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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[In the end, it's a public affair. The murdered Dorian's sire wants it public, so that's what has to be done. It's the only demand she makes of the whole matter anyway, which leaves Alucard in no position to negotiate and every position to hate this even more. All the careful planning of who's to witness, pointless. He doesn't even need help apprehending the guilty Dorian and throwing him into that house of horrors. Dorian's own sire turns him in because how this all came to be in the first place is a total embarrassment.

The moment is awful. Alucard outlines the charges. Then there's nothing else but channeling every horrible emotion he has felt from the past week and turning it on the offending vampire. Red hot rage, terribly sharp claws, all in service of not true justice, but in making it known that Alucard is furious about what he has been forced to do. It is this vampire's fault, his and his alone that has placed Alucard in this situation.

It's a lie, of course, but it is a useful one. It allows Alucard to tear skin, to break ribs, to remove the organ in one horrible movement that the sound of the heart being torn so violently from the chest actually gets a few horrified faces.

Dorian was young. He does not turn to dust. He is instead a rotting pile of flesh. That's worse, and Alucard snaps for someone else to take care of the problem while the heart is given to other Dorian's sire. She already has a jar for it.

Alucard departs after that. Changes his clothes so that there is no blood upon them, stuffs the bloodied ones into a bag so they can be burned.

He returns home at dawn. Not the day of, but the day after. There's only ice coldness on his face, and he goes for the office. Flops onto the sofa he has in there, because he isn't taking any of this to their bed.]

[ They've been tracking him - he asked for permission to do that, at least, with a promise that neither of them would pry further. Watching their precious little pile of sand drive to the French Quarter, and watching it not return home.

Sypha kept vigil over the map throughout the night, so she's dead to the world right now. He's just waking when there's the sound of the door. And then of the office door. And then of a vampire plummeting into a sofa.

Shit, he has to put on a shirt to go into the office.

It's about five minutes later when he makes his way in there, looking about the minimum amount of presentable that he's willing to be while in here (which is to say that all of the general clothing groups are accounted for and that his teeth have been brushed, but that he's wearing yesterday's crumpled clothes and his hair is Actually Everywhere and he's clinging to his mug of coffee for dear life). ]

Fuck, what have I told you about sleeping in here? [ He's too sleepy for consistent english, slipping in and out of french every few words. ] You have so many spare rooms. Use one of those. Th'office is for working.

[ Which is to say welcome home. ]

Mmph.

[He's sleeping in here and you can't stop him, Belmont. Alucard's already halfway there, face half mushed into one of the pillows, the rest of it pressed against the sofa itself. Never mind the lack of anything else. (He's taken his shoes off, at least.)

There's another mutter, this one almost impossible to make sense of. Alucard's not about to try and explain himself either.]

I'm going to carry you out of here if I have to. But it's too fucking early to do that one-handed and I'm not putting down the coffee.

[ He knows what he's about. ]

So I'm just going to stare at you while I drink it. And it's going to be weird as fuck.

Don't touch me.

[Which is about as authoritative as Alucard's got it in him to be right now. Then it's right back to trying to sleep.]

Very well.

[ Well shit. That would be an instruction. True to his word, he just stares at Alucard as he drains the coffee cup. Then he puts it down.

And moves the table out of the way.

And crouches.

And lifts the sofa. ]

[Alucard's too tired to think about exact words.

Until he's bolted upright because TREVOR. IS MOVING. THE ENTIRE FUCKING SOFA.

There is a loud yelp, and Alucard bolts upright.]

Belmont, what are you doing!?!

[ There's a grunt of exertion before he speaks - fuck, it really is too early for this shit. ]

Not touching you.

[ Obviously.

He's moving the sofa toward the door. The chances of him managing to get it through there the way he's carrying it are slim, but he's going to try anyway. ]

Why the fuck are you...[Exact. Words. Goddamnit.

Alucard's swearing, Trevor's going to break his back at this rate, it's a bad morning.]

Please put the sofa down before you hurt yourself.

Mmph.

[ Carrying a sofa around isn't a good situation to be having a conversation in, even if that conversation is just him being a shit. He moves back, putting sofa and Alucard back where he found them. ]

You can sleep anywhere else in the fucking castle. Just not here.

[There's a sigh of relief as the sofa touches ground. But it doesn't get Alucard to move. Or to face Trevor. Or generally act like he's okay.]

It's one sleep.

[At least he doesn't qualify with it's fine or any variant.]

No.

[ He picks his coffee mug back up, because no leaving dirty dishes in here is just as important as no sleeping in here. ]

You managed everything else, don't fuck up this one last thing.

Managing everything else is the only reason I want to be in here to begin with.

[The dirty dish thing is more so Alucard doesn't spend an afternoon tracking down a missing cup. Because that's not a vampire counting thing, that's an Alucard cleanliness thing.]

No. Out. You don't have to be with us, but you can't sleep in here.

[ He sighs. He doesn't want to deal with him as Adrian in here. But perhaps he has to. Just for a moment. Just for one very tired, very sincere word. ]

Please.

