John was so proud of himself. He'd really done it! When every conceivable odd had been against him!
And now… looking up and down the corridor of closed doors…
He had no idea what to do with himself.
Since he didn't even know where to begin. The majority of the doors lacked name plates, and he easily assumed that the one he sought wouldn't be sporting a hot-pink, heart-shaped label for his convenience.
So he stood dumbly in the center of the hallway, eyes glazed, brain functional but useless – since his reasoning had kicked in a little too late. The boy sighed, and was forced to admit...
He was a complete idiot.
And had no idea where Alucard's room was.
*~*~::..+..::~*~*
Sneaking about the empty fourth floor hallway, John froze. Hunched, staring when a door opened.
It shut.
And there was Seras – or at least the back of her. The boy hurried forward as quietly as he could, a big dopey grin thrown sloppily against his residual anxiety. The contradictive emotions melded poorly, giving him a somewhat rabid look.
"Seras… Seras…!" he whispered, to no effect. The fluffy-headed blonde carried down the hallway, to the elevator. Which opened immediately, and swallowed her up.
John stood dumb, limp, distraught. But to his side, he looked at the door… the one Seras had exited. The one that Alucard also occupied… with her blonde, mismatched sister.
His hand crept towards the door handle. Gripped it tentatively. And it turned, as (in)elegantly as a knife belly-flopping into a tub of molten butter. As the rattling of his unsteady hand clamored through the endless ravines of his brain, John's insides melted and his body was too terrified to go in. Yet too terrified to stay.
The teen let out an unmanly-never-to-be-admitted-to squeak when another door opened behind him.
In a rush of panic, he threw open Alucard's door and then shut it promptly. Behind him.
John breathed slowly. And looked around… at the really plain, unhomey bedroom. With one bed obviously Seras'. One obviously, and yet boringly enough, Alucard's. He wasn't the sort of creep who went through a girl's drawers- nothing like that. And he didn't know quite what to do, once again. Because now he dreaded the sisters' return, their discovery of his intrusion- his definitely stalkerish, inexcusable creepiness… Though all he'd wanted to do was join in whatever mischief or secret stuff the girls (mainly Alucard) had been up to.
But.
Uh.
Fudge nuggets.
I'm totally f-
…
Elsewhere, Alucard had a business-like woman terrified behind an oversized desk. (Though sitting stiffly in an office chair, rather than cowering under the desk. Not to say that this hadn't been her initial instinct, which she overrode through strained, tendon-popping self-control.) What in the world was getting her so worked up? …she asked herself, in stifling bewilderment.
The inhuman, chilling, evil-ish grin on the young student's face had the vice principal staring, eyes tearing illogically. She wiped them, dried them, stared determinedly at Alucard to show herself that there was nothing inhuman about the sparkly little feminine girl…. Or her plastered, gaping, rigor mortem smile. Unblinking, large crimson eyes. Corpse-like, doll-like, uncanny child… in the silence that commanded her office like a horror movie's haunting theme. Of imminent peril.
The woman forced the eeriness onto herself, berating herself, pitying the unfortunate, mutated little girl – and asked that she please wait outside for her to get a cup of coffee- yes, just in the other room. The door is open, the break room is empty. Yes, Miss Hellsing. Thank you, thank you… And close the door after you- yes. Thank you, sw-…swee- … Thank you, Miss Hellsing.
The usually commanding, confident, resolute vice principle cradled her face in her hands, reduced to a mere lump on a desk… that didn't deserve the plaque her career had so far amounted to. She remained like this until she'd regained enough reason and composure to stand without shaking, and go make herself a pitcher of coffee in the corner of her office.
*~*~::..+..::~*~*
After several minutes of sitting in the dim room, Alucard realized his Innocent Smile was still engaged. As though it might go stale like a muffin left out on a kitchen counter, he tucked it away, zipped it – air tight – behind his usual face. To keep it fresh. (And keep his natural expressions from tainting it.) Though, so far, he hadn't seen much of a difference. The vice principal acted like people usually did when they saw him. And that was unacceptable. He had fought too long and too hard for his suffering to be for naught.
He needed to channel the Police Girl – somehow. Franken-Harriet and goose-Igor were definitely not suitable models. Maybe he had accidently tapped into goose-Igor rather than Police Girl. That would explain a lot (or at least a little).
Well, it would be similar to meditation. Despite the fact that Alucard's equivalence to meditation was dispatching ghouls, he sought to clear his mind. The girl-ified eyes shut, and the resuscitated cadaver took deep, restful breaths. Empty the mind. Think of nothing interesting or useful. Think of nothing. Now… channel unappealing whims. Like good manners, caring about what other people think, getting worked up over how I look – fatness, or whatever it is girls avoid these days. The reason why they look so crunchy rather than succulent…
Tangent, bad tangent – only think of… kittens?
