Disclaimer: I don't own any characters.
"Did you stay up all night to get this done?" Walter asked in amazement. Integra giggled.
"Not exactly," she admitted, sitting at her desk.
"Only half?" He asked, flipping through the papers, "Oh. I see. Alucard was the one up all night. Unless you've been practicing calligraphy," Walter growled.
"What's wrong?"
"Lesson Number One of Dealing With Alucard: He's dangerous. Be careful. Lesson Number Two: Don't trust him. If he offers to do something for you, chances are there's a catch. See? He's doubled his own blood rations and written out a discharge for a group to go to Antartica!" Walter shook his head, smirking, "I knew his mischief making wasn't at an end. It was only a matter of time before his practical jokes would resurface."
"Practical jokes?" Integra asked.
"Yes, he's quite the prankster. Most of the time, his tricks are harmless, but sometimes he gets out of hand. Now, we can throw out the discharge form; as far as I'm aware there's no need to be moving any of our men around. The blood rations, however, will need another copy. Alucard was smart enough to write it in pen, and the hospital will not accept it if we simply cross it out."
"Blood rations? Hospital? What is going on?!" Walter bit his lip, thinking that he shouldn't have said anything of that sort.
He sighed. It was too late to back track.
"You see, to make their diet more...humane, we have connections to the Red Cross Association for donated blood. We have to send in a form regularly: Alucard isn't the only vampire that works for you," How was that more humane? Stealing blood that was supposed to save lives? Well, she guessed it was better than him eating the staff.
&
Integra knocked politely at the dungeon door. There was no response. Slowly, she opened it. There was nothing that suggested Alucard's presence, as a room usually did. And she doubted he slept on the cold stone floor.
She wandered through the basement until she found a hallway. A door had been left ajar; the flicker of a flame's light reaching out.
"Alucard?" She asked as she approached the room. There was no response.
She eased the door open. There was a small table with two chairs, two lit candlesticks and a place set out for one. There was a china bowl, a metal spoon, and a napkin. On the far side was a black dresser with gold fringe and handles. She was walking towards it, curious as to the strange thing sitting on top of it, when her foot hit something. She glanced down and jumped.
There was a coffin there.
She laughed at herself. Of course there was a coffin. What was she expecting, a four-posted canopy? She knelt down, seeing a silver inscription at the foot of it. By the light of the candle she could just make it out.
"The Bird of Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame," she read out loud. What a strange phrase, especially on a coffin. It was ebony black, glossy and in perfect condition. She reached out to stroke it.
"Don't touch my coffin!" Alucard's snarl scared her, causing her to scramble back several inches. He sighed, closing his eyes, "Please don't touch my coffin," he corrected himself.
"I...I'm sorry. I, I just wanted to see if it felt as smooth as it looked," she stuttered. He tucked something he had been holding into his trench coat and sat down at the chair with the setting in front of it, still facing her.
"I suppose I should have locked the door, but I'm not used to having children in the basement," Integra bristled at the way he stressed "children", how condescending he made it. He smirked, "Forgive me, Master, but only children snoop through other's things," he motioned to the other chair. She stood up and walked over to it, "What was it you came down here for?"
"You."
"Why?" Integra shrugged.
"I'm not sure. I guess I just wanted to get to know you better," he stared at her in astonishment. Integra cleared her throat, uncomfortable with his condescending stare, "You have a very handsome coffin."
"Thank you," they both looked over at it, "It's the only thing I've managed to hold onto through all of these centuries," he murmured.
"How old are you, Alucard?" He laughed.
"It's not polite to ask one's age," he teased. She smiled sheepishly. He didn't seem to take offense to her question, but she couldn't be sure.
His face turned solemn.
"I'm five hundred and fifty six," Integra's eyes widened, trying to fathom so many years.
"Are they all as old as you, the competent ones?" She asked. He shook his head, almost sadly.
"I've never met anyone older than myself. There are other No-Life Kings, but they're a dying race. Few and far between."
