To be properly—for lack of a better word—assimilated into the community, both Seras and Alucard had to report first thing in the evening to the Head Office of Community Affairs (or HOCA, as the reminder email stated in its opening address). The youth of the moving company had also said something about this, offering her the friendly advice to get there as early as possible. This in itself wouldn't have been too bad, had she only herself to worry about. But there was the small fact of getting Alucard up and ready to face a long wait as well. With his impatient nature, she knew that it was easier said than done.
By the time she had dragged him to the bus stop, she was already nearing the end of her patience. He'd insisted on arguing with her that 'his way' was not only faster, but less of a hassle and generally better overall. That was well and good when one could be both everywhere and nowhere, but regular people—supernatural or not—took the bus. And, she argued back, for once in her life she wanted to be just as regular as everyone else. She missed the mundane nature of normal life, of queues and rainchecks, people-watching and jostling for a prime position on the metro, traffic jams and unavoidable detours. What was life when a private helicopter could bypass any road trouble, when status alone bumped you to the front of the line and everything was always available? Boring, that's what it was.
But trying to explain that to a man who'd never went a day without being waited upon was a chore in and of itself, and they had to be at the office at 8:00 pm.
Thankfully, despite his insistence he was too exhausted to argue for long. He'd not gotten more than a mere few hours of sleep before she'd been shaking him awake and imploring him to get dressed so that they could make it on time. The remainder of the blood she'd brought to tide them over had been little more than a quick snack; it was just enough to whet the pallet, and while she was uncomfortable with the lack of a proper breakfast, she knew it had to be ten times worse for him. It was a godsend that he was even semi-coherent.
He was even grumpier than usual, but she still managed to get him dressed and them both down to the bus stop with minimal grumbling on his part. She noticed that he perked up slightly while studying the map of the routes on the side of the station's bench, carefully reading the arrival times with an expression on his face that she knew well: curiosity.
There was only one other vampire at the stop besides, them: a tall, broad-shouldered man that looked very odd in casual business wear, his suit jacket slung over his shoulder. He glanced sideways at them, frown half-hidden by his neatly trimmed beard, and when he caught Seras's eye he turned to face ahead stoically and didn't look their way again.
Seras stood closer to Alucard, hands in the pockets of her jacket; just because the chilly winds of the April night didn't affect her didn't mean that she wanted to feel it on her bare hands. She let his body block most of the wind, debating on whether to pull the fur-lined hood over her head until the bus came. The silent vampire didn't seem to notice the cold, and neither did Alucard, though the latter was admittedly fully engrossed in the sprawling map of the community. Seras looked up at it as well, her eyes following the path of the buses and mentally combining the names of destinations with what the young man had told her yesterday.
When the bus turned the corner, the main waved the tail end of his suit jacket and it slowed to a stop for them. Boarding first, he slapped a card—ah, so one could buy metro cards here, Seras noted with a sense of relief—over the scanner and let it beep before moving onto the bus fully. Fishing in the pocket of her jacket, she pulled out enough to cover both her and Alucard's fare and nodded to the bus driver before hopping aboard as well. They moved down to sit on a bench near the rear, Seras automatically grabbing the brass bar next to her as she plopped down with a sigh and leaned her head back against the window. The bus was empty, thankfully, and the world was quiet save for the sound of the hydraulics as it began to move.
"Police Girl." She cracked one eye to see him staring at her intently.
"Hmm?"
"The man before you did not pay." She turned her head to look fully at him.
"Yes he did. He paid with the card." She almost laughed as his brow wrinkled while processing the information.
"That is the same as paying on the computer, isn't it?"
"Sort of. That card's only good for the bus. It's still basically the same thing." She sat up in the seat, continuing in a low voice. "See, the scanner reads his card and takes the money out automatically. You have to put more money on it when you run low, or sometimes you can pay a fee every month and get as many rides as you want. It depends on how often you ride."
"I see." He looked quite serious, for such a run of the mill conversation. "Again with the credits," he mumbled, almost to himself, and she had to giggle at that. It had taken her nearly a full night of explaining to get him to understand how a credit card worked. He just couldn't understand how you were still paying with money, even though you didn't have any money in your hand to give to the cashier. Even when she had tried to elaborate on how credit and banks worked, he still didn't get it.
