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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[Packing up their camp is mindless, methodical, familiar.

It's good that it is, in a way, because it means she can do it without even thinking about it. That's good in its turn because right now she's not thinking of packing at all, much less at doing it properly, so if it had depended on her focus to be done right, it certainly wouldn't have been accomplished successfully at all.

On the other hand, it's a shame that she can do it without thinking, because that frees her up to think about so many other things — difficult things. The way that Adrian's mouth felt when angled against hers; the silk of his long hair woven through her fingers. The way she could tell the precise size of his hands from how they fit at her hips. How effortlessly strong he proved himself to be, from lifting and moving her when she bid him too.

The other memories are even stronger than the tangible ones — the warmth, the laughter, the taste of his food on her tongue. The way his eyes looked so sad even when his lips were smiling at her. The ache each time they'd separated, but consoled themselves with the knowledge that at least it wasn't the last — until the time when it was.

(They hadn't said goodbye. Only to be well. She wonders if either of them will be, after this.)

So they pack their things, and head for the trainyard, and with the help of a small sum to the workman loading cargo into the boxcars, they install their possessions into one of the empty cars and settle in for the long haul, the same as they always do. The passenger cars still have some time yet to take arrivals and load, but for now they're all comfortable and accounted for, and soon to be free of the dangers that lurk for them in New Orleans.

It's only as she's settling in that she finds the note.

Hurriedly, she pulls up her knees to her chest and uses them as a shield to hide her secret behind, drawing the letter into her lap and unfolding it carefully as her heart leaps into her throat.

To ask you to give up your world.

He knows. He knows exactly what he's asking of her, with this letter, and he'd tucked it into her things anyway. All those pretty words, cordial words, perfect words, and he still couldn't manage to say the one thing he'd written them for.

Come back.

She doesn't notice she's forgotten to breathe until her lungs start to burn from holding her breath, and even then it takes her another minute to remember.]

[The house is quiet now. There are leftovers in the fridge to last for a few days, saving Alucard the effort of cooking and preventing him from thinking about how he is now only preparing food for one person rather than two. One is...one is hard right now.

There's not much to do in the house anyway, at least as far as keeping it in order goes. Every home they've ever had has been kept clean and orderly, usually by magic and often from minimal use. This house is just one example. There was a thin layer of dust when he arrived (because it wasn't home the way the castle was), and it was taken care of quickly. Nothing was out of place because there was no one around to move things to begin with.

Alucard looks at the clock that's in the living room. She's gone now, isn't she? He had debated the wisdom of going to the station to see her off, but in the end, realized it was a terrible idea. All it would do is make things hurt worse, and there was already enough emotion for him to deal with.

He focuses on the newspaper he bought earlier. The world has moved on without Alucard. Things happen beyond one's grief, and he has to catch up with everyone else. Reading should make time go by, allow him to not think about Sypha and the train she's on, pulling her ever westward to California.

The attempt work for ten minutes. After that, Alucard finds himself pacing the whole of the first floor for no reason, other than his feet insist that he do so.]

[She is sitting in the empty, drafty boxcar of a train, surrounded by everything she loves in this world, except one.

Come back.

Her grandfather is here. His face is so familiar, so sweet; she knows every wrinkle and laugh line in it when he smiles. He is the last of her living family, except that he isn't, because everyone in this boxcar is her family. The Speakers are her family, her collective family, each and every one of them a part of her.

Come back.

The train is bound for California. In their time, they'll arrive, safe and embraced by the Speakers that have settled there, turning their attentions toward a new, more cutting-edge means of preserving their stories and spreading them to the world. That enclave of progressives is well known among the many traveling bands of their people; they will be welcomed there. There will be so many Speakers there, in California.

Come back.

They'll leave New Orleans to the vampires. To Dracula, or to the vacuum of power he has left behind among the supernatural community. They have saved the story of his wife, that future generations will know. They have done what they came to do.

Come back.

Every one of them, each and every one of them, is carrying the story of Lisa Tepes, and it will be carried and saved forever, in the collective memory of the Speakers. All of the Speakers. Every one of the Speakers.

Come back

The stories will not mention her son, alone in a townhouse wondering if Sypha Belnades ever found his letter, or if he will ever hear a reply to begin with.