"What's a No-Life King?" He glanced at her questioningly, and she got the feeling he wasn't fond of questions. If she got them all out now, though, then she wouldn't ask so many later on.
"A founding vampire, one who was made without a master, without a bite from another. The imperfect ones. They were quite crude animals, but if they've survived this long, then they've probably evolved."
"Why are they called No-Life Kings, then?" There was a pause, and Integra felt like he wasn't going to answer her. But then he spoke.
"Because eternity on earth looses meaning after a couple centuries. Everything you've known, everyone you've loved, they all disappear. You start wanting to die, and then needing to die, as the world becomes more and more foreign. Then, eventually you manage to kill yourself or find someone who will do the job for you. The only way to resist wanting to die," he looked into her eyes, his sunglasses slipping down his nose, "Is to keep finding a reason to live. And then, when your reason dies, find another," she broke away from his gaze. So many questions sprouted from this theory, but she didn't want to ask, didn't want to keep talking about death and eternity and wanting to die.
"That has to be the silliest phrase in the whole world," she muttered under her breath, looking at the inscription on the coffin. She was surprised to hear him laugh.
"I agree. It doesn't make as much sense in English as it did in its original language. The man that made the coffin obviously had very weak translation skills," he smiled at her sinisterly, "Do you want to look inside of it?"
"I thought you didn't want me to touch it," she said suspiciously.
"I didn't say you could touch it," he pointed out, standing up. He opened the lid.
The interior was lined with scarlet colored cushions. There was an old, beaten pillow, but no blankets.
"It looks comfortable," she admitted. Alucard grinned.
"Then lay down inside of it," Integra glanced at him. He seemed perfectly honest, and she was rather curious.
No sooner had she settled down into it than Alucard slammed the lid shut. Her eyes widened as she heard some locks snap into place.
"Alucard!" She screamed.
"That's for showing Walter the paperwork and snooping through my room!"
"I came down here to look for you! And I didn't show Walter the paperwork, he checked it! And it's a good thing he did, or else you would have sent a group to Antartica!"
"You don't think there are vampires in Antartica?! The whole continent is swarming with them! That's why no one lives there!"
"We deal with England, not Antartica!!" She could hear Alucard's footsteps fading away, "You can't leave me in here!"
"Why not? There are air holes."
"ALUCARD!!" He snickered.
"Good night, Master. I'll let you out in the morning."
Integra screamed and screamed and screamed, not knowing that the basement was practically sound-proof to the other stories. She eventually wore herself out and fell asleep, cursing Alucard the entire while.
&
Integra, as punishment, gave him the cold shoulder the next couple of days. She soon realized, though, that she was being childish. He had only been kidding around. Probably. Hopefully. She was starting to doubt her faith in her vampiric Aslan.
She glanced up from yet another report (she figured that she had at least twenty to do on a daily basis) to find Alucard walking into her office, barely managing to hold onto each side of a gigantic white board. Integra giggled.
"Alucard, what are you doing?" She asked.
"We need to prepare. We're already behind and it's only Day 1. Plus the factors of a new master and Walter hiding my schedule and-" He actually sounded irritated with the whole thing, Integra realized. This must be serious.
He mounted the white board up onto the wall. It looked like a sort of calendar, the squares labeled 1 through 31 with bulleted items under each number. Integra squinted her eyes to make sure she was reading it right.
"Get costumes? Catch live spiders? Find volunteer corpses? Convince Walter? What exactly is this a countdown for?"
"The Night of Mockery," Alucard said darkly, a malevolent gleam in his red eyes.
Walter, as though sensing that Alucard was up to something, walked into the room just then. He glanced over at Alucard and groaned.
"Dear gaw, Alucard, don't subject poor Miss Integra to your insanity!" Walter exclaimed. Alucard positioned himself protectively in front of his white board.
"It's too late for her, Walter, when will you accept this?"
"Go back into the basement! I don't think I can stand one more year of your stupid countdown!"
"First of all, it's not stupid," Alucard stroked the siding of it once, "Second, you've had nearly twenty years off! The No-Life King shall reign again!"
