This was a birthday present for MPAlucard on Deviantart, but I decided to post it on here too. Hope you like it!
The noise of the phone slamming back down onto the stand echoed through the large room that was Integra's office. She took her cigar out of her mouth and sighed deeply, her head buried in her free hand.
The Round Table was driving her to her wits end. They seemed obsessed with finding her a husband and trying to make her produce an heir. It was apparently just so she would have someone to continue the blood line. But she knew the truth. They were scheming. They just wanted her to get married and then hand power over to her husband whilst she was pregnant, but then they would want more than one heir, just so they could keep a man in power, then she would never have control over Hellsing again.
'Name: Arthur De Soto
Age: 32
Skills: Has experience in the military and reasonable fighting skill.'
He had seemed the most appropriate at the beginning, even though he was 10 years older than her, but then she read the disadvantages Penwood had written on a note. She smiled as she thought of Sir Penwood, he was a dear friend and he had only sent the notes with each file so that he could make sure that she made the right choice, if she did.
She lost the smile as she read the disadvantages again.
'Is fond of alcohol, thinks women should know their place, has been known to court with several women at a time, has been married and divorced twice, and has an extreme prejudice against vampires, especially Alucard it seems?'
They would also want her to order Alucard to listen to the husbands every whim. That was the problem, if the man she married had something against vampire, she couldn't bring herself to marry someone who would make Alucard suffer whilst she looked after children.
She heard a knock at her door and quickly shoved the papers into a draw before answering. "Come in!"
The door opened and Seras' head edged around the wood. The big blue eyes stared at her uncertainly, the draculina was nervous about asking her something.
"What is it Seras?"
"Well….I think Master is angry with me…" The young vampire looked truly upset by this, her lip pouting out slightly and her eyes watering as she tried to hold back tears.
"Why do you think that?"
"…H-He's been avoiding me. Every time I go into the same room as him, he leaves and whenever I walk past him in the hallway, he always ignores me." Her voice was quivering by now and her shoulders shuddered with her next words. "I think he's ashamed of me."
With that, the dams holding the tears back that had already been crumbling broke fully and the tears started falling.
Integra stood and walked around the side of the desk to stand in front of the crying young woman. She dabbed gently at her cheeks with a tissue and tried her best to sound reassuring.
"I'm sure he's just having a bad week Seras, I'll go and talk to him now and hopefully knock some sense into him and stop him from taking his negative emotions out on everyone else alright?"
Seras sniffed and nodded sadly. "Yes Sir. Thank you."
"There's no need to thank me Seras, I won't see my two best soldiers in any bad condition. Now, Pip has been looking for you, he's in the training room currently, I believe that he wants you try out a new weapon." Integra smirked.
Seras gave a watery smile and nodded again, saluting to her. "I'll go right away Sir." And with that, she left the room, leaving Integra to come up with a plan.
She sat on the desk, taking a drag on her cigar as she thought deeply. She needed to come up with a way to make Alucard talk to her. Of course, they often communicated, but very rarely about emotional things unless there was some encouragement on either side.
She sighed and put out her cigar before frowning at some papers sticking out of a draw. They were going to get bent like that, and that wouldn't do at all, though it was an amusing though to imagine The Round Table having to unscrumple paper to read it.
She opened the draw to push them back in and then stopped. She lifted the bottle of Scotch out of the draw, watching the amber liquid swill around the glass with softened eyes. It had been her father's. He had often sat at his desk with a small glass of Scotch that he would slowly work his way through whilst dealing with paperwork and other things.
She smiled softly as she remembered that her father had said this bottle was the best quality of this brand of alcohol that he had ever bought. Yet he would never get to finish it.
Anyone else in the room would have practically been able to see the light bulb flash on above her head as she looked at the alcohol. She grabbed two shot glasses from a cupboard, balancing them carefully along with the bottle, and made her way down to the basement levels.
When she got closer to Alucard's room she heard a loud banging. She tilted her head fractionally to the side and walked into his room silently, putting the glasses on the floor and running over when she saw what her vampire servant was doing.
The room looked a mess, the two crystal glasses he usually kept on the table were shattered on the floor along with the bottle full of blood wine that he kept there. The small pieces of crystal sparkled in the light and the wine was a shocking crimson as it made its way through the crevices of the stone floor.
The wall was cracking slightly under the vampire's fists as he repeatedly punched it, his eyes glowing with an emotion she couldn't make sense of. She tried to grab his wrist as it swung around to make contact with the wall again, but she missed. She heard a crunch as the hardest punch yet hit the wall, and she knew it wasn't the stone that had just broken.
She grabbed his wrists tightly and spun him to face her, slamming the seal down onto him to make him listen. She ignored his wince of pain and she finally snapped.
"What it wrong with you vampire? What is the point of breaking the wall AND your hands?" She shook him harshly and then stopped, shuddering in rage as she tried to rein in her anger.
"Do you realize that your Draculina came to me crying, claiming that you were avoiding her because you were ashamed of her? Do you have any idea how distraught she was at the thought that you despise her?" The red eyes stayed fixed to the floor. "Look at me servant!"
His eyes rose and she struggled not to flinch at the anger and irritation in them. "Yes I know!"
"Then why?" He shrugged her grip off of his wrists and turned his back to her, walking to the other side of the basement room. Integra could hear the steady drip as the blood fell from his hands onto the cold stone of the floor.
"I don't want her near me..."
"Why not? She's your fledgeling!"
"When I killed that first SWAT team, she came out of where she was hiding and…the way she looked at me…." He trailed off for a moment before continuing. "I'm just a monster, she shouldn't be around me. I've already destroyed my humanity, I shouldn't destroy hers too. She's better off without me around."
Integra looked down, thinking. Even she and Walter had agreed that the vampire was a monster that night. He always seemed to love the bloodshed and the fighting. Yet…
Her eyes widened as a thought slammed into her consciousness. Alucard was always searching for an opponent stronger than him, like he was trying to….kill himself. To end his existence as a monster once and for all.
His split knuckles had healed and he was now sat in his chair, his legs crossed and his face hidden by his hand and hair. Integra turned back to where she had put the Scotch and filled the two glasses, cutting her finger and adding a little fresh blood to one of them before giving one to her vampire. He looked at her, slightly confused, but he still took the glass.
"Alucard, despite what you are, or how you act, Seras adores you. There's no need to avoid her and upset the both of you. You don't have to worry about her humanity being destroyed; she truly is…..an abnormality in the vampire species."
Alucard snorted, agreeing whole heartedly. Integra smiled herself, taking a sip of the alcohol in her hand, her vampire soon following.
For tonight at least, both their worries could be forgotten.
Over the next few days, Integra felt much better. She had turned down all the files The Round Table, and given them quite a few stern words. Now they were busy trying to dislodge their tails from between their legs, but while they were being cowards, she could get on with what she wanted to do without them hassling her to marry some stupid, posh man who had a prejudice against some of her most beloved people in her life.
Seras had been happier to do. It seemed that her talking with Alucard had done some good and he was no longer avoiding the young draculina. The depressed look at atmosphere around her was now a bright smile and atmosphere than could make anyone around her have a mood uplift.
"I know you're hiding in the shadows Alucard, come into the damn light where I can see you."
The vampire came fully into her sight, his signature smirk on his face. He placed the bottle of Scotch that she had accidentally left down there on the desk gently.
"Your orders my Master?"
Integra looked at the alcohol swirling around the bottle and smiled.
It was strange the amount of good that amber liquid had done.
Hey, if anyone has any Hellsing fic requests, let me know, cuz I'm out of ideas and dying to write! XD