Beneath her, the machinery of the train gives a mighty heave; they're connecting up the cars, she surmises, and most of her people automatically take a seat if they had been standing, used to these particulars of travel and already knowing how to adapt in response to them, to keep from falling.

She knows, too, because this is her life. Her world. She is one of the Speakers, and has always been one of the Speakers, and will always be one of the Speakers.

(Except that to Adrian Tepes, son of Dracula and Lisa, she was just Sypha Belnades.)

She looks at her grandfather, and the warmth in his expression. She'll miss him, bitterly and yet —

And yet she's on her feet in an instant, moving over to his side, sitting with him and taking his hands and forgetting all about the letter with her name on it, with Adrian's. He looks at her and she tries to memorize his face in the few moments she has, and with all her courage she tells him, I can't, I cannot go west, I have to stay —

And before she can even find words to explain, he shakes his head and smiles and says softly, that vampire boy?

She hadn't even known that he knew.]

[Pacing doesn't get anything done. Trying to read the paper doesn't get anything done. There's nothing to do in this house or the castle, because everything is too still. Too perfect. Perfection hiding a shattered world, and there's no outlet for the grief.

It's a side effect from the blessed reprieve Sypha offered. The grief, while not gone, was managed in a way that probably was too early. Now all there is is a terrible restlessness, a desire to do something, anything and finding the matter impossible.

His eyes go to the door. No sounds of approaching footsteps. No doorbell. Nothing he can do in the yard without aggravating the wound on his chest. In every way that could ever matter, Alucard is stuck. Never has he hated a feeling more. Never has he pitied himself so deeply for it, because there's naught else to do.

And maybe it's that self pity that finally unleashes a floodgate of emotion in the form of every intonation of the word fuck he can think of. Alucard has the good grace to go upstairs into the bathroom, where the floodgate should be muted as to not disturb his neighbors, and soon enough the swear session becomes an outpouring of every emotion.

(Cute how he thought he reached the end of grief.)

There are tears and there are moments of rage, and he shakes from it all by the end, his head resting on the tiled wall of the bathroom, claws digging into the material. This is what it will be for some time now.

That realization sets off a fresh swell of tears.]

[She aches for the way her grandfather breathes her name, Sypha, half chiding and half tender. She's not sure, now, how she ever could have thought he didn't know, not when he's reminding her of her late nights coming back to the camp and the way she'd mysteriously vanished not long after the son of Dracula had sought help from them and left. He kisses her forehead and whispers a note of pride into her hair, and she understands what a terrible burden it had been on his soul, to do only the least of what he could and no more, that night. He'd noticed she'd lost her robes. He'd noticed the sudden surplus of good food and supplies with no explanation. He'd noticed these past few nights. He'd noticed everything.

It will be grave danger for you, he reminds her, and she finds herself whispering back that the danger is something she can bear, but not the burden of leaving, when yet again they had done the least of what they could do and no more.

It's not the truth, not really, but it's enough to shed light on the real truth, to make him understand. This train may take her body away, but her heart will not leave, and to bear that separation will be nothing short of agony.

The train lurches. Time is short.

Go, then, he tells her kindly, and kisses her with all the affection inside him, and goes with her to help wrench open the door in the boxcar wall as slowly, slowly the wheels start to turn beneath them.

With everything she owns in the world held in her hands, save one, she jumps and she doesn't look back.]

[It's impossible for Alucard to accurately account for how long he's been in the bathroom. (In the future there will be a room in the castle for this, the other two will jokingly call it the tantrum hole, and all three are going to need to make use of it.) All he knows is that he has voiced every feeling he has, and now there is just exhaustion.

Exhaustion and the need to change his bandages, because there are spots of red in his shirt. He's gone and tore his stitches like an idiot. He had managed to avoid that this entire time, even with picking Sypha up and moving her about. Figures that this happens when se's gone (gone west), and he has to do it on his own.

Alucard sheds his shirt, and when he looks in the bathroom mirror (also a medicine chest, far better stocked than any home in the state), there's a wreck looking back at him. His hair is every which way, his cheeks are flushed red, his eyes are no better. There's matted dampness all down to his chin, and he pauses just long enough to use his shirt sleeve to dry those tears.

