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 am.

[ He doesn't sigh so much as he lets out air, somehow managing to both be frustrated with himself for failing to do basic boyfriend things and be frustrated with himself for doing basic boyfriend things. And also growing frustrated with himself for being frustrated with himself. ]

I- don't mind it if shit doesn't change. Really, I don't. [ And then, with a little difficulty, because this is almost a little too close to expressing a desire for anything. ] But- I don't mind if shit does change, either.

[ This is nice. ]

This is new. For all of us.

[Alucard's thumb strokes down Trevor's shoulder, slow and careful. There's pressure there, applied carefully and trying not to do or be anything more than a comfort and an anchor.]

None of us have done this before, but you are just as loved and there is no reason to act any differently for it. So that means this is your room too. That you should put your things here, and come and go as you wish.

You are ours, and that means so many things. Including this.

[It's a very specific blue, the color of Speaker robes. Alucard knows it, too, all too well — it'd taken him a long time to find a bolt of cloth that exactly matched that shade, once. It's Speaker blue, the tattered cloth wound around the horror that lurches toward them through the fog. They're Speakers, or at least mostly Speakers, or at least creatures with the parts of Speakers grafted on.

That's not the realization that makes her start screaming.

She starts screaming when it occurs to her how close she came to being one of them, herself.]

[There's too much to process at once. The Speakers, such as they once were and are even now, represent too many lives lost to this necromancer. They're the apex of his work, a horrible conglomeration of everything he sold and everything he kept. They move horribly, and it is a blessing that the incense fills so much of the air, obscuring finer features.

Even like this, they are Speakers. There is violence a foot, and they have moved to protest it in a way only a Speaker could. The necromance deserves harm brought upon his head. He can no longer live. He ought to have died at their hands three times over, and they've failed every time. Maybe Carmilla should have dispatched him instead, politics be damned. Yet it's politics that have spared him for now, and it is the Speakers and their code of pacifism that prolongs his life even now. They are between Sypha and the man. A shield, protecting one of their own, but also allowing him to endure for a few more terrible moments.

They have too much to deal with. The necromancer. The speakers. Sypha, because all three of them know the simple fact: had they failed, Sypha would be here too. Alucard's arms wrap around her. Pull her close because that scream is too much to bear, and if the late Speaker who's pushed past him once takes issue with it, then so be it.

There's no words. Can't be words. Everything is drowned in Sypha's screams.]

[ He shouldn't take his eyes from the necromancer. He does anyway, at Sypha's scream, and it's only a blessing that he's quick enough to realise that they're not a danger to her not to lash out at them with his whip.

No, it's not just a blessing. He couldn't strike them if he tried, because even without the way they wear their hair, even with the robes torn and stained and blue instead of white, he knows full well what they are. He couldn't have done a thing to them even had they meant harm. ]

Chimeras. [ He provides, probably not entirely helpfully. It's more than clear what they are, and putting a name to them doesn't change a thing.

The next hand isn't lanced through with ice. Instead, the white smoke gathers together into a hand of its own, pale and softly glowing and outstretched. It catches the shadow, wrapping its fingers around it and holding it. There's no violence in it - Trevor knows the movements it's making. It's the way they would take people's hands to ground them during painful treatment or delivering bad news. But it holds the hand still. The shadow doesn't break apart this time, and so the fragments of it don't return to their master.

The next one, then, is smaller. There is less to work with. And again, it is caught and held, and that hold is soft and comforting, almost, but also uncompromising. They would not forego painful treatment and allow someone to die. They would not keep a man ignorant of terrible news. There's comfort in it, but no escape. It continues, until all of the smoke in the room is gathered into those glowing hands and there are no shadows left to use.

There is just a broken man in the middle of the room. A broken man with the consequences of his actions, and the people he hurt most giving him what comfort they can. Holding his hands, all of his hands, through the pain of whatever comes next. ]

Loved.

[ He just repeats that word quietly and lies still for a moment. It's- it's a word. It sure is a word. Carefully, he pulls his arm free from where he'd tucked it behind Sypha. It's far more comfortable to drape it over the two of them. ]

I really, really shouldn't put my things here.

[ 99.9% of his things are for killing vampires. ]

Yes. Loved.

[The arm moves. That feels like a victory of sorts, and Alucard smiles when he sees the movement. He settles, soft and content and looking at Trevor with a faint smile on his face.]

Your clothes should be here. Things for vampires, perhaps not.

[Eventually, her cries fade away and die in her throat, replaced by a melancholy silence and the spillover of hot tears from her eyes as she watches the creatures — chimeras — work. It hurts to look at them and know what they once were, juxtaposed with what the necromancer had made them into, and never moreso than when they begin to catch and subdue the forgemaster's last desperate efforts to save himself through his shadows, because she recognizes that kindness so acutely, so deeply, moreso than Alucard and even moreso than Trevor.

