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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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.]

[ The order coils itself around his heart like a snake, and this no longer becomes a matter of what he can do or what he wishes to do - this is only a matter of what must be done. He takes the gauze bandages first, wrapping the ice inside them so it can only chill and not burn with its coldness and holding it against Sypha's arm.

The wrist, just clear of where it bends so that she can still move it while the cut heals. ]

I'm going to make a cut here. [ He says, killing time while he waits for the ice to numb the skin. ] It hopefully shouldn't hurt too much, but I can't promise anything. You do need to be careful of his blood while you have an open wound. That's the purpose of the rose oil, it'll stop any turning. Just in case. Once the cut's made, you need to hold your arm over his mouth until I tell you to stop or until you start to feel faint. Whichever happens first. The worst shouldn't happen if he hasn't used his fangs to make the cut, but if it does- I'll be here.

[ And he takes the razor blade from out of its patterned paper. ]

When you're ready.

[Dracula, she thinks nebulously as she listens to Trevor's explanation, is going to kill them for this, and when he tries she's not going to give a damn, because this is going to ensure that Alucard lives.]

I'm ready.

[She's not, on some level, if only because this is all new and foreign and dizzying, and it's hard to say she's ready for what's about to happen because this isn't the sort of thing that people are supposed to be able to be ready for. This isn't normal or natural. This is a crisis, and they're all just lucky that they happen to have present amid this crisis one of the few people in the world who was trained from birth to be ready for abnormal, unnatural things.

But this might hurt her. And Trevor, like Alucard, would sooner stake his own heart than hurt her.]

Don't hesitate.

[She keeps her eyes open, and tries to breathe steadily, and keeps her eyes on Trevor and not on the blade.]

[ He doesn't hesitate. Can't.

And he doesn't speak anymore, either, just draws the ice away and cuts, and it's as quick and shallow as he can manage to without risking having to do it again because it's not enough. He coaxes Alucard's mouth open - easy enough, between the unconsciousness and the incense, and slips the cork of the rose oil bottle between his back teeth to keep him from biting down.

It won't be enough to stop him, if he's somehow able to choose to. But it's enough to feel a little more secure. ]

Hold it to his mouth. I'll count time, but take it back if you start to feel faint.

[It hurts. It's blade passing through skin and parting it along its edge, of course it hurts; it has to, for the blood to well up enough to matter. But it's faster and less terrible than claws taking off the top layer of her skin, and she's a little dazed and startled at how fast the blood actually wells up once the cut is made, how it goes from a thin line to a fat one to starting to cascade over the edge of her wrist.

Hurriedly, she moves to get it over his mouth before it can start to drip — no sense in wasting even a drop — and hesitates about how close to get it before eventually drawing a breath and simply pressing it outright against his lips, letting the blood run down her skin and onto his tongue, into his mouth.

The threshold is supposed to be if she starts to feel faint. Supposed to be. But — Alucard has to wake up, has to have what he needs to heal himself. And that creates a much more weighty calculus than just taking care of herself and her own needs.

Hopefully this will work before that happens, she thinks determinedly, and focuses on breathing steadily as her blood continues to run, tacky and thick, into her vampire's mouth.

Be well, she whispers within the confines of her own mind, as though it really were possible to fuse her intent with her own blood. Be well, my friend, my love.]

[ He's a Belmont.

He's a Belmont and he's aiding his girlfriend in bleeding into a vampire's mouth. And the vampire is also his boyfriend.

He really fucked up somewhere along the way, didn't he?

He moves his hand to Sypha's hair, stroking it while she holds her wrist over Alucard's mouth, counting seconds as he does. It's difficult, there's no way to know how fast the blood is flowing (her heart always beats too quick, probably faster than is normal) or how much she can safely give. He can only guess as best he can and hope that he doesn't screw it up too badly. They should have used a vessel of some sort, to allow them to measure out the amount. But-

-but this is important, isn't it? A drinking vessel wouldn't be Sypha, wouldn't have her fever-hot skin and mouse-fast heartbeat. Wouldn't be doing this out of love. And for once, for once, maybe that shit can be trusted to make a difference.

When he takes his hand out of her hair, it's to take open bottle of rose oil and soak the dressing pad with it. ]

Ten more seconds. If you can, hold your arm up then, so it's above your heart. Don't worry if you can't.

[Ten more seconds. That's easy enough. The reference to not being able to lift her arm is a little more puzzling — why shouldn't she be able to lift her arm? — and it's somewhere around there, when Trevor actually calls attention to it, that she starts to realize just how much blood she's actually lost by doing this, and just what effect it's had on her. When all she's had to do was hold still and watch Alucard's expression for hints of color and mending, it had been fine; she'd been holding still, steady, firm from her convictions.

It doesn't really hit her until she tries to move the hand that isn't pressed to Alucard's mouth, and finds with some surprise that there's a sort of lag between when she decides to move it and when it actually moves — sluggish, slow to respond. Cold, in a way she'd thought was just the chill in the air, or maybe from fear and worry.

Five more seconds. The loss of Trevor's hand in her hair is an ache she feels keenly, even though she knows he's right there with her, right where she can still see him, even. Heal, Adrian; her wrist is tacky and wet and her sleeves are threatening to slip down from her elbows and get in the way.

Three.

Two.

One.

...One.

......One?

She tries to make herself sit back, clumsy and sluggish, and fumbles a little as an odd weight like exhaustion seems to settle around her limbs, like she's too heavy and too high and the air is too thin.

She has to lift her hand above her heart, she reminds herself, and tries her best to get it up there, slow and painstaking but she's so tired, and so she winds up just clasping her hand to the top of her head so that at least there's something to rest it on for the duration.]

[ He waits only as long as it takes to make sure that Alucard isn't going to choke on the blood, turning his head to the side to be sure, before he has the dressing pad pressed against her wrist, using it both to clean the cut and to put pressure on it. ]

Once the bleeding's stopped and it's all wrapped, you can put it down again. You did well. You did so, so well.

[ That's what Arn would say, isn't it, when he cleaned people's cuts? You did well. Even if he hated everything that they were hurt in the course of doing. Because it was what they needed to hear when they were so far from home. ]

You need to drink something soon. Eat something, too. I- there's the tin of mints in the car.

[ He needed to bring a snack and he forgot to. Father Robert's going to be so disappointed. ]

Trevor.

[She can't raise her arms very well, but if she could she'd have them up and open in a silent plea to be gathered up; as it is, she has to settle for just sort of leaning in his direction while her eyes turn back to Alucard, searching for any sort of sign that the feeding is working, that his shallower wounds are starting to repair themselves because of it.

They're not done yet. They're so, so far from being done. They still have to get Alucard out of here, get him upstairs, reclaim Dracula from wherever he'd gone, leave in the car...

There's so much still to do and they're so far from being out of the woods yet.]

I don't know what else to do for him.

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