"WHAT IS THE COUNTDOWN FOR?!" Integra screamed over the men. They both stopped and glanced at her; Alucard amused and Walter irritated.
"Normal people have a countdown for Christmas. Not Alucard, no. He has to have a countdown until Halloween," Walter muttered.
"And what other holiday lets you dress up as anything you could possibly imagine and go around taking sweets from the meek and pranking the oppressors?"
"Don't give me any of that. You just like it because you can get away with scaring the feces out of anyone and everyone," Alucard grinned, exposing all of his sharp teeth. Walter shook his head, "We don't celebrate pagan holidays in this household."
"There goes Easter, then," Alucard huffed.
"Easter's not pagan."
"Tell that to the goddess of fertility. Though that's a case of pagans covering Christianity instead of the other way around," Alucard mused.
"Take the countdown down. We no longer celebrate Halloween."
"Don't you think that's for our master to decide?" Alucard said slyly, glancing at Integra. Walter looked pleadingly at her.
"What's Halloween?" Integra meekly asked.
"A children's holiday where you dress up and go door-to-door for candy, quintessentially," Walter said and then glared at Alucard, "Though some adults like to make it a night full of making drunk humans wet themselves or eat them, or both," he said dryly.
"It isn't anything I don't already do."
"Well, if it's just dressing up in a costume and begging for candy, it can't be that bad," Alucard's face lit up. Walter frowned.
"You haven't lived through a No-Life King's Halloween," he muttered.
&
Alucard watched Integra as she went through the costume store, looking very decided.
"Do you know what you want to be?" He asked. Integra turned to him and grinned.
"I want to be a vampire," she said decidedly. Alucard's face went blank and Integra burst into laughter. He smirked at the irony, after his initial shock.
"Well, then, all we need is some red contacts and you're all set," he said. Integra stopped giggling and stared at him in shock, "Oh, you want to be one of those horrible fake vampires that cause me to die a little more every time I see them out on the Night of Mockery? Well, then, that's going to take a little work."
He wasn't about to let her run around as a half-baked fake vampire and embarrass him. If there was one thing Alucard hated more than a stereotypical i-vant-to-suck-ur-blood, butchered Transylvanian accent vampire, it was those who didn't take the joy of dressing up crazily in public and being accepted seriously. Those people who had the nerve to go door-to-door in their regular clothes with a pillowcase for candy... if he caught them, he usually turned them into ghouls.
If she decided she wanted to be a fake vampire, she was not going to do it half-way.
Walter sat. And waited. And read a paper that had been left on the table. And counted the tiles on the ground. And looked around a shoe store. And went to a bookstore. And bought a book. And read the book. And finished the book. He was just in the middle of figuring out the 50th number in the pi sequence when Alucard and Integra finally came out of the store. After all that time, they only had one small little baggie. Neither looked content.
"We found a decent pair of fangs. Not those ill-fitting wax ones, either. They have some kind of adhesive that keeps them on the canines," Alucard reported, "But the costumes and make up were horrendous. Cringingly stereotypical."
"I didn't think they were that bad," Integra murmured defensively.
"Of course you think those costumes were acceptable. You're a Hellsing, a human, and above all, a child. We'll most likely have to make our own," Alucard mused.
"What exactly is Miss Integra going to be?" Walter asked.
"She wants to be a vampire for a night. now, to the fabric store," Alucard announced. Integra trailed behind, looking quite tired of Alucard.
Walter rolled his eyes and smiled to himself. Those two were never going to agree on a vampire costume.
&
Weeks passed as slowly, the Hellsing household was transformed into a haunted mansion. Granite tombstones with the names of infamous murderers littered the front lawn alongside animal bones (the compromise Integra had reached with Alucard, saving the lives of several soldiers). She had also compromised with splattering blood all over the walls; it was food dye that looked uncannily like blood. Ominous music played all night from several hidden speakers.
