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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[ It’s better than he was expecting. Worlds better. She can’t exactly walk off to her death in silent disgust, not in her current state.

(“I have never known a Trevor Belmont.” The speaker says to him, pushing the pistol back into his hands. A speaker cannot do or say anything harsher than to surgically cut someone out of thier own story. In the tale of his friend in the write robe, he never played a part. They do not speak again. He is dead a week later, and the mud frozen too hard to bury the body. It rots, just rotten meat wrapped in white linen, and it never knew Trevor Belmont.)

He breathes in and then out. It’s slow. He’s not conciously playing for time, but he is absolutely playing for time. ]

Is that an order?

[Her hand comes up, slowly; it shakes as she tries to raise it, still weak from disuse and injury, and her palm is open. For a second it might almost look as though she means to slap him, except that then her fingers slowly come to rest against his rough, stubbly cheek, moving his face onto an angle that's favorable enough for her to reach for him and kiss him.

She doesn't know why, really, that she needs to kiss him like that, right then. It's not born of passion or even affection. But later, perhaps, it'll occur to her that it's not so dissimilar a thing to when Alucard had claimed him with a similar kiss at the turn of the new year — instinctively possessive, equally uncompromising.]

Yes.

[It needs to be. He won't want to tell her otherwise, and so she takes the choice altogether out of his hands, and puts it onto herself.]

I told you before, didn’t I? You have to choose. Happy, safe, here.

[ The kiss is- he’ll process it once this is done. He’s not really been much for emotions even after Sypha’s return.

(He doesn’t remember much of the time immediately following the rescue. The whole thing feels like a fever dream, of wanting too much and of being in too many people’s heads at once. He woke up in a room of dead flowers that smelled of rotten meat, with Sypha’s name written on the ground in her blood. And he emerged, washed the worst of the stink and the magic off himself, and found the two of them in their own bed. He distinctly remembers his reaction being a tired, numb ‘welcome home’ and then falling into the bed, and he hasn’t been any better for being outwardly emotional about this whole thing until now.)

-It makes it easier. Puts him in a place where he doesn’t have to think about what he’s doing, only trust that Sypha is asking him to do what is right. ]

You told me that you could never comprimise on ‘here’. So I’m asking you to choose ‘safe’ over ‘happy’. And- I know you. Any time you would use it would be a time that you needed to use it. Any time that you would use it would be a time where you not having it would mean that this happens again, or that someone dies.

[ He presses his lips together. He knows how much he’s asking her to give up. Alucard asked her to give up her world, once. He’s asking for something more. He’s asking for her identity. ]

Please. I’ll give you anything.

[That's the part that breaks her, ultimately. Please. I'll give you anything. Because — because those aren't words of obedience; they're words of intent. I will give. It's an if-then statement, an offer and acceptance, a promise waiting to be forged. He'll give her anything, in exchange for this, by his own design, by his own will.

It makes her want to cry, if she had any tears left; she's not sure if she does, after all the crying she's done already. That last plea didn't fall under the umbrella of her order to explain himself. He added that in all on his own.]

I think I told you once that...that I felt as though I had ceased to be a Speaker, when my family went west and I came back here. I felt as though I had abandoned everything I knew. And you asked me if I thought there was no story to be had here. You thought I could still be one, even if...

[The thought dies on her lips. They tremble instead, and she makes herself look him in the eyes.]

You knew better, then. You knew when I didn't. So — if I do this, am I...can I be a Speaker, even still?

Speakers go where they are needed. Speakers help people, no matter the sacrifice it asks of them.

[ He meets her eyes. He doesn’t move to hold on to her. Not yet. Not until this is done. ]

Dying is easy and useless, and every fucking speaker I met thought that that was what helping people demanded of them. I don’t think it ever fucking was. Dead people help nobody. Living people do, when they live to help those who need it the next day and the day after. Death isn’t the sacrifice that helping people asks of you. It’s doing what you need to live, so that you can help as many people as need it.

[ ...if he were a more introspective person, he might realise how much of this is him speaking to himself. ]

If this were the sacrifice that was asked of you, to do all the good that you could, would you do it?

I don't know if I could fight in a war.

[It's not really an answer to his question, but it's the lead-in to it, perhaps. The first sentence of the introductory paragraph. There will be a thesis statement, sooner or later.]

Not the way that you did. I don't think I could pick up a weapon and take a life for...a cause. For something so big that it forgets the people wrapped up in it.

[Her lip quakes again. She feels sure, somehow, that she's saying this wrong. That it's a horrible insult, somehow, rendered terribly through gawky words that she can't make right.]

But to protect you, I would. To protect Adrian, I would. And...

[She's shaking, now, but she hasn't looked away from him. She hasn't forgotten how often, either, she's thought of ordering him against throwing his life away.]

If...if it was to come home to the both of you again...then — then maybe...I could.