Police Girl, this makes no sense. If you do not, then who gives them the money?
The bank does.
But the bank is for your money. You have to take it out of the bank to give it to the people.
They do it automatically, with computers. I told you this.
But how?
I don't know how! They just… they just do!
Never before had she wanted to rip her hair out, but finally after a lot of repeating conversation and a detailed diagram drawn on paper, she'd gotten the basics across to him. It often took her by surprise, how oblivious he was to the way the world worked, and how inquisitive he actually was when he had to learn something he didn't know. It was like watching a child in school learning a new concept that interested them, and that they were excited about.
Really, she often thought to herself, I guess he never had a reason to know. He didn't need to use computers or credit cards on a daily basis. He had no interest in television, smartphones, or video games, other than asking about how they worked. But was still just so entertaining to see him confused about things that Seras would have thought were common knowledge, had she not known him.
"What does that sign mean?" he asked, pulling her out of her thoughts. She followed his gaze to see a sign with a cartoon bus driver saying "Inquire about Transfers!"
"If you have to change busses for some reason, they can transfer your money to the next bus so you don't lose any," she clarified. "But I guess you have to ask them, or remind them at any rate." The bus stopped again and a crowd of people got on, filling the seats with only one or two free. A teenager with a chain running through several holes in his ear fell into the seat next to Alucard, chewing gum. He looked over, his black lipstick glinting in the light from the windows, and winked at Seras before pulling headphones up over his ears and bobbing his head in time with a beat she could barely hear. Alucard growled at him, but it did no good; she scooted against the bar, yanking him closer to her. He slid easily on the seat, and she couldn't help but laugh again when he looked down at her in mingled anger and surprise.
"Remember the mission," she whispered to him, able to cover her words more easily with the soft din of conversation all around them. If he took his anger out on the everyday rudeness of the citizens around him, their mission would be for naught and they would have failed Sir Integra. She'd relayed this mission to them as one of highest importance, not to be taken lightly. If anything, this little experience might teach him how good he's had it for so long, being royalty. She stared at him a moment, until he arched a brow at her in question. No, it won't. Who am I kidding?
At the next stop even more people piled on, and she could see that he was uncomfortable at the very least. They were all pressed together, a couple leaning against his knees as they held the straps above their heads and almost refusing to move no matter how much he shifted against them. A teeny old lady tottered on, leather handbag in hand, and Seras stood automatically to offer her seat. Alucard glared at her, but she ignored him as she waved away the granny's protests.
"No, please. I insist."
"It's not as though I'm going to take a tumble and break my hip," the woman said, but sat down and smiled toothlessly at her. Seras took a moment to wonder how the woman drank blood with no fangs to bite into a throat, but then she grew so amused at the thought of vampiric false teeth that she had to hide her grin in the shoulder of her jacket and make it seem as though she were muffling a cough. "What's with that long face of yours, sonny?" She looked up to see the granny squaring off with Alucard, who was glowering at her.
"Don't mind him," Seras sighed, mouthing 'mission!' at him over the lady's head.
"Is he yours, dearie?" The woman peered through her bifocals at him, and despite Seras's misgivings she found herself nodding, playing along for Sir's sake. "Well! With such a pretty mate like that, you really shouldn't be frowning. It'll ruin your complexion, sonny."
"Is that so?" Alucard sounded as though he was physically holding himself back, and Seras toed his ankle with her boot. His eyes shifted to her, but just as quickly were back on the old woman, effectively dismissing her. The bus hit a bump and they all were flung backwards, the teenager on his right sprawling into his shoulder. Alucard snarled and the teen caught the look on his face even with the headphones; he froze like a deer in headlights before paling and throwing himself back towards the prettish woman on his other side.
"Why, when my mate was around—" The lady adjusted her glasses. "Well… if I were you, dearie," she said instead, "I'd give him a swift kick in the trousers when he gets this way. It's the best cure for a sullen face, mark my words. Front or back—either way; take your pick." She hooted at her own joke and then looked around before reaching into her handbag and pulling out knitting needles, getting to work without another word. Thankfully, the bus ride passed without any other incident, and it wasn't too long before they stopped in front of a squat three-storied building with a large red HOCA emblazoned on the top.
