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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[ Dracula is all but ignoring the two of them - he only needed Sypha to wrangle the demon car, never needed the Belmont at all, and needs neither of them now. He strides into the house, and his shadow in the streetlights seems to fall into the building and be devoured by it. ]

We need to stop Carmilla and get Adrian to safety. Whichever of those he does, we do the other. [ Trevor says, giving chase. Because he has no clue what Dracula means to do here, and it's hard to do so much as trust that it'll be in Alucard's interests. ] If we're separated and you think he's a danger to Adrian or yourself, shoot once in the body to buy yourself a second to aim properly, then once in the heart proper. If it doesn't kill him, I'll at least hear the shots and know where you are.

[ Sometimes you gotta have a plan to off your father-in-law, just in case. ]

Edited 2019-02-21 22:31 (UTC)

I always think he is a danger to Adrian.

[Guess whose memory of Dracula's sins against his son is even longer than Trevor's. Guess who remembers a grotesque wound and a forest path, and tears and claws and an awful pallor above too-brief letters that arrived in envelopes with postmarks from far and far away. Sypha's had a long time to think about what she would do to Dracula if she ever were able to get her hands on him, and right now she has the opportunity and a gun and if it weren't for the fact that this situation is fraught with risk and too many moving parts already, that would create a dangerous combination to see unfold.

As it is, she's running along with Trevor, heading for the doorway that waits like the maw of a beast ready to devour anyone that draws too close. There are too many vampires in this situation, she thinks grimly, and hopes that their combined efforts will prove to be enough.]

Are you going after Carmilla?

Not unless Dracula doesn't. And not if it jeopardizes our chances of getting Adrian out.

[ Alucard is the priority. Has to be. None of this fucking matters anymore if they can't bring him out of this alive. He can hunt down Carmilla even if Dracula doesn't, and she's powerful in a fair fight but Belmonts have never been in a position to fight vampires fairly.

Grimly, making sure to keep himself between Dracula and Sypha, he enters the house. ]

[There is still light on the first floor. The single door that remains open, the one that leads to the basement, that is now shrouded in pitch black darkness, and as Trevor and Sypha approach, the entire building begins to shake. Earthquakes are felt from the ground up. This movement is from the inside out, an expression of the magic wrapped around the entire building resonating with it's architect's absolute rage.

In the basement, there are several things happening at once. Alucard, bugfuck terrified and aware that he is probably about to die if not as a usurper then for just being in a place where his father wouldn't want him, is scrambling to Agatha so she can get out. Wrapped in protective spells as she is, this is Dracula. Whatever she has, it can be undone in a moment. Carmilla, keenly aware that she is about to be on the receiving end of Dracula's rage, has decided that if she cannot have the fight then she will at least land a final wound on Alucard, and that means her morningstar wraps around Alucard's mid-thigh. He's pulled back just as the presence of Dracula fills the room, and there's something piercing him as he watches Agatha get out of the door at the very last second.

Dracula has always had presence. Gravity. The literal ability to suck the air out of the room if he decides to do so. But in this moment he is a figure who takes up the entire room, whose face nearly stretches from floor to ceiling, whose single declaration of ENOUGH brings everything to a standstill. Carmilla's frozen in place in front of great, glowing red eyes, and from the shadows there is a pair of hands with long, spider-like fingers that wrap around her entirely.

Alucard passes out at the first blood curdling scream, a combination of shock, exhaustion, and wanting no knowledge of what horrors Carmilla is about to have visited upon her. He's happier in ignorance. He knows that much.]

[Running for the basement feels like leaping from the train all over again. Determination and a descent, and the knowledge that at the end of wherever she's running will be Adrian, waiting for her, and — this time she's far more conscious of it than she was the last — probably in a state of absolute disarray. There's no waiting, no holding back. She knows the priorities as well as Trevor does. Adrian first, and then everything else.

She's halfway down the stairs when they run into Agatha, who is on her way up less because she intends to quit the figurative field and more just because it's impossible to be downstairs at this point, between Dracula's ire raging and the force of his presence rocking the foundations from below. It would be madness to try and get down there before the shockwaves have abated.