[ He does hold her, now, pulling her tight against his chest. The tray is more on his lap than on hers, now. ]

Just let me teach you. Just carry it. Maybe you’ll never need to use it. Maybe we’ll be able to keep you safe. Maybe it truly will never happen again.

But if the two of us fail, it’s one last thing.

And for that you'll give me anything?

[She goes easily. It's careless, probably to be so unmindful of the tray, but it's hard to make herself care right now. (Certainly she will more if the tea spills all over the bed, but. There are other beds, and the sheets will wash.)

No, right now she just wants to be held, and Trevor gathers her up so easily, and slowly her trembling eases away as she simply melts against him instead.]

Then yes. I will let you teach me. I'll...try to learn. I'll let you keep me safe, Trevor Belmont.

Anything. Anything at all.

[ He pushes the tray away, to a part of the bed without any legs under it. Letting go of Sypha to carry it further away isn’t an option right now, so they’ll both just have to take care not to kick it.

He’s not really- done this. Not since she returned. He’s been present but distant, leaving this sort of comfort to Alucard. He’s better at it, after all. It’s not the first time he’s touched Sypha since her return (that would be difficult. He’s been sleeping next to her, even if he’s mostly just been making himself into a wall between her and whatever is on his side of the bed) but it’s the first time he’s done so with any purpose.

His voice is choked. ]

Thank you. Thank you, so much.

[She eases into him, tucking her face against his neck, resting heavy on his shoulder. Something like this is always a little touchy with Alucard, being as sensitive as he is about his fangs, but it's so often her instinct, too — to tuck in and bury her face in the bend where neck meets shoulder, to listen to the sound of his pulse beating and warm herself in the heat that radiates off his skin.]

Then I want your stories.

[It's quiet, but she stays back just far enough that she's not forced to mumble the words on account of how she's pressed against him. They're soft, and low, but not muddled.]

All of them. Every one of them. I want you to give them to me, to keep and to hold, and when you run out of your own stories I want you to make up others, and still tell them to me. I want you to sit up late with me, night after night, telling them like Scheherazade until we both fall asleep. I want to memorize the sound of your voice in every language you know. I want to be your Speaker. To speak for Trevor Belmont.

[She breathes in slow, shaky. She lets the same breath out again, warm and humid against his neck.]

I want you to replace in me what you take from me. Will you do even that?

And here I thought I was already spoken for.

[ Yes, he switched to english for a moment, just to make a pun. He sounds less tired now than he did before, something like warmth and humour finally finding its way back into his voice when he switches back to french. ]

They’ll be- how did you put it- bad at making you feel better. Lots of dead people, never for a good reason. Lots of shitty things that never amount to anything other than being shitty things.

[ He leans his head forward, burying his own face in her hair. ]

...should I start with what it’s like to fly?

You...!

[She shouldn't laugh, except that it's funny. It's funny and stupid and clever and so — so normal that the laughter rattles out of her throat before she's even had the chance to wonder whether she feels like laughing or not.]

You have to tell me everything. The good ones, too. You can tell me about me, if you have to resort to it.

[But this is new. This is new and strange and promises to be wonderful.]

...Yes. Make me feel what it's like to fly.

[ He pulls her as close at he can, shifting a little so that he can lie against the pile of pillows that he made for her. ]

You’re fourteen years old, but you say that you’re eighteen. You think you must be all done with growing, but you’re not. You don’t even need to shave yet. And you’re terrified when you enlist, because you’re in a country you don’t know and using a name that isn’t yours, and then they tell you that they want men to fly. And you never even knew that was a thing that people did, because the only men you’ve ever known to fly are the kinds of men who hurt people. And it slips you’re mind that they want you to hurt people, as well, just in a different way. All you can think of is ‘fuck you, vampires, I can do this too’.

And you’ve seen planes before, but only ever in flight. They’re ugly things on the ground. But they tell you that they need men with your height and build, men who aren’t afraid to do what men can’t do- and the sky practically feels like your fucking birthright when they say it that way, because you’re the fucking consequence of men not being afraid to do what men can’t do.

Fourteen...

[She means to be quiet and listen while he tells his story, really, but she can't help but keep up a word or two of commentary as his recollection starts to paint a picture in her mind. The great ugly things, planes — she's never been on one, either, but she can imagine how unsettling they must be, climbing into one and being launched so high off the ground with nothing beneath you. That's not the way that travel is supposed to work, not like trains and riverboats and cars where there's the security of the earth underneath.

But there's love there, too, and she pays attention to that as well. That Trevor loves the sky, because it feels like it was made for him, what he was meant to do. At least, it did back then.

If she were to retell this story, she muses silently, she would make very sure to put emphasis on that.]

What does it feel like? To...take off. Isn't it frightening, to go up and know there is nothing beneath you?

You think it will be. They prepare you for it to be. They give you rules to follow, so that you don’t have to think enough to be afraid, but just do what you’re told. And you’re good at that, so they like you. And you’re cleverer than they expected a boy with no schooling that’d give you a slip of paper at the end of it to be, and you turn out to be not-too-shitty with machines, and so they like you even more, and they put you into the sky by the end of the month.