"Was that so bad?" she muttered to him as they alighted from the bus and it rumbled off down the street.
"Too crowded." They began up the long sidewalk towards the windows gleaming in the moonlight. "But I suppose it's less personal than riding post. At least you're not expected to converse with everyone." That was the Alucard way of saying that it interested him, even if it wasn't high on his list of enjoyable things. "But it's slower," he added immediately after. "The stops take too long. We could have made it in less than a minute if you'd just let me do it, Police Girl." She shrugged and checked her wristwatch—8:45. Tsking, she had to give him credit. Maybe the bus was a slow way to drive, but looking around she was happy they'd taken it. She didn't see any parking spots around, so taking the car wouldn't have been a worthwhile endeavor. They would have still had to walk. There must be a parking garage somewhere down the street.
The foyer was plate glass and sparkling fountains, fake rubber plants standing at attention next to a gleaming marble desk, which was unoccupied. There was a glass lift built into the wall and Seras could see people moving between floors in it high above her head. Looking around with no real clue on where to go, she was about to search the corners for a doorman when Alucard tugged at her sleeve. She turned to see a small metal plaque on the wall, tiny letters and numbers written in glittering golden script. Reading it, she realized that aside from new citizens, HOCA seemed to do plenty of other things as well.
"Department of Security and Welfare, third floor. Road Commission and Infrastructure, Department of Educational Directives, Collective Judiciary League, Intramural Affairs and Discriminations Office, Department of Agricultural and Industrial Levies—cor, there's at least thirty other names on this damn thing!" she mumbled, becoming overwhelmed.
"Ask him." She turned her head to see that a young commissionaire had taken a seat at the desk, uniform buttons glistening from the skylights. He was flicking through a newspaper, lackluster red gaze locked on whatever he was reading. She shrugged again and they walked over to stand before the desk. After a terse moment where they waited to be noticed and the commissionaire steadily ignored them, she put a hand on the desk and rapped her nails against the marble.
"Excuse me." No answer. "Excuse me." The eyes looked briefly at them before going back to the page.
"May I help you?" he inquired in a dull voice.
"Yes, you may," Seras said in a very smart voice, one that reminded her of something vague, from so long ago that she had put out of her mind. "You can tell me where I can go to fill out my papers." There was a soft hum of annoyance from the young man and she smacked her palm on the desk. "For citizenship?"
There, the memory was back—her mother, she as a four—five?—year old child, a bank teller who was more interested in her nails than her job. A twist of her heart. Did she sound like her mother, now that she was an adult? She could only just remember her voice, and it was murky enough in her memory that it was hard to draw a comparison.
"What floor, if you please?!" The youth rolled his eyes, sighed.
"Third floor, Department of Immigration and Cohabitation. Have a pleasant day." He was clearly ready for her to leave him alone with his Lifestyles section. Seras scowled and stomped over to the lift, Alucard hot on her heels. She pressed the button hard enough to dent the metal plating, seething inside. How dare that little brat just brush her off like that! He was a commissionaire, for Pete's sake; it was his job to help people get to where they needed to go! Her foot tapped an impatient rhythm on the ground while she watched the lift crawl slowly but smoothly to meet them at the ground.
As the doors opened, she heard an almighty crash and spun on her heel just in time to see the commissionaire gaze stupidly at her upside-down. His chair, one leg broken in a clean snap, lay beside him. He looked so dumbfounded that she couldn't help the bark of laughter escaping from her lungs, causing his cheeks to flush darkly as he scrambled to his feet. The doors closed as he lifted the chair, scratching his head and upsetting his bellboy hat as he looked at the broken leg.
"Did you do that?" she asked Alucard quietly.
"Do what?" he replied smoothly, and she glanced up to see a smirk written across his face. Clearly, he also found the boy's abrupt descent amusing. She pressed the button for the correct floor, going over the incident in her mind. That chair leg was broken a little too cleanly for her liking. It was hard for her to believe that he had nothing to do with it. She studied him, waiting for the mask to crack, but it never did.
