20s AU Post

[cryptsleeper]

"Land of the Dead" (Watch on YouTube)

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.

Comments

[miraclewhip]

Believe it or not, I've seen it.

[ The last major vampire in Europe was Jack the Ripper. Every woman in the Belmont family was armed to the teeth at all times. Literally. ]

My grandmother had half her teeth replaced with silver, just so that she could bite vampires and werewolves.

[cryptsleeper]

Oh, you're going to love them.

[He's. Oh god he's serious.

Also your family's fucked up Belmont.]

[cryptsleeper]

[There's only about a week left until the world shifts around them. Alucard knows he's being dramatic, but he also doesn't care. He's entitled to be dramatic about this, just as he's entitled to not start any morning routine until everything is in place.

So he wakes up around noon. Trevor's gone, out with his grandmothers because he's healed up now and they need help with something. (This is a lie, they just like having him around.) Sypha needed to go pick up some new books in the city proper, and that means Alucard gets a few hours to himself.

He makes a lazy lunch. He sits and eats reading the papers that have been dumped on the table. The paper of human record first, then the paper of supernatural one. He reads both front to back, and he is careful to always read in between the lines.

It is not until he hits the gossip section of the supernatural paper that Alucard swears. He reads it again, carefully, and then leaves half of his sandwich alone. There are phone calls and viewing mirrors to make use of at the moment.

When Trevor returns, Alucard's just returned to reclaim his sandwich after a three hour diversion.]

[miraclewhip]

[ Agatha, as it happens, was a childhood friend of his own grandmother's. Her village was on the other side of the border. She left for America when Transylvania became Transleithania, one of many refugees who sought out a new home rather than see their old one forced to take on a new name and identity. She is stern, and accepts no nonsense. But her definition of 'nonsense' includes any and all uses of the phrase 'I'm fine', and that makes her- very much a busybody. But a sweet and loving busybody who became a vampire hunter but because of old ties to House Belmont but because she came across a random stranger with a bitten neck and set about doing all she could to help them. She knits lovely little dolls of a vampire named Godbrand and then cuts them open and stuffs their stomachs with salt, then hands them to him as components to give the man in whose image they are made terrible indigestion. He called her a name that a gentleman should never use, she claims.

Florence is her opposite in many ways, a whirlwind of the kinds of things that Agatha dismisses as silly and dramatic. She owns one of every sort of thing that could ever be used to fight off anything, from stakes of frankincense to symbols of every religeon there is to a long hatpin made of silver and dipped in a vial of holy water hidden inside her very impressive hat. She swears in church and cuts a lock of hair from everyone she meets for 'safe keeping'. Hungarian, she's had every possible argument relating to that with Agatha long before Trevor came to America.

And Trevor adores them.

He returns to the castle with a biscuit tin that, surprisingly, contains baked goods instead of sewing supplies. Not biscuits, though. Because that would make too much sense. Even sealed, it smells of apple and sugar and cinnamon. Plăcintă cu mere, Romanian apple pie. Something from home. They're spoiling him. ]

From Bunicuta. [ He says, setting the tin down in the kitchen. Because it's always entertaining to see how offended Alucard becomes when he's sent home with food for the three of them. Bunicuta is Agatha. Florence refuses to be anyone's grandmother, so they've compromised - she's Tanti. ] She says that she doesn't care if you're eating well, you're still too skinny and you should eat better.

[cryptsleeper]

She's known me since I was three and has claimed that fact since the beginning.

[Which was a part of the other reason the ladies were considered the apex of the city's hunting population. They established the rule of law with Dracula as no one else could have (Lisa had a theory, and that was his father was always entertained when the most unexpected of people stood up to him), and they maintained it through that combination of sheer will and gestures like this. The younger vampires, they didn't quite understand why most of their elders entertained any of this nonsense.

Alucard also lives in satisfaction that he was right about how every single one of those women became those who could exert any kind of positive influence on the Belmont. He and Sypha were stymied by their own problems, by politics, and Trevor being Trevor. When he wrote them thank you notes for baked goods, he included thank yous for looking after Trevor as well.

He drags the paper over.]

Your family's ancestral weapon. Did it have any particular identifying marks that it gained over the years? Stains, notches, anything?

[miraclewhip]

Shit, I've not seen it in years. Leona would have left it behind when we enlisted.

[ (Leontine had become Leon when they enlisted. Trevor had kept his name, but had aged four years.) ]

Cut near the top of the handle, just above the crest, repaired but you can still see it if you know what to look for. Great-grandmother used it to block Bluebeard's sword. Scorch marks on the whip itself - just stains, no real damage.

[cryptsleeper]

[In front of Alucard is a small yellow pad with his own notes, kept in immaculate handwriting. There are several phone numbers there, and below those numbers an address. Then a lengthy description, which Alucard murmurs to himself. No words as to be distinguishable, but he taps the pad at scorch marks.]

Then it seems that it has appeared on the supernatural black market up in New York City.

[Alucard offers Trevor the newspaper first. It's at the gossip column, and there are more notes around it. Something something Belmont relics supposedly in New York City?]

Their writer is terribly good at her job.

[miraclewhip]

-oh.

[ That would be why his many grandmothers have been fussing over him so much today. They knew, didn't they? Shit. His face doesn't change. ]

I'm eating some fucking pie. You want any?

[cryptsleeper]

Warm it up in the microwave for twenty seconds.

[Which is to say yes, because that pie is not to be scoffed at when it's offered. Even if it's sympathy pie.]

I was able to find out when it will be auctioned. You and Agatha should go and get it.

[miraclewhip]

[ He does so, with about the amount of trust one would expect a Belmont to give to an invention of Dracula's. ]

I don't really care.

