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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If something happens — it may be safest to go straight up.

[She says it quietly, under her breath as they start to creep along again, wary of the eyes in the midst that follow along with their every movement.

The reek of embers grows stronger; now the sounds have escalated from crackling to outright snapping, the creak of wood as it comes apart beneath flame, the snap of logs as they are consumed in a bonfire. A second pair of eyes join the first — these ones as gold as Alucard's, and lower to the ground than the green ones are, but always watching. Watching.

Witch, the winds whisper again, witch. Beg forgiveness.

A rustle in the trees.

Recant your vows to the devil.

The wood snaps and groans. The fire roars.

Witch's tools.

A woman's voice.

But it's nothing to do with any god —]

Only if we must.

[Alucard doesn't want to float. Not yet. Not until he has to, because it's useful and he doesn't want to lose the relative element of surprise it allows for.

He sees the eyes. Their glow. It's not looking in a mirror, but it is close. Intentional, if he had to make a bet, and he doesn't care for it at all. Alucard ignores their gaze, trekking through the fog that is now starting to coil around his feet. His movement slows, as if the fog is ankle deep mud instead.

Then he realizes witch does not refer to Sypha, and his grip on her hand grows tighter. There's a plea in it, anchor me, because the fae are picking at barely scabbed over wounds.]

Low and easy attack.

[He can spit out that much. But in it, he shudders, because he's never heard his mother's last moments. Never wanted to imagine them, and this is as close to recording as he might ever get. Alucard's shoulders go up, try to cover his ears even though it is impossible.]

Are you hearing the same thing as I am?

I think so.

[She's squeezing his hand more tightly now, pressed into his side like she's trying to hide against it, with her eyes a little too wide and feverish bright.]

It's only a song, Alucard. Just a song to frighten...children...

[She swallows hard and keeps her eyes forward, lip trembling.]

Then we're not hearing the same thing at all.

[The fog is growing denser, somehow. There are gold eyes. There are green eyes. There are blood red eyes now as well, and the vampire nearly snaps from the tension that is growing within him.]

Her last moments, that's all I'm...

[Sypha can fill in the rest. And from the fog the red eyes emerge to reveal a hound, all dark fur and sharp teeth. A hulking thing, the kind of dog that the English speakers know by so many names but they are all dogs of death.

Alucard doesn't wrap his arms around Sypha, he's learned his lesson. But he squeezes once more.]

We need to run.

That — could be provocation.

[Dogs. Dogs, three great dogs, one black and one white and one gray. And all of a sudden it occurs to her what they might stand for, why they're here, and moreover, what their presence has to do with the noises in the air.]

Alucard, what do you smell? In the air, is there a scent?

[Alucard can feel the lump in his throat rise.]

Charred flesh.

[It is a distinct smell. A terrible one, one that brings too many emotions to the surface. That's the point, Alucard knows that, and all the same he is starting to lose his ability to focus to all those horrible moments.

He's not running. He's walking quickly, Sypha close to him. Away from the dogs, as quickly as his feet can manage a normal human pace.]

It's everywhere. Omnipresent.

I smell the fire. But for me it's incense. The...the smell of the basement.

[She goes with him, without protest, doing everything she can to keep to his pace, while ensuring two particular and significant things. She never lets him break into a run. And she never looks back.]

No matter what you hear, what you see, you cannot run. No matter how close they get. Do not look back, and do not run. Or it will begin, and at our own doing.

There's incense mixed in but I thought it was the priest not...

[It doesn't matter. Their worst moments are being laid out in front of them, and he is being told he cannot run from these great hounds. There is something else here, some story Sypha can't name yet, but he trusts her utterly.]

Hunted. I...I understand. [He hates it. He hates it as he feels the hot breath of one of the dogs on his back, feels Sypha's terribly warm hand in his through the gloves.]

How far...?

[How long must we endure? How many miles must we walk? How far must we go?]

I don't know.

[That's the honest truth. How long will this go on? How long must they hold out? This is a battle of nerve and will, not of physical might, and it's only the connection to Alucard's hand in hers that keeps her grounded enough that she hasn't broken and started to run already.]

But to run invites a chase, and —

[And they're both walking in straight lines, but somehow she starts to feel as though they're getting further and further apart as they do, the growing distance causing her arm to stretch from a relaxed position to an extended one, as she tries to keep hold on Alucard's fingers with her own.]

...What?!

[We can do this he lies to himself. Can isn't the correct word. Have to is. Have to or we lose him and that is what this all comes down to in the end. They do this or they lose Trevor. There is no in between.

The vampire makes soft noises to show that he's heard Sypha's words, and soon enough, he feels the sudden tug between them both. His arm is not at his side anymore. It is being pulled, pulled quickly, and in that moment Alucard tries to correct the course.

There's a hiss. It isn't working.]

They control the landscape. [They meaning the fae, or the king and queen, or the dogs that feel closer than they were before. Alucard turns 90 degrees so he's facing towards Sypha, and he tries to walk to her instead, her hand still in his. His voice remains calm.] So they're trying to pull us apart for this.