The shirt goes into the hamper there (it's just his clothes within), and he starts to undo the bandages. Looks down at the scar that is forming underneath them, and winces from it all. His father's handiwork is a horror of burnt flesh, stitches, and now red seeping out from the middle. He can sew it, but even glancing at what's down there makes him want to collapse on the floor again. How he isn't dead from this is still beyond Alucard. How he managed to get to he Speakers camp in the first place is probably a miracle.]

[She knows the way, by now.

She could do this with her eyes closed; it's only difficult from the prospect of doing it with the weight of her few worldly possessions on her hands, on her back. It's also ludicrous, madness; she's running through town in her Speaker's robes, the very town where she knows there is no Dracula to prevent some opportunistic vampire from taking a bite from her, and she doesn't care. It doesn't matter, not right now, because the only thing that does is running, and she is running.

She knows the way. She finds the house, ascends the steps. She's just run a mile, perhaps more, on foot and in sandals and in the daytime heat, and when the exertion of that finally catches up with her, it's going to hit her like the train she's just jumped off of, but for now it hasn't yet.

She drops her bag to free a hand; there's nothing breakable in it, anyway.

There's a bell, and she rings it, but when it's rung she simply switches for banging on the door instead.]

[He's finished stitching himself up when the doorbell sounds. It took longer than it ought to, and that is for all the terrible thoughts that came with every pull of the needle. He should bandage himself up before opening the door. It'll invite infection if he doesn't do this simple thing, this thing his mother would berate him for forgetting. (That's...that's a thought he hates, if only for the little bit of heartbreak that goes with it.)

The doorbell and now a terrible banging. There's force behind them, but only so much. There's no breath in his lungs. Hope is...it's dangerous right now, isn't it?

Dangerous and enough to power him down the stairs faster than he ought to be moving. Enough to nearly rip the door off it's hinges when he opens it, and by the grace of God she's there.

She's there, she's there, she's there, she's going to yell at him for bleeding again, she's going to see the wreck of the bathroom, and that's just fine because she's there. She's in his arms because he's already moved forward to embrace her, she's made a choice and it is to be here.

He's still without breath. There's nothing but adoration as he murmurs her name, face buried into the top of her head.]

Sypha.

[She never told him to use her first name but too late. This is permission, so far as he can tell.]

I — stop! Stop, I'm covered in road dirt, what did you do to your bandages — stop!

[Except that she doesn't want him to stop. She doesn't want him to let go of her. The magnitude of what she's done hasn't even caught up with her yet because right now it still feels like any other day, any other arrival, except that the Speaker camp is gone and there's nowhere to go back to, and she's not leaving here again.]

I'm here...I'm here, please, stop — what have you done to yourself...?

[This is Alucard ignoring reason and sense, refusing to let go. Even if he's being yelled at for something he absolutely should be yelled at for. Because he is an idiot.]

Nothing, it's fine, I was changing them...

[It was more important to answer her at the door. She can see him all broken like this now, she saw him far worse already. The only thing ruling Alucard in this moment is emotion.]

Adrian —

[She doesn't want him to stop, doesn't want him to let go or to listen to reason, but she remembers — she remembers, and one of them has to be sensible, and he'll regret this more later if she doesn't.]

Adrian, you're bleeding, you don't want me to touch your blood, don't you remember? I'm here, I'm here, but you must listen to me now —

[It's only mention of blood that sobers his thoughts. Shit. Shit. He knows better.

He doesn't let go. He only takes a step back, hands still on Sypha's sides, careful to lead her into the house. There's none of his blood smeared on his robes, so this is fine. She's fine, there's no danger, he just has to get bandages from the bathroom and fix the problem then everything will be well.

It means Sypha can see the horrible mix of utter joy and total depression on his face. How they manage to exist at the same time is a question for the ages, one no one wants an answer to. New on his face is relief. Relief that she's here, that she's willing to do any of this that...

...that seriously, he needs to not be bleeding in his own hallway.]

I'll...be right back.

No. Come here first, you foolish man.

[She lets him get her inside, she drags her bags in, she listens to the door shut behind them, and the instant it's closed she reaches up and grasps his chin, dragging him down to kiss him hard and deep and satisfying.