She drew the line at bringing live spiders inside the house, but that didn't stop Alucard from somehow commanding a miniature army to cover the front gates, the garden, and the entire house in spider webs. If Integra had to eat one more bowl of Boo Berry or Frankenberry or Count Chocula for Alucard's vicarious eating pleasure, she would vomit all over him. She herself wasn't a very festive person, even for Christmas. This, in her book, had crossed the line back when Alucard had set a motion sensor so that every time anyone walked through the doorway, any door way in the entire mansion, one of three choices played; the chorus of "Thriller", the chorus of "The Monster Mash", or the chorus of "Werewolves of London".
But the way his eyes lit up as he tenderly inserted ipecac into the candy they would pass out to those brave enough to knock on their skeleton-covered door... She couldn't take this away from him. He was genuinely happy.
Halloween dawned as a cloudy, full-moon night. Alucard looked estatic; he had stayed up all day to plan their route. The only thing was, unlike a normal person when they were happy, he looked absolutely, crazily terrifying. Like a mass-murdering clown, or Barney on drugs. She wanted to hug him and run away from him to hide under her bed all at the same time.
Her costume had been a huge fight. She liked the store costumes, the elegant flair and how laughable they were compared to the real thing. On the other hand, Alucard hated how unrealistic the store costumes were, laughable or not. Most vampires changed with the times and certainly didn't walk around in capes and bad cosmetics, he insisted. Integra argued that what was the point of dressing up as a vampire if the only thing you did was wear fangs and red contacts. Alucard defended that the most terrifying part of vampires was how human-like they were, how normal they seemed. Integra pointed out how boring that would be. Alucard suggested she choose another outfit. Integra stood by her decision. In the end, they compromised on a costume that wasn't too laughable yet not too realistic.
It was a romanticized medieval dress, with long tight black sleeves and a flowing black skirt. Alucard had pulled seemingly out of thin air an old black and red "training" corset, as he liked to call it, since it didn't allow much room in the chest area. There was quite a bit of speculation as to where he had found it or how he had happened to obtain it, but Integra was just glad that it wasn't overly big on her. She looked at herself in the mirror as she combed her long blonde hair, letting it fall freely onto her shoulders. She smiled; her fangs didn't look fake in the least. But she still wasn't happy. Her skin was too dark and her lips were too pale for the image she had in her head of the perfect vampiress. She supposed it would do for Halloween, she decided, and walked down to the basement.
If he hadn't been in such a casual position, Integra would have probably cried out. His furry feet were propped up on the table, his long, mangled-looking hands folded neatly onto his lap. His slacks and long sleeve button-up shirt were tattered and speckled with blood. Amber eyes stared blankly forward, his face distorted into a snarl. He turned to her, looking her up and down.
"Ready?" He asked, the word sounding strange from behind the mask.
"Yes," she said. He was at her side before she could blink, handing her a plastic jack-o-lantern bucket.
"For your candy," he explained.
Walter groaned at the sight of Alucard.
"Yes, we understand the irony of you dressing up as a werewolf! We got it fifty years ago. Let it rest!" He exclaimed.
"I like irony! Besides, they don't make masks like this anymore," he pointed a jagged finger at his muzzle.
"Yes, I believe there have been several advances since you got that," he sighed, shaking his head. He smiled at Integra, "You look lovely, Miss Integra. Enough to make any vampiress green with envy," he winked at her and she giggled, flashing her fangs at him.
"Thank you, Walter," he looked a long, hard time at Alucard.
"Be careful with her," he said meaningfully. Alucard nodded. She glanced between them, wondering about the solemnity. Perhaps it wasn't just fake monsters that roamed around on Halloween night.
Alucard's cold paw took her hand.
"We'll be back before too late," he promised.
"Good luck trick-or-treating, you ironic duo," Walter said playfully.
Hand in hand, they headed out, prepared to ransack every house in London of its glucose-filled treats.
&
"Why doesn't Walter like you?" Integra asked, looking down at her heavy jack-o-lantern. She was either going to be sick, or the candy would rot before she got a chance to eat it all.
Alucard laughed. Hard. Integra frowned and he tousled her hair.