Because it's the same steady kindness that came naturally to her grandfather's hands, the same to the elders of her caravan who took the place of her parents as she grew. She knows those stalwart hands from how they'd clasped onto her little fingers as they led her through smoky cities filled with people who shunned them; she knows that steady dignity from the set of shoulders that bore up even under the danger and threats of the little towns filled with suspicion and homegrown justice.

She doesn't know these Speakers, doesn't know their names, but Speakers have never prized individuality over identity, and so deep down she does know them.

How could she not, when they are her?

Her knees wobble, and she leans heavily against Alucard, slipping almost to the point of falling, if he weren't there to hold her up. Her tears come fiercely now, streaming down her face even as she stays silent, watching the ones wronged most by the necromancer still offer the small sliver of mercy that she herself can't find in herself to give.

But of course, she's never been a very good Speaker, has she.]

[Alucard's eyes have been going from the necromancer to Sypha and back since this horrible encounter began. Watching the other speakers emerge has been hard enough. Horrifying with the knowledge that their fate might have been Sypha's, once upon a not very long ago. And yet the hardest part to witness is not Sypha's screams transmuting into silent tears, but the other Speakers.

They are still full of kindness. Mercy. Their ways unchanged even as chimeras, because they are still fundamentaly themselves. Alucard knows in that horrible way, in the deep pit of his stomach, that he does not have it in him to be the same person.

Yet in this horrible situation, there is an even worse question. These chimeras. What is to become of them? This existence cannot be an easy one, and yet to even think the words death is a mercy is wrong. They're innocents, far more than the three of them may ever be. For that reason, killing them is...

...they've been in such horrible situations before, but oh this, this is beyond anything else.

Alucard finds words. Somehow.]

He goes to the House of Justice for now. Until...until decisions are made.

[ They'll have to have this conversation again in the morning, when he's awake enough for it to sink in. For now, though, it's stuck. He should be here because he's loved here. Whether or not he deserves to be, there's a logic to that that he can't bring himself to argue with. ]

Once shit calms down, then.

[ It's everything he wanted, he's sure, to have his arm around the two of them, some part of him between them and everything else. That, at least, is correct in every possible way. ]

Do I have to wake up at the same time as you, if I'm here?

[ Because you're both filthy heathens who sleep in on sundays and he's not about that life. ]

Mmm. Whenever that comes to pass.

[Alucard's affection does not end with this. He isn't content to simply have the Belmont in bed with the both of them, wrapped up in warmth and affection. Affection must be displayed constantly, at all times, actively, and for that he kisses the top of Trevor's head.]

No, never.

[Filthy heathens you're having sex with Trevor.]

Sir.

[ That's. An odd way to say 'yes'. The presence of speakers always messes with his head like that. Vampire Killer is put aside in favour of Vampire Inconveniencer, and he sets about replacing Carmilla's bindings with it, tying the necromancer to immobilise him. As he does, the glowing smoke hands pull. Not violently, but insistently, leading the last of his magic out of him. One by one, the shadow hands are pulled clean away from him, fading away, and the necromancer is left with nothing.

Trevor pushes the man's head forward, letting the tonic spill out from his mouth so he can breathe before gagging him with the Inconveniencer and tying it again. Which just leaves one more thing. He approaches the speakers, holding out his hands. ]

Right for 'yes', left for 'no'. Will you speak with us?

[ The first speaker's arm, the one that is present up until the wrist, rises and comes down against Trevor's right hand. ]

[ It's nice. It's nice and he doesn't really know how he's meant to respond to that kiss and he freezes for just a moment while he tries to figure it out before settling on sighing with contentment and tucking his head underneath Alucard's chin, putting his face in Sypha's hair. ]

Thank fuck for that, it'd be weird. [ And then, softer, almost uncertain- ] Do that again?

[ He doesn't ask for things often. But- it's a special occasion, probably. He can request extra kissu and maybe nobody will be mad at him for it. ]

[This is what they should have always been, isn't it? The three of them curled up, limbs all over each other, understanding that in this home, no one is alone. It only took how many months for them to figure that out?

Then Trevor asks do that again? and the vampire almost melts from happiness. He knows Trevor doesn't ask for things often, if ever. This request, it is a special thing. To be treasured.]

A thousand times over if you wish.

[He kisses the top of Trevor's head again. And again. And again.]

You'd fall asleep first.

[ So would Trevor, for that matter. And maybe they should. It must be something like three or four by now, and he still needs to be up and about before eight.

He wants to stay awake anyway, savour this. But when emotions and practicality war in him, it tends to be the latter that wins. And he can't exactly tell Agatha that he's falling asleep on the job because he was up too late kissing a vampire. ]

Consider that a challenge, if you want.

Challenge accepted.

[Because of course that's a challenge to the vampire. They could have been doing this for months. There's so much to catch up on, and this is the easiest, simplest place to start.

So he does. Kisses wherever he can reach of Trevor right now, and when he isn't kissing the Belmont, one of Alucard's slender hands is stroking through his hair. Murmuring nothing in particular, but it is all so soft and adoring.

He's theirs now. That counts for an awful lot.]

Good luck.