[ He’s just letting words fall out of him, not really filtering them too much. It’s- a new experience, and it’s so tempting to hesitate and consider his words better. Find something better to say. But he made a promise, and he cannot lie, and maybe too many words is better than too few. ]

When you run, there’s a moment in each step when neither of your feet are on the ground, and if you tilt in just the slightest you’ll come down wrong. It’s- a little like that, but more. Further to fall. More time for shit to go wrong. All of your insides want to stay on the ground, and it feels a little like your brains are dribbling down into your boots, and your head goes too light to be afraid of anything at all. And it’s cold. They wrap you up in so many layers, even though it’s only just september, and you only understand why when you’re there and you see your breath come out in puffs. And the air is wrong, you have to breathe in so much more of it to make your lungs pay attention and stop fucking whining. But it’s a whole world of your very own, and that’s worth just about all of it.

...I never thought about it being cold.

[Almost instinctively, she leans more firmly into him, as if subconsciously offering the same warmth of her own body heat that he and Alucard always complain about. It's less than needed in the New Orleans heat than it would be high above the ground in a plane, perhaps. But still, she offers it, and hangs on his every word.

It doesn't escape her notice, the way he's chosen to tell the story to her. You do this. You're fourteen years old. It's not the usual way that people tell stories, naturally, and it stands out just enough that she can't help but remark on it.]

You tell stories like a Speaker.

[No, wait.]

No — like you're used to telling them to one.

It’s freezing up there, even if it’s warm on the ground. Frost forms everywhere. They make you wear three pairs of socks, until your boots barely fit anymore.

[ It’s too warm, but he pulls her tight against him. Tighter, when she finishes that thought. He can’t lie. Because of the order, yes, but also because he owes her so, so much for this. But at the same time- this is a difficult topic. The wonder at flight is gone from his voice. ]

Hearing them from one. [ He corrects, then shakes his head. ] No- a little of both.

I'm glad that they did. Your feet would look funny without toes.

[Hmmm. That sure was a shift in the tenor of the conversation, all right.]

Not the ones around here. One of the European Speakers?

Doves, we called them, because they had to bleach their robes. The blue of them was too similar to the colours of the french. They thought that people wouldn’t shoot them down if it was clear that they were here to help, that they weren’t soldiers. Mud doves.

[ But that’s not an answer, is it? It’s just information, being given to stall for time. ]

Yeah. One of the Europeans.

People always call us birds. Because we sing, and we travel in groups, and never stay long in one place. Well, except me.

[She closes her eyes, trying to imagine it. The faces of her family, wrapped up in snow-white robes instead of the blue that had taken Alucard a whole day to painstakingly match when he'd replaced hers, early on. How dirty they must've gotten, snow-white and showing every stain. The proof of their devotion to their cause, draped over their bodies.]

Why does it make you sad?

I’m not sa-

[ The last word catches in his throat as if it were covered in hooks. No lying. Shit. ]

You’re not the first speaker I’ve asked this of.

You asked another Speaker to carry a gun for you.

[There's something to that, and it'll hit her in a minute, but for the moment she's stuck on the notion on its face, and not the deeper implications.

Not yet, at least. But they're there.]

I cannot imagine that went well. That's why you thought you knew how I would react, when you asked me. You'd been through the same conversation before, with someone else.

I did.

[ He sighs, and he hides his face in Sypha’s hair. She wears it the same way. They all fucking wear it the same way. ]

They didn’t fucking care for the idea. And then they died. And they were the last of their caravan, so nobody came to claim the body.

...You know that, too.

[He knows the significance, knows what it means to have no one left to take a Speaker's remains. It means they died alone, with no one, and faded from history because there was no one there to remember the important things. No one to take the Speaker's name, their last story, their dying words. No one to remember where they were laid to rest at last. No one. No one.

Alone.

It's the worst feeling in the word, sometimes, to be alone. To die alone is even worse.

(She remembers the bloody blue scrap of fabric in the necromancer's basement. The way the sigil was built right into the floor to steal away her magic. The way he would change his vocal cadence when he talked to her, singsong syllables and thoughts in threes. Speaker tricks, to make things easier to remember. To make the things he said impossible to forget.)

She doesn't realize she's shaking until after she's already been at it a while, and when she tries to stop, it doesn't work very well.]

Not even you? You didn't...claim it.

Couldn’t. He didn’t want me in his story. Last thing he ever told me.

[ The speaker has gained a gender, and that was a slip. A too-emotional one.

She’s trembling, and- fuck it. There’s more cake. He can make more tea. He can clean up the mess and tell Alucard to just fucking deal with the broken dishes. He kicks the tray off the bed so that he doesn’t have to worry about it, then (carefully, so carefully) pulls Sypha so she’s on top of him, so he can coil his body around hers like armour. ]

Bad time for that story, maybe. We’re here. We’re both here. You’re here with us.

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