"Thanks." Their eyes met as the lift began to move and his widened, lips turning in a small frown. "That was good of you." Perhaps under normal circumstances, she might have been angry at him taking matters into his own hands. But that little snot deserved it, and the karma enacted was worth seeing. She smiled, feeling something flutter deep in her chest. It was nice to have someone on her side and looking out for her, even if he went about it in an immoral manner.
"I'm not good," he sneered. "I'm a monster." His words were a warning, a subtle reminder of what everyone always said about him. For the first time, she wondered if he truly believed it as well. Sure, he said it, but there wasn't any real conviction behind the statement, was there? It sounded… empty. Empty words. She tilted her head, moving closer and bumping her shoulder lightly against his arm.
"You're a good monster." As silly as it sounded, it made sense. To her, at least. He was irredeemable, and yet he wasn't either. To be irredeemable was to be unteachable, to be unable to learn how to change. And he could change. He could learn. Sure, it was change that took years at times, but she'd seen him slowly conform, or at least barely adapt, his behavior to match what was needed of him. Maybe it was just in never showing her the full extent of how bad he could be; maybe that was what made him good in her eyes. Good enough, at least.
"That is an oxymoron," he declared, lip twisting in irritation. Did he not like her calling him good? She chuckled.
"For one thing, it's not." She shifted her weight onto one foot. "There's a Latin term for it. I can't think of it right now. Sir Integra likes to use it sometimes."
"Contradictio in terminis." He lowered his voice as the doors opened and they stepped out into a hallway sectioned off by arches. "But it's the same meaning when you reach the heart of it."
"Still, it's the truth," she protested. His frown deepened to an expression she knew as one of deep thought and puzzlement, often donned when he was trying to, as Pip called it, 'figure her out'. He didn't speak again and they walked to the end of the corridor, finally finding a glass door with the name of the department written on it. On the other side, the only thing one could see was a replica of the desk from downstairs—or one corner of it, at least. Muffled thumps of bass leaked from behind the glass. Opening it, the sound of swing music filled the air and they stepped inside, the door automatically swinging shut behind them.
My man walked out, you know that ain't right; he better watch out if I see him tonight, I said when I get low, I get high.
"All the hard luck in this town has found meeee," the woman at the desk warbled, keeping a beat with a ballpoint pen against the tower of her computer. "Nobody knows, but the troubles are all around meeee, oh-oh," she sang sadly, shaking her frizzed ginger locks with a pout. She opened her eyes and saw them standing there, lipsticked mouth opening in a little 'o' as she pressed a button on the keyboard. The swing music sank to a low murmur in the background as she swiveled her chair around to face them. "Yes?" she asked politely, and Seras nearly wasted her breath complaining about the boy downstairs. She bit her tongue, knowing that it probably wouldn't do any good. But still….
"You might want to call some help for the doorman," she said, mustering up a neutral, civilized tone. "He broke his chair." She felt, rather than saw, Alucard's grin. The woman's nose wrinkled as though she wanted to laugh, but she merely nodded.
"I'll call maintenance to see about it," she promised, and added something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like "Serves him right." She stuck the pen into her curls and laced her fingers. "Is there something else I can help you with this evening?" she prompted, looking between the pair.
"We've actually come to fill out our citizenship papers," Seras explained. "I was told we didn't have to have an appointment."
"Oh, of course," the woman said, spinning around in her chair and clicking her mouse a few times before placing her fingers preemptively on the keyboard. "Last name, please?"
"Victoria." Perhaps keeping one's original surname wasn't the best thing to do when going undercover, but to her credit she'd changed their first names when filing a request for citizenship with Sir Integra. And, due to a bit of good advice from Pip (who had to take a few undercover missions during his human years), she had chosen names that sounded close enough to their own that it wouldn't catch them too much by surprise to hear.
"Ah, Sarah?" the woman clarified after a minute's worth of deft keystrokes. Seras nodded and she turned to Alucard. "What's your name, luvvie? I'll go ahead and combine your databases together to make it easier on the paperwork."
"It's Al," Seras said, before he could speak.