She kisses him and it's familiar; she kisses him and it's new. She kisses him and it feels like I'm home and the weight of missing him starts to alleviate, and the weight of abandoning California is too far away to drag her down in the face of his proximity, his warmth.

She kisses him stupid, because the rest of this will go easier if he's stupid for her, and she knows it.]

Now you are going to let me help you get cleaned up.

[There's no protesting as Sypha rearranges them both for what isn't a first kiss, but feels like one. The first one for this new thing that they can dare to put a label on, because she is staying.

He kisses back, and the words welcome home are threaded through every little moment. The angle his head is at means that it is easier than normal to avoid entering fangs into the equation. His hands go up, grasp both of her cheeks to hold her where she is. This is madness, all of it, hardly real.

But it is so very real, and when the kiss breaks, he is gone and away, anchored only by her presence.]

Yes I...[Right. Breathing.]

Kitchen has the best lighting.

Go in and sit. I will get the bandages; I remember where they are.

[IN THE BATHROOM.............]

I can go get them, you should move your things into the living room--!

[FUCK!!!]

You are going to go sit down before you make that mess of your chest worse.

[...................wait]

Why do you not want me to fetch your bandages?

[Busted.

Alucard sighs, moving to lean on the wall.]

I accidentally trashed the bathroom.

[Please do not judge him.]

...Go find a place to lie down.

[She leaves this disaster of a man alone twelve whole hours and look what she comes back to.]

The rest of it, whatever it is, can wait until after you've let me take care of you.

[It's deliberate phrasing, designed to remind him as subtly yet emphatically as she can: she's here. She's taking care of him. He's not alone. She's here.]

[Look he thought you weren't coming back and there were just a lot of feelings that got had all at once, please let this disaster man have this.

There's no protesting. But Alucard does go into the kitchen because the lighting is better and if there's blood in there, it is easier to clean up.

(There is, in fact, blood in there. In the blood compartment of the refrigerator, which is actually the meat and cheese drawer, but never mind all of that.)

He understands what she really means though. He'll thank her for it stupidly and desperately when she comes back in.]

[...So.

She sees what he meant about not wanting her to fetch the bandages, when she sees the state of the bathroom. The abandoned needle, the poorly-discarded bandages. The half-closed hamper with a shirt sticking out. The claw marks in the walls.

It makes her heart ache; she closes her eyes, taking a slow breath, and then makes herself take up the medicine chest without touching anything else in the bathroom, pausing only long enough once she's left to close the door and then duck down to his room to find a clean shirt to bring with her.

Then, it's back downstairs, making plenty of noise the whole way so that he's aware of the presence of someone else in the house, unable to forget that he's no longer alone here.]

Kitchen.

[He calls it out so that there's no searching for him. He heard how quiet she went in that bathroom, and when Sypha walks in, he has the grace to look embarrassed by his behavior.

Apologetic even, if the thin smile on his lips is anything to go by.]

I...I did say I trashed it, did I not?

You did.

[And here she comes, draping his clean shirt over the back of a chair before hauling the big medical kit right over to him and crouching down to get a better, closer look at his stitches.]

...Did you redo these yourself? — What am I saying, of course you did, I saw the needle. Mmm.

[It's far better doing this in a house than in the actual fucking forest. For one thing, the kit has gloves, and she snaps them onto her hands efficiently before reaching carefully for him.]

They'll do, I suppose. I'm not going to take them out and redo them again. But you shouldn't have hugged me at the door, it'll need to be disinfected now.

It won't happen again.

[The big medical kit is, actually, not the Big Medical Kit. Alucard knows that the Big Medical Kit is thrice the size of the thing Sypha has, and it's divided into people, vampires, and unsure? because his mother was nothing if not extremely well prepared for dealing with the weirdness of the life she ended up living.

Alucard's careful not to move as Sypha completes her inspection. The stitches are competently done, and that's the best that can be said for them. The little bit of blood that is there is already dried.]

I know, I know. [He pauses to push some of the hair that has escaped and tried to dangle over the area instead.] You knocked before I could start and...what would you have done if I didn't answer right away? I could do nothing else.

I would have waited, you silly thing.

[She's humming under her breath as she looks around for a wad of gauze and something labeled as salve, and inspects it a minute before daubing it onto the pad so that she can start carefully cleaning him up.]

...And then I would have broken a window.

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