He couldn't.
…ducklings?
Didn't work.
…boys?
Alucard didn't even try.
For now, emptiness seemed to be his best bet for achieving innocence. Or at least, it was something he wouldn't fail miserably at.
…
And it was pleasant, after a while. Though he realized this was due to his (unintentionally) slumping over like a corpse – and falling dead asleep.
The vice principal had shaken him awake. Which hadn't gone over well. For her.
Alucard had growled at her several times before he finally… appeared like he was going to speak, with- incredibly, unbelievably sharp and frightening to an extent that that they were stupidity-inducing teeth… if they could be called teeth. Bared at her. Hissing at her. This wasn't a girl. It was some breed of feral monkey. (Vice Principal had a phobia for monkeys.)
Then, when the hissing finally ceased and the lips closed around the daunting fangs – then the woman had to deal with the dead, unfocused crimson stare. Stuck (feeling trapped) in the dark room, with the girl unresponsive to her name… Vice Principal suffered a second heart-attack. Following her initial distress at the thought – really the nightmarish possibility – that her student had just died in the faculty lounge. With her parents scheduled to arrive within minutes.
But the girl recovered, and brushed off her hands – bit rudely, though Vice Principal excused this. Too thankful for the renewed signs of life. She stood patiently before the girl, as the teen slowly got out of the chair. Curled locks rolling or bouncing over one another, like rolling-pins or releasing springs. The woman smiled with her guilt displayed openly for the sake of a sincere apology (for one of her extremely wealthy students), "Sorry dear, you weren't responding." How she'd managed to say 'dear' was a mystery, even to her.
Alucard wanted to rub at his eyes, but he aborted the reflex before he had the chance to involuntarily ruin his make-up. The thought of the importance of this ridiculous face-paint flopped against his head, like a beached whale. A hatefully unignorable nuisance that made thinking difficult (due to the skull crushing weight). And all he wanted to do was stuff it like a Thanksgiving turkey. His choice of stuffing being dynamite. Which he would ignite with a hand grenade. So he could finally be rid of it.
But he followed the woman back into her office, blinking at the unpleasant florescent lights. Not listening to a word she said, until he'd settled back into one of the chairs that stood opposite her desk. And he'd shoved the whale back into the sea.
But at that point, she was no longer talking to him.
"Hello, Mrs. Hellsing…" Vice Principal stood, in Alucard's view, her hand extending – offered to another. Pulling the presence behind him towards the desk…
Alucard whipped his head to the right (at the last second), as Integra stepped beside him to take the vice principal's hand. Shaking it. Wordlessly.
The vice principal's detestable hand was free and offering again… Integra moved around her vampire's chair to find her seat. With a familiar body on either side, Alucard resorted to ducking his head into his navy jacket, as a delayed Walter came forward – having intended to wait outside.
"…And hello-" Vice Principal smiled, though, hesitating, as she shook his hand. "Mr. Hellsing." Well, given the parents she was accustomed to seeing, the couple wasn't too odd. And his black hair accounted for the daughter's.
But she felt the start that ran through Walter's palm, and she looked at him, perplexed as he ended the hand shake, and his hospitable smile changed. "No. I'm the butler," he explained, politely.
Alucard yearned to gaze upon Integra's face, to savor the expression – only able to imagine it as he felt the awkwardness, the surprise and confusion, and utter dumbfoundedness that emanated from her. Her voice of course revealed nothing, "I'm not married."
"Oh," the vice principle was quiet.
Integra, assessed the woman's suit, which was an extraordinary – yet familiar – shade of purple. Then spoke, "Sir Hellsing, rather than Miss… If you please." Ah, yes. The vice principal reminded Integra of a certain purple dinosaur. Even the proportions were similar.
"Oh," Vice Principal Barney repeated, standing stiffly, without the means to recover the professional, perfectionist, business-woman persona that she usually presented to her students' parents. "Sorry for the mistake."
Alucard imagined Integra's wry smirk, which she defaulted to in the case of some awkward event (unaware of her distraction-tactic, which had been deployed successfully). He sighed internally, regretting the loss of the glorious expression that'd been there only an instant before. Gone forever…
Or maybe not.
His defiled, overly-feminine eye met hers, as Integra remained leaning forward. Having decided to look beyond the bizarre ringlets of hair to check on her guilty vampire. Only to discover a sparkly monstrosity. Looking like a five year old beauty pageant contestant, and yet managing to surpass their standard level of over the top absurdity.
Pink eye-shadow…. Very thick eye-lashes… obviously mascara. Eyes, tinged pink – eyeliner. Pink. Eyeliner.
But the glitter. Oh the glitter. On Alucard.
Regardless of age or gender. It was Alucard. The actual Alucard.