[ Does he look like he can afford that???? The microwave beeps as he speaks, and he takes a slice of the pie out of it, setting it down by Alucard.]

It's not important. That Vampire Killer is just a whip.

[cryptsleeper]

That is yours, by rights.

[The vampire isn't bothering with a fork for this, so that's about where his head is at the moment.]

I'll eat the cost. Besides, you should see the Americas beyond this city.

[miraclewhip]

You'll eat the-

[ He actually seems almost disgusted by that. Sorry, Alucard. He doesn't like this. He doesn't like his family being involved in this. ]

-I don't need the whip to play the part. It's a bullwhip braided with silver and soaked in anointing oil. It can be remade. And you're missing the point.

[cryptsleeper]

You're missing mine.

[He's a sentimental idiot, Trevor. This, as far as Alucard is concerned, is a way to connect back to everything else lost. A relic, yes, but one that should not be in anyone else's hands.]

Or do you want me to sell this as politics, hm? Introduce a Belmont at one point, announce that a long lost and deeply feared weapon is in his hand later on. That would be a rather effective move, I suppose.

[miraclewhip]

[ Trevor just slams his hands down on the table, very narrowly missing squishing his slice of pie. ]

The effective move would be when some hunter comes here with everything else that was in the fucking Hold. I could have thrown off the balance with an iron spike and eight cups of beer. If the Hold was looted, not burned to nothing, then someone has the entire. Fucking. Belmont. Armory.

[cryptsleeper]

I'm waiting for a call back from one of my contacts to confirm that this is the only item, or if the seller has more.

[Alucard doesn't care for this table slamming. But he can't blame the anger.

He's purchasing it all without Trevor's say so. This entire discussion simply determines if Trevor gets informed of it.]

[miraclewhip]

[ Table slamming on a mostly-healed wrist was probably not the best idea, but oh well. He's used up all of the not-despair he can manage for now on that, and he sinks into a chair. ]

I don't need the whip. But the books- if they survived the fire, someone could fuck things up so badly. Someone could move the castle remotely. The shit we had to make to combat Springheel. The- The Morning Star. Shit. The Morning Star.

[cryptsleeper]

[Saved by the phone. Alucard leaps to get it, yellow pad of paper and pencil being swept up along with him. What is said on Alucard's end is little. Soft "yes"es and mmmmhmmmms with one or two, "I see." And it takes a while.

Too much time for Trevor's mind to conjure things up, but Alucard hangs up in the end and...]

...I'm sorry. Did you say move the castle remotely?

[Hey. Belmont. What the actual fuck.]

[willpowerful]

If he didn't care about that, he would not have stepped into this vacuum of power at all. He would simply have left, and abandoned this city to the others, uncaring while they tore themselves apart.

[She sets a back piece up against his leg, rising up about as high as a sock might, and then adds on a bracing piece on either side, fitted to cover his ankle and keep the whole of the area reasonably immobile. It's a fairly clever design because it's better than just a splint; the combination of the wraparound and the padded sole means less room for slipping and wobbling, and a means of redistributing his weight when he walks to take the brunt of it off the injury.

She didn't invent it, and neither did Alucard. She knows precisely where it must have come from, and why no one in the house is likely to ever mention it.]

And in that you are both better than me, who abandoned my birthright to be a little bit less sad. So if that is what you are hating people for, then hate me too.

[miraclewhip]

Among other shit, yes. Why did you think Dracula made the truce with us and left Europe? We learned how to move the castle's engines from the outside. The spell I drew when I first came here, the one that would have removed the castle's defenses, is based on it.

[ THEY WERE REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT THEIR JOBS, OKAY????? ]

This can't be about fucking vampire politics. Fuck, we had reverse engineered the magic behind half of your father's spells.

[cryptsleeper]

[Alucard looks as if he's about to be sick. Pale skin turns actual sheet white, because that is actually the scariest thing he's heard in...in forever. The castle, moved remotely. His father would be horrified, then enraged.

He manages a shaky breath.]

None of the books survived.

[He says it softly.]

The seller said well... apparently it was known that something happened with regards to the explosion there. There were two, it seems. One that got to the house, the other all the things underneath. Nothing besides that thing survived, and that was because it was found in a case. A prototype of some kind, meant to withstand more mortal weapons like blasts. Which means the actual item is in perfect condition. And it is the only survivor.

[As are you.]

[miraclewhip]

[ It's- impressive. The device. He can't say that it isn't impressive. He probably won't abandon his crutches until he's certain about it being able to keep his weight off the injury safely, but even having it on at all is helpful, better than the splint from earlier.

His tone is tired, though. ]

If you insist. Who did you leave to die, so you could be a little less sad? So that I can hate you for it properly.

[miraclewhip]

Thank fuck.

[ Things he never thought he'd say about the whole of his family's legacy being gone: that. ]

Nearly a millennium of work gone, but- thank fuck. Better gone than in someone else's hands.

[cryptsleeper]

[The vampire's going to just. Stand here for a second to get over some raw terror. He makes some kind of soft mmmhmmm sound and boy, he ain't going to be hiding this one from Sypha.]

Then you'll let this fall int another's. Very well.

[Yeah, he's still fucking bidding on this Belmont, you're just not in the loop.]

[miraclewhip]

It's a fucking whip. Whoever ends up with it is more likely to take off their own ear than do any harm with it.

[ He cares. But he's not going to fucking owe a vampire more than he already does. And it is just a whip. He can make his own. ]

[cryptsleeper]

Regardless, I'll still need you gone from the city around the time that this is supposed to happen.

[That was the other part. Fucking coronation that isn't. The most quiet transfer of power that can be arranged. Trevor's been kept in the dark on the particulars because his opinions are not requested.]