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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

So he should allow this city to eat him alive, for the sake of "getting shit done".

[Honestly, with the way the Belmont is acting, he almost doesn't deserve the courtesy of the prototype walking cast she's got with her, but, well. She was raised not to let her own opinions get in the way of people in need of help (however they might color her own demeanor when engaging with them), and it'd be a waste of the apparatus if she didn't try to fit him with it anyway, so.]

This will feel a little strange. There are screws in it that need to be tightened, so you might hear the noise of those, but the only thing you should feel is a little pressure around the ankle. Lift up just slightly; an inch or two.

[But anyway.]

He sacrifices so much already. He should not have to give even more.

Yes. Absolutely.

[ He lifts his leg, and he’s fairly steady like that even before he plants his good arm against the wall for balance.

It’s fucking laughable, that a whole city of people ought to be put at risk so that one person might be a little bit less sad. This shouldn’t even be a discussion. ]

He should give what his birthright fucking asks of him, and not an inch less. He isn’t the one who’ll be the first to suffer, if he doesn’t.

Are you sure you're angry that he's not acting enough like a vampire?

[The cushioned footplate (makeshift, a bit lumpy, but there's room to refine it) goes underneath his foot, and she takes a bit of time adjusting it before motioning for him to lower his leg again; the side pieces will snap in and around after the fact.]

Because it sounds to me like you are angry that he's not acting like enough of a Belmont.

[ How dare you call him the fuck out like this?????? Aka shit Sypha guessed it in one.

He tries to disguise the too-long silence that follows that by lowering his foot into the cast. And then he goes still, and doesn’t really make any attempt to disguise it at all.

This is about more than vampires and Belmonts. This is about playing one’s fucking role. This is about Alucard having the luxury to at least play at making choices, here, in a spoiled fucking country in a spoiled fucking decade. This is about a little princeling being spooked by the one responsibility that’s ever been expected of him. This is about people with power over people’s lives making selfish choices and letting others shoulder the consequences.

But it is also. Very much. About vampires and Belmonts. About sunk costs and 900 years of sacrifice. ]

He doesn’t need to be a Belmont to care that people’s lives are worth more than being a little bit less sad.

If he didn't care about that, he would not have stepped into this vacuum of power at all. He would simply have left, and abandoned this city to the others, uncaring while they tore themselves apart.

[She sets a back piece up against his leg, rising up about as high as a sock might, and then adds on a bracing piece on either side, fitted to cover his ankle and keep the whole of the area reasonably immobile. It's a fairly clever design because it's better than just a splint; the combination of the wraparound and the padded sole means less room for slipping and wobbling, and a means of redistributing his weight when he walks to take the brunt of it off the injury.

She didn't invent it, and neither did Alucard. She knows precisely where it must have come from, and why no one in the house is likely to ever mention it.]

And in that you are both better than me, who abandoned my birthright to be a little bit less sad. So if that is what you are hating people for, then hate me too.

[ It's- impressive. The device. He can't say that it isn't impressive. He probably won't abandon his crutches until he's certain about it being able to keep his weight off the injury safely, but even having it on at all is helpful, better than the splint from earlier.

His tone is tired, though. ]

If you insist. Who did you leave to die, so you could be a little less sad? So that I can hate you for it properly.

To hear Alucard tell it, what was left to die was my future.

[Now, the screws. It's assembled; it just needs to be fastened on. The fasteners are made for small fingers — a woman's fingers. She lines them carefully, screw and bolt, and starts winding them together.]

You came here to kill Dracula, or so you said. We came to save the story of his wife, when she had died. I am not sure where the rest of my people, my family, are right now; I know that they were heading west by train. But I abandoned them, and our calling, and now I am here. And they are not.

To save the story-

[ He's heard that exact phrasing used before, hasn't he? ]

Wait, shit. Speaker?

Yes. Well — perhaps former Speaker, now. To hear vampire society tell it, I am Alucard's witch. I suppose it all depends on which version you hear. Try taking a step, carefully, and see if those braces wobble at all.

[She sits back, dusting her hands on her knees, but stays crouched in case she needs to adjust it again.]

Which is also why I am still here helping you regardless of whether you deserve it, Belmont.

Of course it is. And so I know you'll keep helping no matter how shitty I am, so that's nice.

[ Not that he was exactly holding back. He takes a step. The whole thing is stable, though he doesn't take his hand from the wall to risk falling. ]

For example - you're as shitty a speaker as he is a vampire if you think there's no story worth remembering here.

Perhaps the next time I will simply gag you before I start my work, then, and spare myself such treatment.

[Good. The design holds up; that should improve matters. Not that making the Belmont more mobile is actually that great of an idea objectively, but he's going to be mobile whether they like it or not, so. Here they are.]

Did I say I thought there was no story to remember here?

Neither of you have actually tried asking me to shut up, you know.

[ He takes his hand from the wall this time, taking another step. He's unsteady, but the thing on his leg holds up. And so he sits down, leaning forward to talk. ]

Said you abandoned your calling. Isn't that the same thing?

I don't want you to shut up, I want you to stop being awful. If you are not capable of that, then yes, I want you to shut up. Next is the wrist; I have an apparatus for that, too.

