. More than that, Alucard keeps them both walking.]

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Page 105 of 141

20s AU Post

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