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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This is your idea, forgive me if I thought you'd have an inkling of an idea on the topic. It isn't as if I'm putting my entire sense of self in your hands to control.

[Alucard's back to spitting and hissing anger. It's too easy to come by in this moment. He knows what it sounds like, knows who it sounds like, and they're back where they've started. His father's long fucking shadow and the two of them too scarred by loss to deal with things rationally.]

No taste for it when it isn’t you making choices for me?

[ Another thing he’ll regret saying. He knows what a low blow that is when aimed at Alucard. Knows that ‘don’t die or turn’ isn’t a particularly restrictive or unreasonable set of demands. Doesn’t care.

And the voice comes from Trevor’s lips, but it’s also coming from inside Alucard’s head. Trevor it still writing down his spell, drawing circles and runes out desperately as Alucard approaches his table, placing his palms flat against it.

And Alucard does, in fact, do this. ]

For the love of...

[He stops because the double voice of Trevor throws Alucard for a terrible loop. His stomach churns (blood calls to blood), and he has to steady himself after realizing that it's just the magic working.

Then his hands move without Alucard's say so, and when he swears it betrays exactly how raw he feels in this moment. They're fighting over the worst of his father's legacy, Sypha's status is unknown, they're arguing about turning on the back burner, and Alucard's moving without his own say so.

It's this or turning. That's the only thought he repeats in his head. Lets it become a mantra.]

[ He can only write one thing at a time, and that’s the only thing keeping him from making notes. Even though he can feel just what this is doing to Alucard, how terrifying it is to have ones body move without telling it to, even though it would be so terribly distateful to do it right now. This is fascinating. He is limited in the spells he can cast by his own inability to form intent, but Alucard is not (and there is maybe a little horror on his part, that he thinks he can use this spell to force him to form intent). There is so much, so much that he could do suddenly, if he only does so through Alucard.

He keeps writing the spell, testing motor control, making each of Alucard’s fingers move in turn. When he finally stops for a moment, he closes his eyes and looks at the room through Alucard’s instead. It’s a slightly higher vantage point, and that’s odd in a way that none of the rest of this feels for some reason. While he isn’t writing, Alucard’s body is his own again. ]

This will work. [ He says, the anger forgotten for the moment and replaced by absolute certainty. His control is gone, while he isn’t writing, but his words are still audible from both inside and outside of Alucard’s mind. ] I’ll be able to find her like this, I’m sure of it. I just need to cast the spell through you.

[Trevor writes. Trevor writes and focuses and Alucard repeats his mantra. It begins fast and terrified but by the time motor control begins to be tested, Alucard has found some kind of equilibrium within himself to not panic about his fingers moving by another's control.

(They really do have to save her or die. He can't imagine his father's reaction to this moment.)

Breathing is still under Alucard's sway though, and he focuses on controlling only that. An automatic function, nothing of intent mixed up with it.

Then Trevor speaks again, and Alucard holds up a hand in the universal wait a second gesture.]

I cannot have you both speaking in my head and out loud. Let me go else where, we can test basic spell casting.

Go to the room we’re using for my tracking spells, then.

[ And he hands Alucard the focus (that is to say, the thin layer of Alucard’s own skin, in a jar. The irony here, that the book he found this spell in was bound in the skin of a human, is not lost on him. A jar of ash follows it. ]

Fuck basic spellcasting, I can find her. And that’ll be as good a test as any.

[There's a tense retort that stays on Alucard's tongue. Happily he doesn't snap back, because there's still a part of him that recongizes this tension is because of how they react to the same situation. Trevor's too workman, too Belmont, too trained for this. Alucard's nothing but a spoiled fucking princeling who runs far too hot.

He takes the jar, not looking at it. Refusing to register it. The ash is easier.]

It should assist in examining distance as well then.

[There. There, he'll latch onto that, and he'll leave the room. It's his legs moving him to the room used for tracking, and there's two thuds on the table in that room once Alucard enters. One jar on each side. Alucard's palms resting flat on the table, trying to work out the coil of tension that has replaced his spine.]

[ He’s not been able to focus it down himself. The spell that was uesd on Alucard has been cast all over the city, and he can’t differentiate a place that it’s been used from the place that it originates. Checking each place induvidually isn’t an option - they’ll be spotted, the necromancer will know how he’s being tracked, and he’ll move Sypha somewhere else. But Alucard can. If Trevor is a font of magic, Alucard is a font of determination. All of the sheer intent that Trevor can’t muster himself.