[He's not strong when left alone. Alucard knows that and knows that well.]

I can't hold on...

[It's a tiny thing, an offhand whisper, as her feet seem entrenched in the ground but the tension on her arm is pulling and pulling, trying to stay connected to Alucard as the cloying scent of incense in the air seems to double, and she starts to feel as though she's falling backward down and down a flight of stairs without her feet ever touching a step.]

Alucard!

[It's how she calls his name that sets Alucard into a panic. He can't let it show, and it takes practiced care to not let his nails become claws yet again. But he squeezes her hand, trying to prove that he's still there. He's solid. He's an anchor be weighed down.]

You can! I'm here. I'm right here!

[She's slipping. She can feel it, her fingers are slipping away and the scars on her arms are beginning to come alight, aching with latent memory as the reek of the incense and the shadows crawling the walls seem to pull her further and further down, away and out of reach. She's slipping, her fingers are coming loose of his hold on her, and the thought occurs to her wildly that if she's going to hold on, she's going to have to make a desperate grab for his wrist.]

Alucard!

[But if she does, there's going to be a single fraction of a moment when she has to let go, and if she does, it will be enough. That loss of contact, even for just that long, will be more than enough.]

Sypha!

[The fierce panic is in full swing now, but it means that both of the vampire's hands are around hers. One is trying to go for her wrist, but it feels like pushing through thick mud that resists every motion. This is so very on purpose, and now there is hot breath on his back. They've lost track of the dogs, haven't they?

Something's about to pounce on him. He can hear it, hear how a large canine body moves and know what it means because he has spent so much time in that form as well.]

Drag me to you rather than just holding on!

[Forward motion. Yank him forward.]

[What's clever about this trick is that it forces them to choose between one and the other, clinging to each other at the expense of watching for the dogs, or watching their theoretical foes at the expense of being able to stay together. No matter what they do, it's a poisoned choice, and perhaps that's exactly the reason they're beset with it now.

Still, she knows what she has to choose. Whatever the dogs are (and she suspects she knows, or at least has an idea), they can't act without provocation. They can't complete their duties without invitation. They cannot hurt guests from a foreign court without cause.

So she tries. She tries to focus on Alucard, to reach for him and draw him in, but her fingers are slipping and she's only just barely got him by two fingers of his own now, a little less able to hold on with every passing second.]

[Alucard's attention is, unsurprisingly, entirely on Sypha. He's stopped caring about the dogs, he has to. Making sure she's with him, that they're not torn asunder is the most important part of this, and he isn't so clever as to realize that's part of fulfilling this quest. Being willingly separated, because without doing that, they'll be in this horrifying liminal place for an eternity.

He has two fingers. When Alucard tries to grab her wrist though, that is when there is a great weight that pounces upon him. His hand opens. Sypha's fingers fall away, even as the vampire falls forward and in theory, closer to her.

The loss of her, her warmth, her closeness, it's as keen as he's ever felt that absence, and there's a horrifying hiss as he tries to dash forward in the split second before he lands on the ground. There is a resounding thud. There's something that cracks. There is Sypha's name screamed again, this time laced with real panic and terror, the kind that he kept suppressed from them both when the dreams of his mother's death were their worst. (He used the tantrum hole.)]

Where are you?!

[His hands reach foward, clawing at the air.]

[The instant the contact breaks, everything changes. The world ripples and spins, the space between Sypha and Alucard going from inches to a chasm in a matter of seconds. The mixture of sounds and scents divides more thoroughly now, each memory of a time they were brought close to death itself growing stronger and more encompassing in tandem with the presence of the Black Dog, whose eyes burn like embers as the forest draws them in.

They could choose to stay, each of them; stay still and be consumed, stay still and bear the visions forever. Or they can continue, if they find the will, as in the distance the fog in the air begins to part and permit the silhouette of a distant house.]

[Even as they are torn apart, Alucard tries to return to the direction he knows Sypha was in only moments before. There is thick forest there now, all impossibly tall pinetrees on eye level ad thick canopy above to preclude any such attempt.

He is alone. He is alone and the smell of burnt flesh fills his nostrils, carrying with it the worst memories of all. It remains no matter what direction he goes, blocking out Sypha's scent. Blocking out the scent of the great Black Dog which too smells of death, but in a different manner. The thought forward does not occur, not until he feels thick roos starting to wrap around his ankle and climb up his leg.

Shit.

Alucard knows the rules. He still can't run. He can walk, try talking briskly, and he does just that. It does not dislodge the roots around him. If anything, they grow stronger in their desire to wrap around him and hold him fast, and it is as Alucard sights something in the fog that one wraps around his wrists, binding them.

That means he's going in the right direction, and so Alucard forces himself forward, step after step, restraints growing stronger every time. He cannot account for how long it takes to reach the yard of the strange all-black house (not house, it looks like some kind of old temple to some dark god), only that the roots have gone up to his chin and are threatening to slip into his mouth to choke him entirely.]