[It was, perhaps, strategic that she decided to work on his ankle first. She has a suspicion that the wrist will be a harder sell, somehow, for a man who does his work with his hands. Hopefully the success of the ankle will make him more amenable to having a good portion of his arm immobilized.]

Whether there is a story here or not, I didn't stay for the purpose of collecting it. My intent matters. It was not to be a Speaker, that I stayed.

Mm-hmm.

[ Someone finally gave him fucking instructions, thank you. So he falls silent while he tries to figure out how to not be awful, holding out his arm without much fanfare at all.

It takes him a few moments to figure out something not awful to say. ]

Knew speakers, back home. The traditionalists. Constant fucking struggle with my family, we've always been fond of writing shit down and they've always been- not fond of that.

[...did that

did that actually work because that is a surprisingly benign thing to come out of the Belmont's mouth and — what the fuck.]

...Yes. I've heard that's how it is in the old country. Europe is a place of history, stuck in its old ways, and so the Speakers there had little reason to adapt their own ways. Only oral stories, always.

[She blows on her fingers again, and when they wrap gently around his wrist, again they're cool without being painfully cold.]

Here we focus more on how to preserve the stories as living things. We retell them in words, but we also know them as dances, as songs, as theater. I could dance for you the story of the raven that stole the sun.

You could. Dance it.

[ Yeah he doesn't sound convinced. Sorry, not a patron of the arts. If that wasn't obvious. ]

They did good work. Came to the front lines as medics, but they did- anything that didn't mean taking up a gun, just about. Took messages from side to side, to try to make everyone see each other as people. Took last words from people, figured out how to get them home. Even started delivering letters and photographs, though I can't imagine they were happy about that one.

Stories can be danced. Some of them are all the more beautiful for it.

[She keeps her eyes on the swelling on his wrist, even as her thoughts turn back to that long blue coat.]

You were on the front lines? In the war.

Yeah.

[ There's an element of 'of course????' to that, that he's trying to bit back. Because she told him to not be awful. It never really occured to him that there are people who weren't. ]

They tried to keep the Speakers out for the longest time, everyone thought they were everyone else's spies. But they kept people alive.

Mm. They would not have cared about sides. Their only side would have been against the war, and against all the lives it claimed.

[There. That's ice enough; now for the brace.]

Is it true there was a truce, on Christmas? I don't know if you were near there, wherever it was. But we heard that they had managed it, for just one day. The newspapers didn't report that it was because of the Speakers, but we learned of that part of it on our own.

They knew it was coming. That's how my family knew them. They knew there would be a great disaster, but not how it would come about. They had us hunting for a supernatural cause, and all along it was just- a lot of individual stupid things, becoming a big stupid thing.

[ The swelling's gone down. He'd be glad to have his movement back, but that's not going to last. At least it hurts less once it's cooled. ]

There was. Only the first year. I wasn't there for it, few months before my time there. Wouldn't surprise me if they were involved. Good at getting people to listen, and all.

Yes, and at knowing their audience. Christmas would not have meant much to us at all, any more than any other day. But invoking it would have the power to sway a lot of people. Especially ones who would not be able to be with their families for it, because of the war. Hold your hand still now, please.

[Not that he hadn't been before, but she's used to having to do something similar while dealing with Alucard — short declarative sentences that are as much to give him warning about what she's doing as to actually assist her in doing them. Much like with the ankle, the wrist brace gets fitted in pieces, more carefully than the other because the damage is so much worse, and comparatively more delicate to address.]

Is that snug, or is it pressing uncomfortably anywhere?

The years that followed, they took precautions to keep it from happening again. Christmas Eve was always the worst night, after that.

[ A lot of Speakers died in the attempts, more than likely. He does hold still. Extremely still, actually. ]

Not uncomfortable. Feels a little tighter than the ankle.

The swelling is worse here, and it needs to fit more rigidly, so a little tighter is likely a good thing. If it grows uncomfortable, you will find me and tell me at once.

[That's not a brick joke just waiting to happen, oh, no. Soon she will figure out that phrasing is vital when it comes to Trevor, but it is not this day.]

Did you ever send letters through them? Get photographs from...someone?

Understood.

[ Sypha WHAT HAVE YOU DONE. He nods. ]

No letters. Not for us, we've squabbled with them over the written word too much to force them to carry it. But my sister- the one that stayed at home. She sent us all photographs of dogs. Constantly. I have so many dog photographs. [ And he laughs at that, because it's nice. It's also ridiculous, that he has about twenty photographs of his family's dogs and none of his actual family. But that's how the Belmonts operate. ]

[That's weird, she thinks fleetingly, to say something like "understood" in average, idle conversation. But the Belmont is sort of weird, anyway, so maybe it's just a Belmont Thing.]

You could show them to me sometime, perhaps. I would like to see the dogs.

[Also maybe it will assist in 1) tempering the Belmont and 2) continuing to get him to sit still for five whole seconds.]

I never had one — too hard to travel with, given the sort of traveling that we do. I had a bird, though, for a little while. That was years ago.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject