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 reaches for the coffee mug, holding it a little less like it's a mug of coffee and a little more like it's a lifeline. This is- not too bad, as far as he can tell. Carmilla is old, but she's never been troublesome compared to other vampires. But he trusts Alucard's judgement enough to believe that something is wrong if he says so.

He sighs, taking a gulp of the coffee as he tries to get his thoughts in order. ]

Let us be there with you. I won't start shit. Won't say a word. I'll just stand around being a Belmont.

[ It'll hopefully throw her off. If she caught Alucard at the execution then she had him at a terrible disadvantage. They can at least try to do likewise. ]

Not yet.

[Alucard wants to sleep. He wants to just change form and sleep because tearing two men from limb to limb is exhausting work even if it's driven by sheer rage, but he can't. Everything about Carmilla set off a warning light in his head, even if she was pleasant and polite. Who just rolls in at an execution?

He's certain that Damien's opinion of Alucard is not limited to the vampires within the city. Feeling Carmilla's opinion out on the matter is step one.]

Vampire at her age probably has more human opinions than most. I need to know where she stands.

You're sure? Unless nobody's spoken to her since her arrival, she's likely to know I'm here. My not being there will be sending her as much of a message as my presence.

[ Something's definitely wrong. He's a little ashamed of taking so long to catch on to the obvious sign. Bloodstained clothes, the ones he changed out of. Alucard hasn't taken the time to deal with the blood before summoning them here. Not a problem in itself, they're both careful. But especially for him, it's a terrible sign.

It also means that Alucard's going to have to clean the office himself tomorrow because neither of them can. Which is a mixed blessing, because he suspects he'll want mindless work to put himself to. ]

I know. [He breathes out.] And every message matters now more than ever before.

[Most of the vampires in the city are American made ones, with only a few from the Old World. Of those from European and Asian shores, none of them have a pedigree like Carmilla. Her presence overshadows every part of the community. It makes Alucard uneasy. Uncomfortable. He can't tell if that's the goal, but if it is...

...he doesn't like this.

He's not thinking about blood in the office right now. He's thinking about the best ways to divine Carmilla's intentions.]

If I'm not visible there now, I can't be visible there at meetings with her in future. That I wasn't at the execution is excusable, you can come up with some shit about it not being my place to watch vampires kill their own. But if I'm not there at one meeting in your own home and then I'm there at another, the message there is- bad. It will mean you're spooked, and that that's why I'm there.

[ He gives it some thought. ]

Make me visible at first, and then dismiss me when she arrives. As a display of respect. That way I can attend later events if I'm needed and the worst she'll get from it is that she's displeased you somehow.

Ugh.

[Which is to say Trevor's right. Of course Trevor's right, Alucard's only resisting it because these are the moments he hates the most: using either of them as political props in front of the world. For parties it has become easier because there are the smaller, intimate moments and because there are a select few night things that engage Sypha and Trevor as Sypha and Trevor only. But this? This makes Alucard sick.

He relents, knowing that his resistance is sentimental and personal. There's no good reason not to do this.]

Fine. [He hates it.] We'll worry about the optics of how you're dismissed later. I know where she's staying, the question is how viable is watching her? Part of me suspects she expects to be watched, the rest assumes great offense as the thought.

It depends how you want to watch her. I can keep basic watch on her without risking being caught. Where she is at any given time, if she does anything dramatic herself. That sort of thing.

[ The problem is that the older, cleverer vampires tend not to do things themselves. It's all traded favors and social influence. Things that are either risky or impossible to track. ]

The more traditional kind of watching her, with the mirror or otherwise- I wouldn't recommend it. A vampire her age wouldn't have any difficulty controlling what the mirror shows of her. It'd be nothing to give us false information and then catch us out when we act on it. Finding someone else who means to watch her and getting information out of them might be an option - we can't be the only ones who are wary of her.

No mirror.

[That's an easy thing to agree to.]

If a vampire of her age is the kind to rely on social networks, then it is vital we determine hers within the city as quickly as possible. I intend to determine how long she's thinking of staying, but beyond that...

[They have to know who to be so very careful around. Carmilla's name, like his father's, is a name with great weight behind it. Weight Alucard doesn't and may never have.]

Your grandmothers need to get the word out through their networks too, none of the hunters can be taken by surprise. This'll be read as betrayal of our norms.

I can track her influence easily enough on the map if we can get- I don't know. A strand of hair or something. But with a spell that invasive, there's no way a vampire her age wouldn't be able to tell that she was being spied on and likely track it back to me.

[ He nods about informing the babas. That's the first priority in the morning, even above the important business of lying in bed being one half of the barrier between a wolf and the world. ]

I don't like relying on outside help so much, but- we could ask Theodora. Her family is exactly the sort of network that could keep track of just about everything about her with ease, and it's likely that she's already doing so. There would just be the issue of- owing a very powerful vampire a very large debt.

[ Not that Theodora seems untrustworthy, but that kind of goes against his- everything. His principles say Belmonts don't owe debts. His fey nature screams 'owing favours to anything that powerful is the worst idea'. ]

Edited 2019-01-24 23:51 (UTC)

Anything that can be traced back to us isn't an option. We'll need to rely on eyes on the ground instead, and assume that our own network is likely to be harmed, save for your grandmothers.

[That's probably the safest network out there. They'll know what to do if things start to go wrong.]

I already exist in her debt, Belmont. She's the eldest of the New World vampires in this city, my duty would have been hers if I had refused it or someone attacked me. Had Damien's attacks twisted into a successful assassination, then this city would be hers.

[She gave Alucard full support. They are friends, yes, he attends her spell club once a week because there's a real enjoyment of her company, but that doesn't erase debt.]

Well, that's all my ideas shot down.

[ He finishes draining the coffee mug, and he's now eyeing Alucard's untouched coffee. ]

I'll talk to Bunicuta in the morning, first thing. I know a few of the hunters in the nearby districts, too. [ Only a few. Knowledge of his name is significantly less widespread among the hunters, and recognition of it is shaky at best and largely skews toward the 'ugh these europeans think they know better' even among the people who care. ] She might have thoughts of her own, and she'll at least be able to gather information on the human side of things.

That would be best. I...I will need to talk to her as well, but I'd rather offer her a few days to get her things in order.

[Alucard breathes out, rubbing at the bridge of his nose slowly.]

If you had to guess at why she's here, what would you say it was?

If you want the biased Belmont opinion? There's only two reasons vampires move from place to place - to find somewhere safer or to start shit.

[ He shrugs, sighing. ]

I think if there'd been an incident in the Americas big enough to send a vampire that age running, it would have hit the newspapers. So - to start shit.

Right now I thrive on biased Belmont opinions, because you know Old World vampires better than I could ever hope to.

[He's not going to have the luxury of wolfing out this time around.]

To start shit, and to what end? I know she has been in Canada for some time.

She's got a long history of being careful. If she's decided it's worth starting shit, she almost certainly sees something to gain from it.

[ And he just takes Alucard's coffee, because fuck it. He can make more. ]

At best, she thinks that a weakened rule will make it easier for her to gather influence here. That would align with her love for safety. At worst, she thinks her presence here will influence how this [ and he gestures across the office ] ends. I doubt she'd ever be vying for leadership herself, but having someone lead who she can manipulate easily? That's power and safety both.

So we are best off assuming that this house is under attack.

[This house. He means them. Because this isn't about himself, it's about the entire house, all his cabinet, and fuck if Alucard did not promise protection for them both. This is terribly personal now.]

If we err at any point, she'll seize on it. Is that a fair assumption?

I've been assuming the house is under attack for- basically the last year. But yes. Absolutely. If we weren't doing so already, we should really avoid fucking up.

[ A thought occurs to him as he downs Alucard's stolen coffee in one long drink. And he hates it. ]

You think her arrival for Damien's execution specifically was more than coincidence, or just her arrival at an execution?

I can't say right now. [Alucard swears softly.]

What is your theory?

My theory is that I'm going to go do what my family does best and rummage through a vampire's house. Someone would need to go through his things anyway, sooner or later. With him dead, I'm hardly breaking any rules.

If the shit he pulled was connected to her at all, there might be information there. Or I might catch her in the act of destroying the information. Either works.

He wasn't an idiot with magic, spells could still be in place to protect it.

[Which is not to say that it's a bad idea. It's a brilliant one.]

Follow instinct. I'll look into legal code about what happens with the estate, anything that you get seen doing will be cloaked in following that particular set of regulations.

[He breathes out, worried.]

Tell me if I'm following your logic. Plan one was to use Damien to prove I'm unfit for office and oust me. It's failed. Plan two is to come here and do the work herself.

He wasn't an idiot with magic, but I doubt he developed his own. If it's based on Dracula's work, it shares its weaknesses.

[ He allows himself a little grin at that. It's been a while since he got to do proper Belmont things, and this is the kind of shit he was born to do. ]

Something like that. If we're lucky, we're on plan two and she's wrongfooted as we are here. If we're not, then that bishop shit [ And, you know. Everything else Damien pulled. Which he cares less about unless it's inspiring big gestures of possessiveness. And those are likely off the table for a long time right now. ] was part of a bigger plan and it's still on track.

Do what needs to be done.

[That's carte blanche to do whatever needs to be done. Words Alucard that will be saying again and again.]

Both are likely options. If it's the latter, then we need to catch up. [Alucard is quiet for a long time. There are other things he must do after this, when the other two are not around to watch him.] Damien might've pitched it as an idea, perhaps, and was given free reign to put it into action.

You- may need to stay away from me for a few days. If there's a chance of running into a vampire that old, I'll be taking precautions.

[ It's a problem, but he really doubts that Alucard will object to him taking measures to remain safe. ]

It's possible. Perhaps he was acting as her agent here, but only on orders to try to throw you off balance.

[ Awkwardly- ]

Sorry for being a part of that.

I will survive a few days away, even if I hate it. Your life is the priority, sentiment must be put aside.

[Alucard is terribly angry about having to say that.]

It was out of your control, and my fault besides. [He kicked Trevor off his doorstep. There's a tired sigh.] Inwards and downwards, it seems.

After I've been dismissed from your meeting with her, then. It'll be good to be able to know her location for a few hours, at least. I'll prepare at Bunicuta's house and ask her to drive me.

[ Because there he can't go in Alucard's car, that Alucard drives, while covered in anointing oil. And he can't go in the demon car, which is made of demons. ]

In the meantime, we should probably go through the records, as well.

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