"You silly, silly girl. How can you be so intuitive and so blind at the same time? I have nothing against Walter," he assured her.
"Then, why are you always getting into fights?"
"Why do we always get into fights?" Integra glared at him.
"Because you're annoying and stubborn and have a morbid sense of humor."
"Exactly," she could almost see him grin behind his mask, "Just because two people fight a lot doesn't mean they don't care about each other. It just means that they don't agree on a lot of things."
"Then why is he acting so…I don't know. Distant isn't the word, and neither is rude. He just…every time I talk about you or he sees us together, he's…cold."
"Can you blame him?"
"No, Alucard, but it isn't just because of what you are. It's something else, something I can't understand, something just beyond my reach…" Integra didn't realize how steeply the curb ended.
At the rate she was going, it was a had fall. Even through the skirt she managed to scrape her knee. Alucard's head snapped towards her.
"Master, are you all right?" He asked. She scrambled to her feet.
"I'm fine," she snapped and started walking.
"You're bleeding."
"No, I'm not."
"And limping," she forced pressure onto it and winced. He sighed and grabbed her arm, "There's a public restroom not far away. Let's go get you cleaned up."
Integra's heart pounded, images flashing through her mind. Alucard licking her blood off the ground, tearing through her uncles' men like they were cotton balls, reveling in their blood. Was he, was he… She couldn't make herself finish the question.
He led her into a McDonald's restaurant. She hadn't realized how close they were to such places. She stared at him as he walked into the woman's bathroom.
"There's no one in here," he insisted.
Before she knew it, Alucard had picked her up and set her on the counter as if she weighed no more than a feather. He pulled down her nylons and folded her skirt up so it was above her scraped knee. Fresh blood was oozing from the scrap, bits of gravel dug in. Alucard removed his mask and gloves. She flinched away from him and he looked at her impatiently.
"I have to clean it or else it will get infected," he said sternly. She closed her eyes.
She opened them as something wet brushed her knee. Alucard had dampened a paper towel and was now cleaning the wound with it. He smirked as she relaxed.
"Did you think I was going to bite you?" He asked with a bitter tone.
"I thought you were going to drink out of it," she murmured. He shook his head and then froze for a moment.
"I can have a lot of restraint if I choose. A lot," he continued cleaning her wound, "I'm not some pathetic, newly made fledgeling. What you saw that day in the basement… It wasn't my best display of self-control," he looked into her eyes, "I want you to know that I would never hurt you without a good reason. A very, very good reason," In that moment, she believed him, that he wouldn't hurt her. He was her Aslan; not tame, but good. He wasn't afraid of sin, nor was he totally absorbed by it.
He looked at her knee a long time before pulling her skirt back down.
"Would you rather have blisters on your feet or an irritated scrap?" He murmured.
"The blisters," Integra decided. He pulled her shoes off carefully, as though she had scraped those as well.
The question came out before she could stop it.
"Did you want to drink my blood?" She practically invited him. Now you've done it, Integra chided herself. Now he's going to bite you.
Alucard paused.
"Yes. Very, very much so," he said, as though the words pained him, "But I would only do it if you wanted me to," he was quick to add.
"I don't think it would be very wise to let you. You might get a taste for my blood," she laughed nervously. He took off her nylons and put her shoes back on in silence.
He set her back on the ground and put his mask and gloves back on.
"I appreciate your honesty," she said. And she truly did. This new world, this cruel Narnia, seemed to be filled with lies and deception. Though he wasn't telling her everything, at least he was truthful.
He handled her back her jack-o-lantern.
"You do know that C.S. Lewis modeled Aslan as an alternate world's Jesus, don't you?" He asked, breaking his silence as they walked out of McDonald's.
"Yes…"
"Then why can't you get that silly metaphor out of your head of me being Aslan? I'm closer to hell than I am to heaven, closer resembling the Devil than Christ."
Integra slipped her hand into Alucard's. His gnarled werewolf fingers curled around hers, her small hand engulfed in his large one. The vampire and the werewolf walked hand-in-hand home.
&
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