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, 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.

[ He moves to Sypha's side, settling against her. Once the bleeding finally slows, he takes a clean dressing pad and covers the cut, bandaging it. And then he does gather her up in his arms, watching as Alucard's chest rises and falls softly. ]

You've done so much. Just trust me from here, and I won't let anything happen to either of you.

[ He doesn't have that much power over the situation. But he can try to pretend he does, at least. He's never done comforting lies well, but- it feels true. It has to be true. (It is not a matter of whether he can, only a matter of he must). ]

We let him be for a few more minutes. Let what he can heal heal on its own. After that, I'll wrap up his leg and take him to the car. If you can't climb the stairs alone, I'll take you first and leave you with Bunicuta and the car, then return for him.

He has to go first.

[What little urgency she can muster is dwarfed somewhat by how weary she is, how she sags against him and lets his arms and his promises wrap around her like a blanket.]

We promised, we get him out first. We can't leave him alone, not like this.

[She closes her eyes, just for a minute, resting in the comfort of darkness before opening them again.]

He was like this, the night I met him. He came to our camp looking for healing. There was nowhere else he could go. Our elder — my grandfather — we, we help everyone but he was the son of Dracula, whose wife had just died, and we had come to preserve her story though we knew we were unwelcome. We gave him supplies but could not let him stay, and I told him I would still come and help him even so...I sewed him up just like this and he slept the night in the woods, and I didn't even tell him my name.

He couldn't stay because the story was still young. Known by too few. If his presence summoned Dracula's wrath upon your people, you would suffer it gladly to help someone. But you couldn't allow the story to be lost.

[ He doesn't know this. He suspected, because he had known that Sypha had come into Alucard's life around the time of his mother's death. He had known Alucard was injured at the same time. But he never asked.

But he's known Speakers. And they do not fear death, but the stories they carry within them are fragile things when they are young and the death of a few could destroy them entirely. And the stories, unlike their lives, are not theirs to lose.

You don't give a Speaker a gun if you want them to live. You give them a secret. He's given Sypha both. ]

He has the two of us now. He'll sleep the night in his own home, and he knows your name better than he knows anything else.

You understand.

[And what a gift he gives her, perhaps without even realizing it, just by knowing. It's a concept she's never found easy to explain, even after so long, the terrible choice her grandfather made and how it still could be reconciled with what the Speakers believe, with their vows. Too easy to look at the situation and simply see them turning away a vampire, as if that made any difference.

But Trevor has known Speakers, and he proves it like this, with the way he instantly intuits and understands. It makes her want to cry, almost, but that's probably just the catharsis and the blood loss.]

We risked everything because history had to remember that there was once a woman that Dracula loved. Not a rumor, not a suspicion. We knew we had to preserve her, forever, so that the future would always know.

[Her shoulders tremble; she turns her head and buries it in Trevor's shoulder, a soft little noise escaping her throat.]

He had leaves in his hair, when I found him. He was filthy...I didn't know, then, why he was hiding his wound from everyone. I had promised him I wouldn't ask.

[She swallows hard.]

You told me that once, do you remember, that I coddle him. And you were right. I've been watching him be torn apart and having to sew him back together again since the day that I met him.

Probably not as easy as I make it sound, huh? Sorry I've had to make your life more difficult.

[ His hand is in her hair again now, stroking softly, one eye still on Alucard. Still breathing. He's still breathing. ]

This will happen again.

[ He's said that before, hasn't he? He needed to be forced to tell the truth that time. The words come easier this time, and he couldn't say why. Maybe it's just because it's hard to lie so soon after thinking of the speakers. ]

This will happen again even if Dracula takes his throne back. It might not be any physical wound, but you'll be called upon to do this again. [ To give of herself, to put one or both of them back together. ]

Every time you do, we'll know that it was a choice you made. And if you ever can't, we'll trust that it's because there's something greater that you have to protect.

[ Because she is a young story all of her own, isn't she? All bright and beautiful and herself in a way that her people avoid being, for fear of biasing the stories they carry inside them with their own tales. And if caring for them makes her less of that one day, then that's the death of a young story just as surely as if Dracula had killed the last man who knew his wife's fate. ]

It got better once you stopped being so awful.

[The little joke perks her up a little, and the hand in her hair is comforting. The picture that Trevor paints of the future is less so, but...]

You're the one I protect, I think. It's different with you than with him.

[She bumps her head lightly against his shoulder.]

You've been hurt so often that you don't need anyone to patch you up. You had to learn to do it on your own, again and again, until it's just old habit for you. What he needs is that I know how his pieces fit together, where they belong in the right configuration, so that when he falls apart I can be there to fit him back together again. But you don't fall apart like he does, because you don't mind being broken.

[She reopens her eyes, watching Alucard along with him, her eyes tracing over each wound, assessing the network of scars that will be left behind.]

What you needed was for me to love you. So that even if you didn't mind being broken, you would still know that I would.

You make things fucking weird when you're anemic, you know that?

[ Wow rude, you're allowed to psychoanalyse the vampire but leave him out of it. He leans his head against hers anyway, because there's only so much he can be embarrassed and difficult at present. ]

You're probably right? But you're still making it weird. I just came here to stare at my boyfriend's broken body like a normal person. Not to be told how fucked up I am. But- thanks. And if you ever figure out what it is that you need, we'll be here.