"Like Al Pacino!" the woman laughed, the beginnings of a second chin jiggling as she continued to type. "Oh, I see!" she exclaimed after a moment. "It's short for Al-Ale—well, how do you say it?"
"Aleš," Alucard said in a perfect accent. The woman blinked at him and then her cheeks began to glow pink.
"What an unusual name," she purred, staring at Alucard over the rims of her round tortoiseshell frames. "Is if foreign?"
"Slovakian."
"Oh!" She hesitated, and then clicked the mouse again. "Well, let me get you set up then." She dug around in the drawers of her desk and began to pull out papers, sorting through them quickly. She found what she wanted and stapled them together before putting them on a clipboard and handing it over with a (thankfully not hairy) pen. "Take this through there and fill it out, luvvie," she told Seras, pointing to another glass door on the far side of the desk. "You're number #55," she added, tapping the top of the front page. "So when your number flashes on the screen, take them up to the counter and they'll send you to your case worker. Good luck and welcome to our community!"
The actual office of the department was too much like a DMV, or perhaps a tax return office. Even Seras hadn't missed the mediocrity of such a place, where wasting one's life away seemed to be the key goal. And Alucard was already impatient enough as it was.
The majority of the space was filled with a sea of white-walled cubicles, their flimsy walls not enough to stop the flood of clacking keyboards and beeping fax machines from spilling out into the rest of the room. In front of the cubicles was a small, less important desk with an equally small lady hunched over her keyboard and two rows of chairs facing each other. On one end of the chairs was a small digital board that currently read "Now Serving #32." As Seras and Alucard stepped into the room, the number 32 flicked to 33. The dozen or so vampires scattered in the chairs all looked as one down at their papers, and one weary soul stood, dragging his feet as he shuffled to the hunched girl with his clipboard. The rest let out huffs and sighs before going back to their tedium.
"Oh, joy." Seras's shoulders slumped to match the rest of the waiting. It was an almost instinctive movement, garnered from years of having to wait in soul crushing queues like these. Alucard, who most likely had never had to wait for anything in his entire existence, looked around the room before bending to speak in her ear.
"What do we do?"
"We have to wait until our number is on the screen." She pointed, the way the secretary had, to the number 55 printed on the top of their papers. Leading the way, she sat in the closest chair and directed him to sit next to her, looking down at the clipboard and clicking the pen absently.
"Police Girl."
"What?" She read the first question and dug around in her jeans pocket to find her wallet. Pulling out a scrap of paper with their new address on it, she began to fill out the form for blood delivery.
"There are 22 more numbers before ours." She was only half paying attention to him, trying to legibly print the letters. Her default handwriting was a messy, yet effective mixture of print and cursive script, so her normal print looked on par with the average primary school student's.
"Mhmm. What type of blood do you want delivered most often?" She looked down the page, where it offered seven different scheduling systems depending on personal preference and budget. "We shouldn't pick an expensive one," she muttered as an afterthought. "Don't know how much money you'll be raking in yet." That morning, they'd decided that one of them should work while the other stayed home, so that they could both investigate town happenings in different settings. Alucard absolutely refused to stay at home, so Seras was forced to play the housewife instead of—as she had hoped to do—get a job with the community police force. Still, maybe it would be a nice change to stay at home, watching the telly and going out for groceries or shopping whenever she pleased.
"We have money already," he claimed, irritated. "Police Girl, there are not 22 other people waiting."
"There never are," she agreed absently, tapping the page. "Wait, what do you mean, we already have money?" she looked at him, mind catching up to what he was saying. "We didn't bring any with us." She had prepaid cards, but this morning she'd found that she'd left them at home in her nightstand. After all, it wasn't as though she were buying things on a daily basis. He had the audacity to look offended.
"I have money," he amended with a growl. Shadows flickered and then gold sat in the palm of his hand. She muffled a gasp, eyes widening at the sight of what had to have been very expensive coins. "More than enough to last a thousand lifetimes," he added, somewhat proudly.
"Fine, you have money," she stated, pointing the pen at him. "But I don't. And we don't know if they take doubloons, or whatever the hell that is," she waved the coins away.