[ His breath has slowed before he's finished saying that, the hand in his hair and the soft murmuring quickly guiding him to sleep. Sypha's going to wake all wrapped up in people, isn't she, if she wakes up before he does. That's the thought that he has last before he drifts off, wondering how she'll react to it. If she'll be okay with it. If it'll make her happy.

It would be nice if they could all be happy, if only for a morning. ]

[ Last night, he had come home with rather more scrapes and bruises than he usually does, which was something of a concern. He still can't tell Alucard and Sypha what he's doing, so coming home with anything worse than grime under his fingernails is a surefire way to cause them distress. Even if he just tripped, he can't tell them that to ease their minds.

On the bright side, there have been other things to distract from that. Like the fact that he also returned home with a half-dead man in his arms, who he proceeded to dump on the couch until Dracula took offense to that and moved him to a guest room. It's been about a year, hasn't it? This is just the time of year when people show up at this house with half dead people and they get stuck in a guest room.

The majority of the night is spent away from their bed aiding Dracula in dealing with whoever it was that he dragged here, so much so that when morning comes Trevor actually sleeps in. A lot. It's almost noon when he stirs, and he reaches over the bed before he opens his eyes, feeling to see if the others are still there. ]

Edited 2019-04-05 23:32 (UTC)

[They're nearing the end of the month. They all know it, and there's a near tension in the air. It's a horrible mix of anxiety and a desire for this to be over and the fear that somehow, Dracula may just go back on his word and cleave all of them apart for good.

Alucard still hates that his father is using Trevor like this. (Like Alucard should have been all along.) He can't ask if Trevor's okay with it. He can't know any more of the events. He has to be ignorant. And it's getting so much harder.

He feels Trevor when he finally does come to bed, because the vampire doesn't fall asleep until there's three there and not two. It also means he's always there when Trevor wakes after a late night, because he has to be. Every night. Every morning. They're so precious because they could be some of the last.

Alucard's awake in bed when Trevor stirs. He's reading quietly, the same as he's been doing for the month. Reading helps. Reading kills time and it distracts.]

Good morning.

[His words are soft, and there is such a smile on the vampire's face, small and soft and so warm.]

'lo.

[ His hand fumbles until it flops against a chest and then he attaches, pulling Alucard up close against him and resting his head on his shoulder. He's usually more alert than this when he wakes up. But then he usually wakes up much earlier, even with Dracula's preferred working times overlapping so poorly with his own. But there is nothing to do today, for once. A few long, lazy days of no orders at all.

Whatever will he do? ]

Got some awfully shitty news for you, I'm afraid.

[ It's hard to tell, him not being entirely awake yet, but it doesn't sound like he thinks it's shitty. ]

!

[Alucard lets himself be dragged over into the Belmont's arms, the book falling aside and onto the floor. There's a little delighted noise, one that's a sharp contrast to how unalert and downright dreamy the Belmont is behaving right now.

Shitty he says, and there's too much joy in those sleepy tones.]

Do you now?

I do.

[ Eyes still not entirely open, he moves his head about like a small animal sniffing at something until his face finally collides softly with Alucard's and he can start kissing Softly but a lot, as he slowly lets himself ease into consciousness. It's a luxury he doesn't usually allow himself even when he can do so, to wake up slowly rather than immediately dragging himself first to the nearest source of cold water and then to the nearest source of caffeine.

But once in a while is fine. ]

Afraid your jailer's been asleep on the job for the last couple hours.

[This is a rarity. A rarity beyond rarities, because Trevor is never like this in the mornings. Not just soft, but lazy and loving and letting himself wake up with an overflow of affection.

The vampire would burst from that alone, but they've been so conservative about even affection these days. They've had to, both because of Dracula's omnipresent shadow, but because recovery meant that to overdo anything was to make a problem worse.

What else can he do but kiss back? Alucard is soft as well, and moreover, he's awake. He can keep pace.]

Is that so?

He has. Lazy fuck. Don't know why you keep him around.

[ By the time he stretches, pulling himself up so he's sitting against the pillows and can pull Alucard down against his chest, he's mostly awake. That was the news, mostly. That he's acting as the arbiter of this horrible business for the meantime. But he clarifies further, as much as he can. ]

Can't tell you where, or why, or- anything, really. [ He might not even if he could, in truth, knowing where Dracula's gone to. It'd quickly put a damper on everything if he let it. ] But- Three days. We won't be seeing him for three days, at least.

[Alucard's fine with being pulled around and told where to go by the Belmont. In all things at this point, but right now in particular. He's already witnessed a rarity in how Trevor's woke up, and...

...and then there's a bonelessness to the vampire that hits all at once when it's revealed his father's gone for three days. The tension, the stress, everything that has had him scared stupid is gone for three glorious days, and he is already a puddle.

Thank God his face is right up against Trevor's tits. He buries his face in them utterly.]

Three days.

[He doesn't believe it. Not really.]

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20s AU Post

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CLAIMS PAGE 3 FOR DEACTIVATING THE VAMPIRE ALSO

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