Sypha's damn well prepared to try anyway.]

[ Agatha grumbles as she makes her way up the stairs. That dramatic man, can't show up anywhere without making a scene, can he? She makes no effort to slow Trevor and Sypha's descent.

He grabs Sypha's wrist again at the end of the stairs, racing in and tossing both her and the medical kit toward Alucard, putting himself between Dracula and the both of them as those hands coil around Carmilla, squeezing her until she can't be seen from outside of them. And then the shaking stops. The darkness is gone, and with it both Dracula and Carmilla.

More than that, though Sypha wouldn't recognise it, the old building is gone. There are no silver shackles in this basement. No blood on the floor. The rooms upstairs, if investigated, would be tastefully decorated bedrooms and not torture chambers. The only clue as to what's happened is that Agatha's chair has gone missing. Because Dracula didn't take Carmilla anywhere. Dracula recreated the building's glamour and moved the rest of them into it, leaving himself and Carmilla in the house of death.

From above, there's a sound of a key in a door. The house of death is locked. Rendered inaccessible. ]

[Tossing is an accurate verb for it; she's hurtling faster than she would be running otherwise, thanks to the benefit of Trevor's added force, and as she gets to their vampire's side she has to actively remind herself that no matter how contrary to her natural instincts it might be, what she needs to focus on right now isn't the chaos all around them, but Alucard. Trevor will already be moving to protect her, she knows. Trevor will never let anything hurt them.

Which means that she has to put notions of fear out of her head, and focus on what matters instead. Alucard, in the basement of a monstrosity the same way she once was. Alucard, who needs her now like she'd needed him then.

He's a mess, and the wound to his thigh is an immediate problem from how close it's gotten to the artery. Carmilla's morningstar has left his trousers in tatters, which is actually almost a blessing because it makes it that much easier for her to assess the state of the wound.

(He wouldn't want her to touch his blood, she remembers grimly. They may not have that luxury, this time.)

He's a mess, he's unconscious and concussed and torn all to shreds, but he's still breathing. He's still breathing, and her own breath escapes her all in a rush, relief and horror and fright all mixed into one.]

Trevor, I don't know if we should move him...

[It's a question that's really meant to ask several different ones. Where is he, are they safe, what's happened. Do they even have the chance to bother trying to treat him here, or is the grim reality of the situation that they need to go whether they like it or not.]

Don't move him.

[ If this place is safe, then it's better to do what needs to be done here than to go outside where there will be witnesses. If it isn't safe, then it's less safe to move through than it is to stay still in. Unless the ceiling falls down on them from all of the strain on the building, which- he doesn't have much of a plan for that. Best to just hope nothing like that happens. He strides over to the stairs to check them. Nothing coming down there. No creaking or moaning of the building. Nothing.

He returns to Alucard and Sypha calmly, crouching by the both of them. ]

Anything happens, I'll deal with it. In the meantime, tell me what I need to do to help.

He's not healing.

[She's doing her best to keep her voice steady, but the worry is seeping into it anyway. She remembers this, remembers what it was like before. Only Dracula is supposed to be able to do this, and then it was only the one scar he would have to carry, not these many ones.]

The — the leg is, I think, the most urgent. The others are bad, but not as poorly situated.

[She's already cracking open the medical kit, finding the multiple pairs of gloves that every medical kit in their house inevitably includes for exactly this reason.]

The last time, he cauterized it while I stitched it closed, but...

[She hesitates, biting her lip, aware of how much Adrian would hate what she's about to say if he could hear it, but unwilling to shy away from it, anyway.]

Trevor, I think we're going to have to feed him.

We have-

[ They don't, in fact, have blood. The bags are empty. ]

-fucking car ate the fucking blood. Shit. Cauterize the leg, first. No sense in putting blood into him while he's losing the stuff. Then-

[ ...they'll need to get him out of here and up the stairs to the car. They don't know if Dracula's going to come back for him. They can't trust Dracula to lift a fucking finger for his son. Sypha can't lift him. He can, but if anything goes wrong he can't lift him and keep them safe, both with less blood than he ought to have.

But he doesn't want to ask this of Sypha. ]

-shit. Just get the cut closed, I'll figure something out.