[ The pause that follows is an awkward one, because he has been called the fuck out. ]

Speaking of the boyfriend's broken body- I think that's all the healing that's going to happen. See if you can manage to stand, once you're ready, and I'll wrap his leg up in case I fuck up and pull the stitches.

He told me once that he couldn't be my entire world. That it wasn't right for me to make him so, is what I mean. I was ready to. I had given up everything for him, I thought, so that meant he must be my everything. And he wouldn't allow that.

[She smiles softly, hidden to herself, as she rubs her cheek lightly against his shoulder.]

You both keep me from being just a life that serves others. Just a vessel to hold stories. You love me, and so I have to recognize that I am so much more than the mere desire to serve and preserve. You spoil me, and so I know I can always trust you to know who I am. Even when I don't know, myself.

[She lifts her head, then, and presses a kiss to his stubbly cheek.]

I need to be loved the way that you love me, Trevor Belmont. So I'm glad, so glad, that you do.

[And that, it seems, is a sufficient denouement, a proper wrap-up to this segment of the story, because once things are balanced (three lives, three sides, three psychoanalyses), it's only then that she's able to ease herself away from him and push herself weakly up to her feet.]

Said like anyone could fucking not.

[ It's quick and easy enough to dress and wrap Alucard's leg. She's right, that he's learned how to do this again and again on his own (and he can admit that, as far as tying bandages goes). Lifting him is more difficult. Normally he'd want to carry him on his back - steadier that way. But that would put strain on his thigh that risked pulling stitches loose. In the end, he chooses to trust himself to not stumble on the stairs rather than trust himself not to reopen that cut, goes for gentleness over stability and gathers Alucard against his chest.

The supplies he brought down, save for the vampire killer at his waist, he abandons. He'll come back for them when he returns to clean away the blood. If they're lost, all of them are replaceable. ]

If you think you can climb the stairs, go first. Can't promise I'll catch you if you end up stumbling, but worst comes to worst, I can shove you forwards rather than backwards.

I hate stairs.

[But she's steadying herself, arms out, to make sure she's got her balance despite her half-jelly knees before starting to walk that way. At least there's a railing, and presumably no necromancer's shadows trying to smack them back down the stairs and rip them apart this time.

They didn't seem so steep, when she was running down them earlier. Now — well. They have to surmount them, and get Alucard out of here.

She makes it to the steps, sets her jaw, presses her lips together. Grasps the railing, starts humming, and mounts the first step.

And up they go, one by one. Hurrah, hurrah.]

Unfortunately, we do need them.

[ It's slow going. Even if he weren't following behind Sypha it would be slow going. The stairs are narrow, and he has to turn sideways slightly to carry Alucard up them. He has to be careful, so careful, because Alucard has never been fragile (even now, even now, he isn't fragile) but he's precious.

He was, for once, right to trust himself. He doesn't stumble. He's weary, by the top of the staircase, but no more than he can manage. ]

Try to open the door.

[ Fuck, he hopes it opens. ]

[They're going to be in trouble if it doesn't open. It's possible it won't; Dracula seems to have influence over this house, of course, and so who knows what he might have done or not done in the course of commanding it.

She sets her hand on the handle, then pulls it back in a flash when an unexpected heat sears against her palm, like touching the knob of a door with fire behind it.]

Ouch!

[So, then, there are two possibilities here. Either there's an actual fire outside of this door, or someone is jacking around with the spells on this bizarre two-houses-in-one-house, and it's resulting in...this.

The sad thing is, either is a likely possibility.]

It burns, to the touch...

Shit.

[ The house is furnished now, at least. He can lay Alucard down on a couch in the entrance hall. It's hard to say what's happening, from the inside. It could be Dracula playing with his spells, it could be Dracula having trapped the three of them here. ]

Are you burned? Let me see.

[ If it's the former, they can only wait. If it's the latter, they have time. Either way, Sypha can take priority. ]

It just stings. I can still move it.

[She turns her hand over, palm-up to show the reddening line across it, and the identical one up near her knuckles. She'd pulled it away fast enough that not much damage was done, but the kiss of a spell or a ward is still there nevertheless.]

Could whatever he's doing in — in the other one, could that be affecting the one we're in here?

This one shouldn't be impossible to leave. This one's meant to be a fake, the one that people end up in if they break in.

[ ...the pretend house for interlopers. He's shunted the three of them into the pretend house for interlopers. That's almost certainly deliberate. He sighs, looking over the burn. It's not bad, at least. And if she's capable of ice right now, he probably doesn't need to tell her to use it. ]

I don't know. That's- the good option, I suppose. That we're just all caught in the crossfire.

Or he's holding us here until he's finished with Carmilla, to deal with us next.

[Good thing she still has HER GUN.]

I wonder if you can open it. It's something about Belmonts, isn't it, that affects the things he can do?

Or holding us here forever-

[ He considers and nods. ]

Well shit, good job I kept my blood inside me. It's worth a try.

We can't stay in here, that much is for certain. He needs help — more than we can give.

[That's sort of a truth and sort of not. What she means is that he needs to be home, and this needs to stop. It needs to be over with, so that they all can breathe again.]

And if you cannot get it open, then...we have to think of something else.

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