Death of a Teacup
"Look at the little butler, how he does prance about…"
Walter sighed, and continued down the corridor, ignoring the deep, malicious voice that seemed determined to wheedle at him until he broke.
"Such a lovely, poised little butler, how proper he is, carrying a dainty teacup on tray. Tell me little butler, how many men have you killed today?"
It seemed at this point that Alucard was making fine progress. The fingers on Walter's left hand twitched involuntarily.
"Oh my, is that a dainty little flower pattern I see on the rim? Little butler, little butler…"
Strategically the best course of action was to ignore the vampire's taunts and complete his objective: getting Sir Arthur's tea to Sir Arthur without further incident. Yesterday had been quite enough. Although to be honest, the more juvenile part of Walter had to admit that the dead cockroach had really been a very nice touch. It was regrettable that Sir Arthur had not been quite so amused. Especially after Lord Richards' teeth bit in to the unoffending cockroaches' corpse, making a rather unpleasant crunching sound as he chewed.
The final touch of course was when the boorish fellow asked for the recipe.
Years of training allowed Walter to keep his facial expression neutral, and Sir Arthur managed to stifle his own response with a light, mannerly cough.
"I knew you would love my artistic addition to those horrid little cakes Englishmen cram down their throats with such enthusiasm."
Walter had suspected that mischief was involved in the cockroach incident, but of course no one could prove it was the bored house pet.
" If I were a teapot, would you be my little teacup?"
He told himself that attempting to throw a teacup at a disembodied voice would result only in a broken teacup. And a cackling vampire. He wanted neither.
His steps remained calm and purposeful, he was almost there. The distance between the kitchen and the office had never seemed so long before, but he could see the doors now--
"Oops! You simply cannot predict those pesky drafts in this mansion, can you?"
The teacup lay in a thousand pieces around Walter's feet., along with a small pool of brown liquid. He stared at it blankly. Recently, Alucard had taken to tormenting him endlessly about his new position in the Hellsing manor in order to alleviate his own monotony . A creature used to playing with the fates, fortunes, and skulls of men, a centuries old vampire…reduced to breaking teacups for attention.
It really was very sad, Walter decided.
" Come and play with me, little butler, come and play with me, of death and destruction…"
Alucard reminded Walter of a thoroughly discontent house cat at that moment. One that, having had its permission to kill small rodents with swastikas revoked, must find other adequate sources of entertainment. Such as running about its master's house wreaking as much havoc as possible with its claws.
"Of dismemberment and delusion… of drowning cabbages and decapitated queens…"
Vaguely, Walter wondered if Alucard had fleas.
"Little butler, little butler, won't you come out to play?"
There was no living with him after the war really.
Disclaimer: Hellsing is owned by people who are not me.