"They will," he assured her. "Vampires do not use those… banks." His nose wrinkled. "And we do not use credit, either," he pointed out. There was a short silence. "If I have money, Police Girl, then you have money."
"My money's at home—"
"My money is your money. All you need is to ask and you can have as much as you please." The meaning of his argument finally sunk in and she blushed, looking back down at the papers. Even as she circled a favorable option that had a variety of blood coming at a decent price, her ears still burned and she had to clear her throat two times before she could speak.
"I wouldn't feel right, taking your money without having done anything to earn it."
"Earn it?" He sounded insulted. "It's your entitlement as one of my blood, as my—" He cut himself off, and she heard him shift in the seat. "You do not have to earn it. You have a right to it that no one else may claim."
"Even so." She flipped the page and began to fill out information for what appeared to be ID cards. She frowned, hoping that they wouldn't take her picture. She was dressed very casually, compared to what she might have done had she known photos would be shot. She peered at Alucard out of the corner of her eye, dressed in his normal black pants and white button-up shirt. She had convinced him to leave the vest, coat, and cravat at home to stay inconspicuous, as well as throw any scent off their trail. That red outerwear of his was very distinctive, and they had no clue if anyone were around that might recognize them. As usual, his hair was short and stuck out all over the place, hanging in his eyes. He probably wouldn't care what his picture looked like.
Over an hour and a half later, the numbers had crawled up to rest at 51, and seemed to stick there. The standard business clock on the wall ticked with an uncomfortable slowness, and Seras noticed that the minute hand would stick at the 7 for two clicks before continuing every time it moved around the clock. The secretary at the desk was still hunched over, but now she was reading a tabloid instead of working at her computer. The only two other people left waiting were clearly a couple and dressed, as far as Seras was concerned, as matching mimes. Perhaps they thought they were beatniks ripe for a coffee scene with their black berets and striped shirts, but they lacked only white face paint to equal a silent performer's stature.
Seras amused herself with staring at them for a while, but then the female of the two noticed her and she was forced to look elsewhere. They weren't that interesting anyway, aside from the clothing. The digital numbers finally switched to 52 and the couple rose to move to the desk, leaving them the only two left in the waiting area.
"This is absurd." Alucard's hands were gripping the arms of his seat and she placed her own on the closest one, fingers tightening around the wrist in a subtle effort to rein him in.
"Not much longer, now," she murmured in what she hoped was a soothing tone. "There's only three more numbers."
"There are no more waiting!" he snarled at her, causing the secretary to glance at them sharply with pursed lips before returning to her tabloid. "I refuse to put up with this—"
"I get it, but there's nothing we can do!" she argued in a hushed tone, leaning in close. "We have to wait just like everyone else; we're not special guests here or anything. You can't just cut to the front of the queue without a good reason, and being impatient is not one," she finished quickly, seeing him open his mouth to respond. He stood, with her still clinging to his wrist like a child. "Sit down!" she hissed, sparing a glance at the secretary to make sure she hadn't noticed.
"I only want to ask her how long we have left," he explained in a calm voice that was eerier to hear than if he had spoken with rage or malice.
"No, you're not going to do that, sit down!" She was talking as loud as she dared, yanking hard on his arm. She heard it pop and he glared down at her before forcing it back into its socket as though it were no big deal. "Don't you dare make a scene!" she threatened, fangs on full display. It was a godsend that the secretary was paying no attention to them.
"I won't." She didn't believe him for one instant.
"You're going to get us thrown out," she warned. "And then what? We'll be back at square one." He looked down his nose at her, smiling one of his creepiest smiles. Her blood ran cold and she tightened her grip on his wrist instinctively.
"I only want to talk."
"Don't," she pleaded in a whine. "Look, if you just sit down, then… then…" She wracked her brain for some incentive that he might accept. It was hard—it wasn't as though he were a child that could be placated with promises of ice cream for good behavior.
"I will not sit down." Fury broke through the calm mask, flitting across his face before he regained control. "My patience is worn thin and I've been pushed to my limits. They have wasted my time here already. I want to see how much more of the night they were planning on claiming from me."
