Snow Daze
Sera's men had been in the middle of a snowball fight when she arrived to train them. There was only an inch or two of snow on the ground, but apparently, it was enough to make a few very good snowballs.
Vampire or not, her sudden appearance in the middle of the men's private snow war had been too tempting a target, and she'd gotten a face full of powder. Sudden silence fell as the men waited in dread for her reaction. She simply stood, motionless...
And a half-dozen highly accurate snowballs slammed into the men, originating behind one of the holly bushes. As they yelped and turned to find their new foe, Seras made it behind a tree and added her own snowballs to the fray. The snow war escalated.
"Maaaaaster..." The gleeful, quiet voice spoke teasingly in his head. "Oh Maaaaaaaaaster..."
Alex paused, spoonful of oatmeal halfway to his mouth. "Alucard?"
"You really ought to see what's in the training yard." The vampire's grin was clearly sensed. "I'd suggest you hurry."
A moment's pause. Seras planned on working with the troops tonight...and Alucard was now involved... and he had a distinctly ambivalent attitude about the soldiers' lives... The half-finished oatmeal was forgotten as Alex vanished in a flurry of papers.
His arrival in the center of the courtyard was met with a snowball to the center of his face and another to his chest. He could hear Alucard's gleeful crowing of "Always aim for the head or chest!" Seras, damn her, found it just as entertaining and he could hear her giggling off to his left.
Alex stooped, grabbed two handfuls of snow, launched them towards the vampires, and dashed over to a snow-fort for safety.
The men were delighted to have him on their team. It meant the odds were almost even as long as the vampires didn't use their abilities, just their strong arms and consistently accurate aim. It was night, the sun had fallen, and frostbite was nibbling at noses before he finally called an end to the war.
He'd put a dollop of fresh hot blood in two mugs before the men arrived to see what he'd done, then filled them up the rest of the way with a blood packet. The butler had been pressed into heating up milk, and a variety of mugs dug up and prepared. Preparations were well under way before the men clattered into the kitchen, vampires following more sedately through the wall.
The chilled men, Anderson included, were soon crammed into the warm kitchen, drinking frothy hot chocolate and seated on every available flat surface. They and the vampires were being amazingly tolerant of each other; both vampires were seated beside Anderson, blissfully drinking from their own mugs.
Aside from a brief shudder when Seras licked a spilled bit of blood from the side of her mouth, they were unfazed by the proximity of the vampires, and Alucard was equally unpredatory despite the hot bodies and racing blood so close to him.
Ruffling his vampires' hair fondly, Anderson nodded approvingly at what he saw as clearly improving relations between the two sets. The hour of playful interaction had done wonders in taking the vampires (specifically Alucard) off the "Predatory, untrustworthy, wish we could stake that bastard" list and the humans off the "If only..." list. Maybe a few such interactions needed to occur in the future?
He briefly eyed the cold, congealed oatmeal and smiled slightly. It had definitely been worth missing the rest of his meal.