Disclaimer.
With me ever at your side
Let us make hell out of heaven
and heaven out of hell.
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Heaven, Integra decides, is overrated.
It is very pretty. The grass is green and the sky is blue and it looks right out of a picture in a Hallmark card. The air smells like her favorite tea and her finest cigar. But it all seems so...calm, so...
Boring. The word she is looking for is boring.
"You know, when I thought of life after death, it was with the assumption that it would be peaceful. So really, I shouldn't be surprised."
No response from her companion beside her, just that infuriating grin of his.
"Peaceful. As in, no more war. No more back cramps. No more vampires and especially no more fedora-wearing bastard ones that are supposed to stay undead!"
"Now, now, my Master. Why would you want such a boring afterlife? It doesn't suit you at all."
Integra loomed over him. Or tried to. Dying had certainly not done anything for their height differences. "Why are you here, Alucard? Or rather, how are you here? And don't tell me you staked yourself after my death because I know you don't have it in you and it doesn't work anyway."
"You wound me, my Master. There is nothing more I desire than being at your side." His tone dropped its playfulness. "Nothing."
Her irritation sputters and dies.
She turned away, focusing on her surroundings. "Heaven is not quite like what I thought it would be. If I even am in heaven, that is. Perhaps this is Limbo." She paused, eyes darting sideways as if expecting to see Alexander Anderson burst out of the clouds at any moment.
"Don't tell me. You expected a bit more fanfare. Cherubs serenading your every step. Feathers floating everywhere."
"Don't be droll, Alucard." If she had a cigar, she would have bitten it in half already. Apparently heaven did not condone smoking. This was so very wrong on so many levels that she could not comprehend.
She sighed. "Perhaps this is punishment for all the lives that have been sacrificed under my leadership. Perhaps this is punishment for letting London burn under my watch. Something has to answer for this."
"You're still on about that?" Alucard scoffed. "As I said, my Master. Those men knew what they were getting into. As for London burning, there's always a city or two bursting into flames in a century. In your time it just happened to be London."
She was wrong. She did not need a cigar. She needed a gun and she needed to put it against her head. Actually, his.
Integra pinched the bridge of her nose. "Why are you here, Alucard? Really."
When he became uncharacteristically silent beside her, she turned to him. She was not prepared for the harrowing, intent look on his face, saturated in emotions that neither in their lifetimes had explicably stated.
"I can be everywhere and nowhere, Integra. This I have told you.
When I was trapped in that accursed abstract state, the only thought that ground me was the thought of you. I had defied your orders, my Master, had failed you, left you in the midst of that destruction when you needed me the most. So this is my repentance, the punishment I inflict on myself."
He smirked.
"But I am more selfish than I give myself credit for. For there is no place either here or there that I desire to be than at at your side and at your feet."
Integra stared at him. It occurred to her that she was looking at him with bare eyes. She had no need of glasses in heaven.
"...Seras will be upset."
"Seras will manage. She has become a better vampire than I could ever hope to be. In any case she has that Frenchman with her." He smiled ruefully. "I confess myself to be jealous."
"You. Jealous of your own fledgling."
"She had thirty years of watching you age into that beautiful bouquet you graciously gifted me upon my return. Why would I not be jealous? Though I will admit, seeing you young again in this fashion is a novelty." He had a supremely satisfied expression on his face at the thought of besting his fledgling in this way and Integra just rolled her eyes. Such a child, even in death...or whatever this was to him.
She looked to the horizon, her newly young eyes—eyes!—drinking in the peace that it promised, and found herself both relieved and displeased, the former she was loathe to admit was only because of the monster beside her. She wondered if this was truly heaven, and if so why it had allowed him into its gates; if it was hell, why it had granted her this gift.
So she chose not to look a gift horse in the mouth and sighed, and leaned into the man that had pledged to follow her until the end of time. He wrapped his arms around her with a soft yet triumphant smile.
"Heaven is truly damned now," she murmured. "How will it fare with a demon within its gates, I wonder?"
"I have disobeyed you for thirty years, Integra. I'll be on my very best behavior."
"Hah!"
"I think I see Walter, my Master. Let us go have a chat. For old times' sake."
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A little ficlet I churned up on caffeine-induced whim, barely edited.
Fear not; Snow White is scheduled to be updated within a few days.
Please review! I cherish everything you have to say.