Alucard’s hands take a brush and ink from the table in the room, finding an empty sheer of paper and drawing out that rough, ugly map of the city. No runes this time, not on Alucard’s version of the map. The spell itself is all on Trevor’s end. Alucard’s hands simply take the skin from one jar, emptying the ashes upon it. And then pour them from the skin onto the paper map. The ashes gather first at the morgue where they faced the construct, and then form the shapes of tiny hands attached to long, wispy arms moving across the city like snakes.

They meet, eventually, hands joining and coiling into each other until they just form a pile of ash. Alucard’s hands finish putting away the skin and take the brush again, circling the point that they marked. ]

Found her.

[There are a number of disconcerting things about this experience that Alucard will later list as his least favorite aspects of the spell. Touching his own skin that is in a jar does rank highly up there, but the act of drawing the map, of making the magic happen, that's worse.

He's watching from a back seat from somewhere inside of himself. Alucard is present, but there's another power that has elbowed it's way to the forefront. It has a Trevor like shape, all wide chested and smelling of natural musk mixed with alcohol and the faintest hint of something older, and it has a Trevor like manner. It marches in and gets itself down to work, using whatever it can to complete the task. The aura it exudes though, that isn't a natural Trevor thing. It's not calming, not exactly, but it isn't the thing from the circus tent either.

His eyes drink in the ugly map, the way the ashes comb through the city, and then he swears.]

Residential area, high traffic. Everything is built close together though, it's an older part of town so there are...[he hisses softly] more shadows cast in the area due to density.

[ The faint ‘then we set the fucking place on fire, no more fucking shadows’ that Alucard hears is probably not a deliberate vocalisation, because Trevor is saying something completely different. ]

I can deal with shadows. Let me test-

[ Let him see what more he can do with Alucard’s intent. No weapons to hand, so he just uses the brush instead, Alucard’s hands picking it up and clasping around the handle of it. Immediately the ink that it was dipped in begins to glow, as if the brush were used for painting with starlight. ]

-not ideal, compared to no fucking shadows at all. Combined with Belmont shit on the sword, it might be enough.

[He's actually in agreement about setting the place ablaze. It sounds like a great idea right now, and given the source of the opinion, that says a little too much about Alucard's state.

Testing magic though, that's much more important. The sensation of the spell adds to the sense of tension in Alucard. It doesn't resist Trevor's commands, but it is present and a weight that probably is not useful for magic.

Then the ink is glowing, and Alucard blinks.]

We can test it with the sword. Let me...the basement. Basement is safe enough for a test like that.

[ There's a difficulty to it, doing this when Alucard is so ill at ease with it. Trevor is molding his intent, putting real power behind it. But the only reason this can work without vampiric blood is that Alucard is, at least theoretically, willing to allow this. The moment that his intention turns to getting Trevor out of his body, the spell will be broken. ]

I'll let you walk there yourself. Speak when you're ready. I'll hear you. And take the skin. Now we've found her, I can use the last of that spell to test that we can counter it.

Very well.

[Alucard walks, and he adjusts to the additional presence. It's like having another weight, one he adjusts to as he walks. His sword is in the room they've been in sleeping in, so he has to go there first. With it in hand, Alucard goes down, down into the basement.

When Alucard says ready, Trevor gets to see the state of the Tantrum Room in full. While the room itself is not large, it is covered in shattered furniture right now. Big chunks, tiny splinters, clawmarks etched into stone. It is not a pretty sight, and Alucard can't find himself caring that Trevor's seeing this.]

Do you need target practice as well?

[ Fucking monster. Fucking monster. I kill the things that do this., Trevor does not say. But oh, his thoughts aren’t nearly so private as they ought to be right now. ]

Not as such. Just want to know what you can do. You told me once that salt-based purification magic doesn’t harm you. Stull true?

[Alucard cringes at those thoughts. He bites back a response, but the words fuck you still filter through down the line.]

Still true.

[Alucard takes the sword out of it's sheath and holds it down at his side.]

That's what we'll use, then. Probably a bad idea to send anything using consecrated components through you.

[ Ah, so thoughts travel though the connection both ways. If he was in the mood to care then that might be more of a concern. He doesn't like sharing shit with people. But he isn't in the mood to care, and the loss of privacy is just another thing that it's more than worth giving up for her. ]

I'm- look. I'm going to warn you before I make you do anything. I won't be able to do that at the time. Will that make this better?