He embodied… the strange something a four year old girl's pony-rainbow-driven imagination would vomit onto her bedroom wall; and then proudly identify as a vampire. Having almost nothing to connect the sparkly monstrosity to the demonic being. As similar as a giraffe is to an octopus.
Integra Hellsing vowed to get a picture before her idiot vampire had the chance to wash it away. And that this stupendous image would be the background for her phone. Forever and beyond.
[Alucard glowered back at his master's evident excitement and hilarity. But Integra failed to notice.]
Quite calmly, with Walter leaving the office, Sir Integra righted her posture, and dislodged her thoughts from her terrible, ferociously sparkly servant, in order to focus on the purple dinosaur. Who sat with an awkward, though pleasant smile, her hands folded on her oversized desk.
Vice Principal welcomed a stranger who hesitantly entered the office, and then – with faulting steps – lurched his way over to the chair next to the blonde haired woman. His eyes rode down the cascading currents of the golden mane. The overabundance of it. The drowning, flooding, overabundance. The stranger tugged his chair subtly off to the side, to maintain some distance. Though, he was still scared out of his wits, and as pale as a Kleenex tissue.
Having had her handshake completely ignored, the vice principal resumed her authoritative (seated) pose behind her desk.
"Mr. Hamilton, I understand that you believe you encountered Alucard, sometime after 4 AM this morning… Off of school premises."
The pale sheet of a man fluttered in affirmation. Nodding, which the uncomfortable vice principal regarded with more than a little doubt. She quickly turned her attention to Alucard's mother – whose plastic surgeon had rendered infinitely too young to fit that role. "Mr. Hamilton, this is Alucard's mother. S… Sir Hellsing." Proud of how she had delivered her introduction (accurately), the woman beamed at the odd group and even odder circumstances. "Well, I have verified that Alucard did not have permission to leave the school. And that, regardless, it was well past curfew." The woman took a moment to explain the curfew to Integra, who sat rather contently and nodded in a friendly (still amused by the woman's suit) manner.
"And, when you encountered Alucard, she had vandalized your motorcycle?" The Vice Principal asked, calmly.
The ununiformed police officer murmured that yes, though he was not responsible for paying to repair the damage. The city would be. But the problem was… explaining… what had happened.
The vice principal sighed at the man, and then asked him to provide that exact explanation. He fidgeted, and then looked at her pathetically. And finally glanced in the direction of the so-called mother – whom he also deemed to be much too young to have a teenage daughter. "I… I'm not sure."
The vice principal lent him a gracious verbal hand. "Mr. Hamilton, just tell them what you told me. How did Alucard vandalize your motorcycle?"
He sat glumly, chewing his lip. "…She… di-" He lost the courage to continue with this confession, and returned to his original story: "She pushed it over."
"And broke the rear-view mirror, and caused the left side to sustain a number of dents and scratches." The woman filled in the details for him, overstepping his snail's pace. "So, Mis- Sir Hellsing, this is the case."
Integra blinked, but showed no hint of her rejection of the story – given the man's obvious inadequacy when it came to lying. "Have you asked Alucard… for the other side of the story?" She avoided pronouns like the plague.
"Yes, Sir Hellsing. And she has denied both leaving the campus, and vandalizing the bike."
And to the off-duty cop's horror, the vice principal requested that he fulfill what he had promised her earlier that day, "Have you brought the photographs of the bike?"
He bit into his lip and did nothing.
"Mr. Hamilton?"
Methuselah would have responded with more vigor. The man took what had to have been a full two minutes to select the printed sheets of paper out of a folder, which had to be taken from a bag, which had to be unzipped, which was only achieved after he slowly reached down over the arm of his chair. And then he examined the papers, shuffled the papers, put them in his lap and stared at the vice principal. Who had lost all patience with him.
Mr. Hamilton cringed as she demanded he hand over the pictures. He stammered, suddenly grasping for his only means of delay. "W-well, the bike actually fell into a parked car. And the damage – there was a scratch and a minor dent on the front-" He eagerly shoved the single paper towards the woman, who took it from him with a frown.
She examined it indifferently. "And is the owner asking Alucard to pay for this?" Her stare bored through the timid man, who Alucard envied for his superior-Police Girl channeling.
"U-um, not as of yet. …had to confirm… the explanation."
Obviously the vice principal wasn't a fan of mumbling. She openly scowled at Mr. Hamilton and handed the paper to Integra, who looked it over plainly.
The diamond on the woman's ring finger glittered like Alucard's face, as she awaited the other papers. "Mr. Hamilton."
With this tone, he consented. And then ducked his head into his chest, and twiddled his thumbs. As the woman froze. Spread out the papers, and stared at them with alarm. She shifted this alarm to the man, as he refused to look at her.
"Your bike was obviously hit by a car."