[Where Alucard is beset with roots, Sypha is forced to suffer shadows, watching them pool around her feet like slick puddles of oil with every step she takes. At first she tries to avoid them, dodging here and there to keep her toes in the grass underfoot, while all around her nursery rhymes and Speaker songs are chanted in threes, each a little more menacing than the last.

Eventually, though, she reaches a point that it's impossible to avoid treading on the shadows underfoot, leaving her torn between remaining still, continuing forward through it, or trying to use her magic to avoid it — the latter of which being something she knows better than to utilize, being far too perilous a practice to leave up to the fae's interpretation of its purpose. But she can't remain still. She has to continue forward; she can't stay still.

She steps in the ink, and it sticks to her shoes.

Step by step, she treads forward, dragging the oil-slick shadows with her, as with each step they start to climb a little higher until they're covering her shoes, then up to her ankles, then higher and higher toward her knees.

A pluck of the eye, a bit of the toe, a cruel voice singsongs, and the shadows clinging to her skin leave her limbs prickling with pins and needles, sapping the feeling from them everywhere they touch.

But still she stumbles forward, eyes set on the shape in the distance, unsure of what waits for her there but still somehow certain she needs to reach it.]

[The roots have entered his airway, that much Alucard knows. The door, the door is so close. The door is miles away, and he chokes as still struggles to reach it. Every part of him now save his eyes are covered in roots that smell of burnt flesh, and then there's a thought in him that should never be.

His mother, by fortune, had choked on the smoke of her own pyre before her flesh was well and truly burnt. As terrible a way to die as it was, it could have been worse.

He understands in that moment what this is about. So as his hands reach for the door, the roots enter his lungs, his eyes are covered, Alucard knows that this is a reminder of death here in these lands. That the rules are that of the fae, and they will never shrink in reminding them both of that fact.

The rest is darkness.]

[Fae magic is a bewildering, nonsensical thing, and the hut in the distance is no exception. Though she and Alucard reach it at nearly the same time, and both approach the only door visible on the exterior, something in the glamour of the fae keeps them wholly separate, not unlike the magic surrounding Dracula's execution house, where Carmilla now permanently resides.

The oil reeks of incense and smoke; by the time she reaches the yard, she can't feel her legs, and stays upright on them only by sheer chance. Like limbs that have fallen asleep, they're clumsy like deadweight beneath her, with all feeling lost from them. It's as though the shadows are eating away at her limb by limb, until all that remains of her body is a torso and head, and even those are soon to follow.

But one step follows another. Another. Another. The filth pours into her mouth and binds her voice, like swallowing seawater as she fumbles for the door handle and throws her weight into pushing it open.]

[The door opens.

The door opens and Alucard collapses onto the floor all at once, a pile of limbs and memories whose scars have been dug into and had fresh blood drawn. There are scratches all over him from the roots, that bound him fast. There is blood in his throat, and Alucard's hands fly to his throat in muted horror to ensure that there is nothing else there. Blood covered twigs escape his mouth, and he can do no more than lay on the floor, wide eyed and helpless, mind reeling.

He hears Sypha though. Tries to force himself upright, but his limbs are too heavy. Weakly, he chokes out her name, praying it does not sound too helpless.]

Are you whole?

[In body. In mind, neither of them are.]

[Some of the agony recedes once she's across the threshold of the house, which doesn't particularly surprise her in retrospect, but catches her off-guard initially. The shadows begin to seep away like ink washed away beneath water, abandoning her limbs as she collapses to the floor, sapped of her energy and exhausted with the floorboards cool and slick beneath her cheek.

She doesn't know how long she lies there, but it's Alucard's voice that rouses her from her stupor; she crawls toward it, one knee after another, until she passes through a doorway that leads her to a room identical to the one she just left, but this one containing Alucard.]

I'm here...right here...

[Alucard forces himself to sit up. His head weighs so much, his chest feels like a stone, but he has to. He has to because if he doesn't, then this gives the fae too much satisfaction. Son of Dracula, on the floor, nearly defeated at the first challenge. Alucard still understands optics, even if he is no longer regent.

But he is so tired. There's no time to do anything else but drag Sypha into his arms once she's close enough to do so, ignoring the fine details of the place that they've found themselves in. Who cares about the roaring fire or the impossibly high ceiling that shows the whole fae court participating in one of their great wild hunts? Who is to notice a pile of sleeping dogs when there is one half of his heart brought so, so low, doubtlessly tormented by the worst memories she carries with her.

He breathes out, arms wrapped tight around her. There's no possessiveness, just fear and relief mixed into one.]

You are. You are.

[Reunited. Feeling Alucard's arms wrap around her is like a first gasp of air after struggling for the surface of a stormy ocean, and she sags with relief against him, automatically gravitating to press her face against his chest and rest there quietly, as though needing to surround herself with him and experience it through all of her senses, not just her sight.]

You made it, too.

[After they'd been split up. It's good that they're back together again, that they'd both managed to endure despite the things they've been shown.]

Wherever this is, I think it's safe. The dogs can't pass over, somehow.

20s AU Post

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