"Do you not realize people go through this every day in the real world?!" She was still whispering, but she had risen from her seat as well to face him in a silent challenge. . "Until you turned me, I spent hours of my life wasting away in places like this. It's just how it is. This is how it has to be."
"Somehow I don't believe that," he growled.
"Look, if you just keep it down until our number is called, then… then I won't make you come to town tonight. We can wait until the weekend or something." She exhaled in disappointment, having wanted to see the town itself. But if it made him sit down and shut up, she was willing to forgo the pleasure. "You can have the rest of the night to yourself to make up for it."
"Is that so?" he drawled, bending down to meet her at eye level. She stared back at him, not cowed by the sudden closeness. It wasn't until their noses brushed that she took a step backwards and put some distance between them. "And what will you do with your time, then?" he asked, his false calm morphing into a mocking sneer.
"Finish unpacking, or watch the telly." She shrugged it off, sitting back down and crossing her legs. "Whatever I like, I guess. There's lots of things to do around the house." He paused and then sat back beside her, elbow resting on the arm of her chair as he continued to watch her face for… for what? She kept an eye on him in her peripherals, not trusting to turn her head too far and let him out of her sights.
"Sounds like a waste of time to me," he chuckled. She felt something on her leg and jumped in her seat, looking down to see his long fingers tapping her thigh, thumb rubbing over a stringy spot that hadn't fully opened into a hole yet. She smacked them away but he put his hand even higher, reaching dangerous territory. She felt the heat of his hand through her jeans and glared at him with full force.
"What do you think you're doing?" she snapped.
"Touching my wife." Oh, she just wanted to punch him so badly! "After all, with such tight pants on, her legs look so…" he trailed off, eyes burning a trail as they moved to her boots and back up. "Delectable." She forced a charming smile on her face, grabbing his hand and squeezing it for all she was worth. She felt the bones snap easily, heard the muffled crunch, but his expression remained unchanged. If anything, his eyes only darkened further with hunger.
"If this is your idea of seducing me," she muttered through her clenched teeth, "you're failing miserably."
"Then perhaps a kiss," he leered, quickly closing the space between them once more. She held up their hands between their faces, her fingers threading through his limp, broken ones. To a casual observer, they were merely engaging in light-hearted PDA, though in reality they were in the midst of a fierce standoff.
"Save it for home, darling."
"Mm, is that a promise?" She leaned closer, her face still the picture of cheer.
"My only promise is when we get back to the manor, I'm going to make sure Sir Integra chains you upside down in the dungeons for a year without food."
"Oh, how I'll suffer," he replied sarcastically. Then, "Though the thought that you'd imagine me in chains is rather heartwarming. Do you have a sadistic streak, Seras Victoria?" His voice swelled with false virtue. "How shocking."
"Well, I do feel rather like chopping a few of your limbs off with a rusty blade, so maybe I do." Her hand was squeezed as it healed in the span of a second, and he observed their linked fingers with a grin before nipping at her wrist. By the time she'd realized what he'd done, he was back in his previous position.
"Word to the wise, my dear: don't play rough with me unless you're ready to carry through. I just might enjoy it too much." She scowled and turned her head quickly to see that the secretary was still oblivious to them. Her eye caught the counter as it turned from 54 to 55 and she stood abruptly, upsetting his position on her chair.
"Look, it's our number," she pointed out to him in a louder than normal voice, eyes imploring him to behave. "Let's go." She picked up the clipboard from the vacant seat next to her and walked without looking back, expecting him to follow as she held the board out to the secretary, interrupting the woman's perusal of an article on London's hottest men.
Afterword: One of my favorite things about Dracula (the book) is that the Count is incredibly interested in things. When he wants to know all about England, he buys books, studies the language, asks a thousand questions about culture, etc. It tickles me to no end to think that Alucard has that curiosity about the world and new things he's never encountered before, and ends up asking Seras questions (which she's actually more than happy to answer for him).
TL;DR: Count Dracula is a weeb for England.
Addendum: You ever notice how no matter what your number is at a government office, there are less people waiting than there are numbers to go? It's all a scheme to kill you slowly with impatience.
Aleš: a-le-sh.