[She's yanking the gloves on, digging up some gauze to try to blot away what she can of the spilt blood in order to see her work better.]

I need you to cut the leg of his trousers away.

[How does your body heal a burn? she remembers asking him all that time ago. This sort of field dressing, it isn't neat and it isn't the sort of thing that would be effective on an average person. On a human, perhaps it would even do more harm than good.

But Sypha knows her patient, intimately. This is Alucard, her Alucard, and she's treated him so many times. She knows his body, the workings of his healing. She doesn't need to mend him; she just needs to get him to a point where his body can mend itself.]

Here. Gloves.

[She pushes the spare pair at him, immediate.]

He's a paranoid fuck and I can be trusted to wash my fucking hands.

[ But fine. Fine. He'll put the gloves on if only to avoid an argument. There are scissors in the medical kit, tiny wicked sharp ones to make cuts in flesh, and they'll do for cloth. He cuts a good inch or so higher than the damage done to the cloth by the morningstar, to make sure that loose threads don't work their way into the cut. ]

There. It's a new fashionable way to deal with having one hot leg and one cold leg. That's how we'll remember her. Creator of the one-legged trouser.

Then evidently I cannot be trusted, because he always gets upset with me when I don't.

[But there'll be time for that later. Right now she's back to blotting the blood away, trying to get a better idea of just how long and how deep the wound is, how far into flesh the morningstar bit and how much, if any, healing has already been done.

It's not optimistic. On the other hand, Alucard still has a leg to speak of, so.]

...My hands aren't big enough to do it all at once. I need yours, too.

[She closes her eyes a second, fingers raised in a triangle position, summoning flame into four small orbs like the one she'd given him earlier to assist with the demon car repairs.]

Take two. Then, all at once, we press them down and into the wound. Understood?

Which is entirely because he's a paranoid fuck.

[ A paranoid fuck who is going to live, because they got their miracle and they aren't going to waste it. He snatches two of the orbs out of the air. ]

Understood. On three, then. One- Two-

[ And it's time to set their boyfriend on fire. ]

Three.

[It's a neat trick, controlling the flame on four separate points and holding it at a temperature hot enough to cauterize but contained enough to only destroy the skin where it's most needed, and nothing more. It's almost neat enough to cover up the smell of burning flesh, but not quite.

Still, she remembers this rhythm. Fire first. Then the sutures. She's quick and efficient and pointedly not thinking about how Trevor is watching her stab a steel needle through their boyfriend's flesh and tie it shut over and over and over again.

But soon enough, it's done, and at least the leg is easier to do than his chest was, for a lot of reasons. Soon enough she drops the bloody implements and lets her arms hang at her sides, finally brought to the cusp of their real dilemma.]

The others should mend on their own, once he starts to heal again. They're not so deep and much less dangerous.

[She hesitates.]

Do you have any of that incense, that makes vampires docile?

I- yes.

[ He doesn't like carrying the stuff around, considering how much Alucard hates it. But with both Carmilla and Dracula involved? It became a priority. ]

What are we using it for? It won't ward his father off, just hopefully keep him from doing anything too shitty.

I want to use it on him.

[She bites her lip, soft at first but then increasingly harder as she stares at the slack, unconscious features of their vampire.]

So that he can't resist when we feed him. ...Or.

[Or give in to instinct, and take too much. But it's not as though she really wants to voice that, any more than she wants to dwell on this plan in the first place.]

Oh.

[ It's a solid plan, more pragmatic than emotional, and 'cold and pragmatic' is usually his job, isn't it? He nods, taking a small item from the collection of Shit That Might Be Useful that he dragged down here, making sure to hold it by the chain (not pure iron, safe). A tiny piece of myrrh resin in a cage twisted from iron wire. ]

Light it and- [ Shit. Smoke goes up. Usually the thing would be tied around a vampire's neck and their head would be above it. Not the case when he's laid on the floor. ] -can you push the smoke from it down, so he has to breathe it in?

Yes. That's not difficult to do.

[Maybe it will be better in the end if it's her idea, she thinks to herself. Alucard can never stand to be mad at her, not for long. She's much harder to be mad at than Trevor is, so it's better that the blame for all this rests on her shoulders.