[Alucard stops at that word. He's tired. He hates the world. But sincerity cuts through him, and he doesn't have the desire to fight back.

Miserably, he sits up. Doesn't look at Trevor, but he's extracted himself from the sofa.]

Okay.

[His voice is soft and small and so very unlike himself.]

[ He doesn't touch him. It's difficult. ]

One of the spare rooms, if you want to be somewhere out of the way. Or you can use my room. Or the library, if you have to. Just not here.

[The library isn't an option. The library is the liminal space between castle and home, the one place where everything can be mixed up without anyone feeling as if they are doing a wrong thing. Trevor's room likewise is too personal.

Want and need are not things Alucard is thinking about at the moment, not in a meaningful way. Being alone simply feels like the right thing at the moment. He can't parse that this is all horror at himself for what he's jut done (he had to, it was the right thing in the eyes of so many). All he can think of is every time Trevor spat the word princeling in the first month or two that he lived in the castle, and what it really meant. Spoiled, sheltered, not raised with ways to cope with dealing the hard but right thing, especially when death was involved.

There are a few spare rooms in the wing of the castle where Alucard's office is. Two of them have mattresses, and he shuffles past Trevor to go to the nearest one. It's six doors down after taking a sudden left. Alucard shuffles his way there. He knows he looks like death itself.

He was Death itself the other night. The look is right.]

[ He follows Alucard. He doesn't touch him, because orders are orders. Instead he goes into the same room. There's a chair in one corner. A few books, not bearing the marks of the castle's library. Probably things forgotten by whoever it was last stayed in this room. They don't seem particularly interesting, but he picks one up anyway.

He doesn't say anything, puts his empty mug down with an appropriate amount of finality and sits down in the chair. They don't have to talk, but he's not going to be leaving unless instructed. Alucard's already had his time alone. ]

[He flops bonelessly down onto the bed. The thing has no smell to it, which is good. There's a thin blanket, which will do fine. There's no real chill in here, and it's just for appearances anyway. If he's still enough, then he'll be left alone to sleep, at least.

In theory. Alucard suspects that in practice, he won't be let alone unless he says the right words. He's too tired to think about that, and so he settles in. Draws the thin blanket close and closes his eyes.

Sleep does come. Faster than he expects, but it isn't like he's slept much in the past week and change. He has been running around from place to place, managing stress, managing everything.

He really hopes that watching the sleeping vampire isn't the sole duty of the Belmont for the day.]

[ Unfortunately, it is. At least until Sypha wakes up, who isn't bound by instructions not to touch the vampire and wouldn't obey them if she was. He goes through the book slowly, more for something to do other than stare at a sleeping vampire at first, eventually getting a little more (a lot more.) interested in what turns out to be a pulp novel about a ghost detective kissing apparently the entire population of a city while fighting crime.

He's at the point where the ghost detective is fighting his werewolf serial killer bother on a rooftop in the rain when Alucard's sleep becomes more fitful and the telltale signs of a bad night start to show themselves. ]

Adrian. [ He says it calmly, steadily, not not too loudly. If he's sleeping normally, it shouldn't wake him. If not, it might be enough to. ]

[Wherever that novel came from is a mystery. As is what it is doing in this room, but perhaps some mysteries are best left unsolved. So long as it's distraction enough. Or stupid enough to make the hours go by.

(On better days in the future, the only solution of what to do with such a book is to read select passages and determine how plausible any of them are.

Alucard's fits are tiny and controlled at first. A little bit more movement in the legs. Shifting under the blanket, trying to pull it closer. No words, just unhappiness somehow starting to show on his face while asleep.

Ignoring his name.]

[ He puts the book down, watching as Alucard twitches and moves and tugs the blanket tighter. This would be so much easier without the order not to touch him. That's what they do when this happens, one of them reaches out to stroke his face, or pulls him close, or kisses his forehead. It helps.

But orders are orders. And- he can ignore them, but he doesn't want to. ]

Adrian. [ Louder, this time. The tone is more authoritative. ]

[Alucard shifts in his sleep. Buries his face into the pillow, and for a time, that seems to fix everything. He goes still, relaxes a little. It isn't entirely restful, not with the twitches, but it is much better than before.

Until nothing is, and he wakes with a jolt. Doesn't sit up, he just stays there, looking into the pillow, the horrible feeling that's been in his stomach since last week gnawing yet again.

Trevor's still there. Alucard can smell him.]

How many hours...?

[He really, really needs the sleep.]

Three.

[ He's sat down again, since Alucard settled. No book, though, only watching him to try to be sure that the worst is over. And it does seem to be, until suddenly it isn't. He doesn't stand again yet, just watching him. He's good at watching vampires, examining every detail. It's usually comfortable territory.

It isn't anymore. ]

May I touch you?

[There's a groan that says it all. Not enough. Not nearly enough, he wants to be out for two days at least. No one's stupid enough to pull shit after something like an execution, he can sleep for 48 hours.

He's looking at the wall opposite Trevor. Not at him.]

I don't want either of you touching me at the moment.

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