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 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.

[ The cut from before, on the fleshy part of his left hand, has just about stopped bleeding, but he doesn't need a lot. Once he's finished writing the spell, he squeezes at it enough to get a little more from it and then smears it on the door. Good enough.

It would have been enough to break the castle, this should be nothing in comparison.

And it works. The door opens into the near-dawn, the the empty street and the car. ]

Would you please go back inside, where he will be safe? [ A voice rumbles, frustrated, as if they were supposed to somehow divine good intentions from being locked in a murder house. ] I can hardly keep him under my protection by daylight, after sunrise.

Edited 2019-02-25 01:48 (UTC)

[Oh, it's Dracula. So that's Dracula, locking them into the murder house on the premise of keeping his son safe. That's nice. That's really kind of him, actually, and so charming.

Ugh.]

And so what, then. He stays here, locked in this house until the next nightfall?

[If Sypha sounds irritated, it's only because she is. Reminiscing about the day she met Alucard in the basement just reminded her of why she'd met Alucard to begin with. The pallor in his face back then is so akin to the one that sits beneath his skin now. The stitches are the same. The blood is the same.

The fact that this is all Dracula's fault, fundamentally, is the damn same.]

He's hurt, and badly — he needs a doctor, not a musty old couch in the middle of some grotesque house!

[ Trevor, for his part, is content to just force the matter. He lifts Alucard again, setting about getting ready to carry him outside. It's only when he starts to turn to demand Sypha stay close behind him that Dracula reveals himself at his side, simply lifting his son out of Trevor's arms as if the weight were nothing. Trevor scrambles to put himself between Sypha and Dracula. ]

I am a doctor, Speaker. Of any subject that you could name. I possess the wisdom of a thousand years, and you dare to suggest that I trust the son of Lisa Tepes with anything less?

And how did the wisdom of a thousand years serve him when you clawed him open?

[She should know better than to provoke Dracula when Trevor's moved to put himself between them. She should know better than to start conflict when someone else will take the first hit from it.

And yet the sight of Alucard draped in his father's arms makes her see red in a way that feels like fire blazing inside her, because he doesn't belong there, doesn't belong to him, not anymore.]

You abandoned him. You have no right to speak of who or what he should be entrusted to!

Sypha.

[ This is a bad idea. This is a bad time, place, and general situation to be having an argument like this. Trevor's tempted to just accept Dracula's terms. But Sypha needs food and water. More to the point, she's already very much not accepted Dracula's terms. And so-

-shit, her aim isn't going to be steady, is it? He crouches, bringing his shoulders down to a good height. ]

Brace your arm on my shoulder. Aim for the body. Don't hit Adrian.

[So this is a thing we're really doing, then, aren't we. What a story we're going to have to tell Adrian, when all this is over.

But she reaches into her robes, and from them comes the heavy, severe weight of Trevor's gun, and don't hit Adrian is a mantra as she steadies her arm and her aim on Trevor's shoulder and brings her finger to the trigger.]

Give him back to us.

[IS THIS A DEESCALATION OF HOSTILITIES OR]

If you truly want him to be safe then give him back, to the people he trusts with his life.

I gave him to you and you brought him into danger. You sundered the armour that I gave to him, and you think yourselves worthy of his life? No.

[ Dracula is approaching now, step by agonisingly slow step. Trevor can't move back, not without throwing off Sypha's aim, but he tenses. ]

Sypha, now.

[ But before Sypha can shoot, Dracula's put Alucard down, apparently on thin air (guess who does have a 'carry the vampire' spell). He coils a hand instead into Trevor's hair, lifting him from the ground by it. ]

Explain, Speaker, why I ought to suffer the two of you to live.

[She stumbles back a step or two, deprived of the security of Trevor's shoulder to aim with, deprived of her shield of Belmont reliability and expertise, but she remembers how to aim and how to fire and even as weak as she is, she's got the gun raised up in both hands, never moving it from where it's trained on Dracula's chest.]

I won't let you set him back to the way he was. I won't let you leave him lonely and miserable. And I will not let you put him through the sadness of losing someone who loves him again.

[She's starting to tremble. The gun is too heavy, her arms are too weak. But before that can overwhelm her, she pulls the muzzle of the gun to the side and yanks on the trigger, snapping off a round into the shoulder of the arm that's holding Trevor up by the hair.

Trevor can get through the door, with his Belmont blood. Trevor can snatch Alucard up and carry him with him. And they promised, they promised, that getting Alucard out came first, before anything else.

This isn't how the plan was supposed to go. But it might still work out to the outcome it's supposed to, anyway.

Maybe she'll even be around to see it.]

[ It hurts. He can feel the skin of his scalp start to tear away from his head at that long cut from yesterday. Dracula's speaking an inch from his throat, now. He's going to die. He's going to die and leave the two of them alone to deal with Alucard's insane fucking father without him.

And then there's a bang from the Saint-Etienne and Dracula recoils. Consecrated silver bullets are consecrated silver bullets, even to him. His grip loosens enough that Trevor's hair can slip through his fingers and he topples to the ground, pressing a hand tightly to the dressing on his head.

Dracula's nails extend into long claws as he draws himself back to his full height, and Trevor stumbles to his feet to put himself back between those claws and Sypha, but he only uses them to pluck the bullet out of his shoulder. He extends his hand, holding the bullet between his claws at arm's length as if it were something extremely smelly until Trevor finally gets the message and takes it from him, pocketing it. ]

Very well.

[ He is unimpressed. But the appeal to the effect of Lisa's death upon their son, at least, seems to have saved them both from death. ]

You both live until he has the chance to make his own case for your survival. But I do not leave his side, and so he does not go by daylight.

20s AU Post

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