It's manipulative, but when hasn't she been, when it comes to dealing with vampires? She's the regent's witch, manipulation is in every breath she takes.]

Does he need to breathe it in continuously, or will it last a while even if I'm not holding it to his nose?

Like this, a little should keep him calm for a while. And it's probably best not to use too much. We'll need to watch to make sure he doesn't stop breathing as is.

[ And also if Dracula wanted to kill him before, just wait until he learns that Belmont tools are being used on his son. ]

And we need to figure out- [ Who's going to be the one to bleed at him. ] I don't- I'm not sure I can carry him out of here if I'm any less steady than I already am. Not without jostling him around too much. I don't suppose you have any 'carry the vampire around' spells?

[ Please don't make him ask you to be the one to give. ]

Edited 2019-02-23 14:32 (UTC)

[She's quiet then, for a minute. Not that she has a minute to think about any of this, when time is so precious and help is so needed, but she thinks about it anyway. Drugging Alucard to overrule his objections. Trevor, left despondent by the recognition that if this is taken to its natural conclusion, he might not be enough.

Both of them, both of her boys — this stupid regency has taken so much from both of them. Demanded so much. Put so many scars upon them.

(Alucard's scars are on her arms. She'd told him he had to beg himself for forgiveness for those, not her.)

She licks her lips, teeth still worrying at the lower one; it'll be chapped and nicked by the time this is through.]

I could...try wind. Ice would do but I don't think he can stand to be lying on something so cold for so long. But wind is fickle and hard to...

[A pause.]

Are you sure you can carry him, as you are now? If you're not made any less steady.

Moving someone when they're hurt like this is- there's no 'sure' about it. Fuck, I wouldn't be sure even if I were at my best.

[ And he's not, even if Dracula didn't manage to get to him. He's still unsteady, head still bound up from his lucky miss last night, bleeding only just stopped from when Dracula needed Belmont Blood to break his own spells. ]

I think I can carry him without fumbling or dropping him right now, and that's the best I can manage, and I don't think I can do that with a pint or so less blood.

[ But he doesn't want to ask this of Sypha. And more than that- Alucard can probably forgive himself, sooner or later, for him losing blood. It's what he does. They're used to it. Sypha- if he knew, he wouldn't forgive himself. ]

So either we find some way to insulate him from the ice, or- [ He hates this. ] I'll talk you through it. We'll try to make it as painless as possible. I'll make sure the two of you are both safe. And he doesn't find out about this.

I can make you let me do it. If — if you need to be forced.

[Whoever would have thought that compulsion could be turned into a kindness, and yet it's far from unfamiliar, between the two of them. Forcing him to tell the truth, forcing him to be able to do what he knows he needs to but hates to admit.

But she nods, and musters a tiny flame to light the myrrh, and shapes her fingers into the crest of a tiny wave as she begins to gather the smoke together and guide it down to Alucard's nose and mouth.]

But I need you. I need you, Trevor, and he does, too. We can't do this without you, so it has to be me. And I want it to be.

Don't use the teeth. The mark they'll leave is- he'll know.

[ There's a packet of razor blades in the medical kit. Not that they let him use them for the usual reasons, but they're sharp and kept clean by the paper they're wrapped in. Useful things to have. He unwraps one. Takes out other things - rose oil. Gauze. A dressing pad. ]

Give me ice. Tell me to help you. And hold out your hand.

I love you, so much.

[She's watching Alucard; he's gotten at least three or four solid breaths of the incense by now, and so she spreads her fingers and drops her hands, allowing the condensed smoke to dissipate away into the air. That should help, she hopes. With relaxing Alucard, even unwillingly; his heart rate will slow, he'll bleed less. He'll hunger less, hopefully, for the blood that they give him.

Her blood. She swallows hard, nodding, and pushes her sleeves further up toward her elbows as she extends a hand.]

Help me give my blood to him, Trevor.

[She can almost taste the blue magic of intent running all through the words.

With the hand she doesn't have extended, she summons ice in a similar fashion to the way she'd given him the ball of flame earlier, and offers it out to him.]

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