Iron would also be an option, if you believe the connection could sustain it on your end.

[But really, fuck you Belmont. Alucard considers the proposal, and then nods in approval.]

For getting used to it, yes. It will do.

Iron- shit. We need to test that. I'd rather find out if it affects you like this now, rather than at the time.

[ Shit. There's so many things, still, to account for. ]

First things first. I have the salt here. I'm going to raise your hand, see if I can sustain a basic ward through you.

[ And he does that, raising Alucard's sword hand to point the sword outward. At the point of it, the air shimmers like the way the city's roads shimmer in the summer heat. There's not much to it, visually, but Alucard's vampire senses can just about pick up a shimmering circle of air in front of him, about his height in diameter. ]

Start making a list. We may as well get that done now while this is still in effect.

[Alucard steps back in his own mind. The warning helps, and it occurs to him that they might develop a shorter system for this, not unlike radio codes. That thought doesn't get clamped down on, meaning it is very possible Trevor hears it without the vampire saying anything else.

The point's gleam is new. And then Alucard notes the circle, and breathes out.]

Success?

Cold-forged iron is the only one I know of. We'll test it last.

[ There's no response to that, but he hears it. He's considering quick ways to communicate the information. Still, even quickly, it might be too slow in a battle. ]

Not sure. We need to see if the skin will pass through it. I can take it out and try to push it through, or if you'd rather stay in control you can try to just throw the jar if you're willing to let me clear up the glass afterward.

[ He's not quite so far distanced from his emotions to force Alucard to touch the skin of his own will. If he wants to throw it, he'll clean it up. It just means he has to go into the tantrum room, which has always been off limits. ]

Very well.

[Alucard does not like the particulars of defining success, but when Trevor explains how they have to test it...

He swears softly.]

I'll get a pair of medical gloves. There's no point in cleaning up broken glass. I have a medical kit down here anyway.

[There are several of them littered over the house, born of his mother's knowledge that the castle was much too big and it was far wiser to leave a few kits in different parts rather than run to the opposite end of the world (or so it always seemed) for supplies.

So all he does is leave the tantrum room, go to a nearby closet, and grab a pair of latex gloves.]

I'll assume these don't create a barrier issue. Resume the test.

You're going to cast the ward again. Then you'll take the skin from the jar, and try to pull it through. If the ward is working, it'll resist.

[ Warning done, he proceeds to do this. Alucard's hands open the jar and take the skin from it, pinching it between fingers. Then he tries to move that hand through the shimmering air. There's resistance. He pulls harder. There's a hissing sound, the magic being pushed back bit by bit, allowing the skin to be pulled forward. And then it tears, a little scrap of it left between Alucard's fingers and the rest floating to the ground. ]

Seems to work. Hopefully it'll hold against the real thing.

And if it doesn't? What is plan B?

[Under his own steam, Alucard crouches down and returns the fallen skin to it's jar. It is easy for him to think of it just as a sample, especially with the gloves on. Especially if he doesn't look at it for more than a few seconds. Then it becomes another reminder of exactly what this situation is.

Alucard pauses, eyes going back to his sword.]

We should also consider that casting and using a weapon simultaneously is going to happen. It would do more harm than good if you were trying to control both things, and the way I fight is different from your approach.

Plan B is 'we both fucking die', so I just make sure I don't fuck up Plan A.

[ The thoughts that are coming through are just as neutral in tone, but grimmer. There's at least a hint of 'and we'd both fucking deserve it for letting this happen'. ]

I can't use your magic, so we ought to test that next. I'm not going to move you at all, but I'm going to take control away from you. See if you can still control the sword.

[ And Alucard's body falls limp, only doing enough to remain standing. ]

[The hint of the we deserve it is the truest thing Alucard's heard from Trevor's head so far. The least offensive as well. His own self loathing for letting this happen is...

...never mind. It will filter to Trevor and Trevor won't care, so Alucard won't waste the energy.]

Understood.

[This part? This part is actually the scariest so far. There's nothing to do, there's only standing. The sword, however, Alucard things get over here and it flies over. Hovers over his shoulder, and that's satisfactory.]

Belmont. I'm going to send it forward in an attack. Cast anything you can think of as I do so.

20s AU Post

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