"That sounds good, master." She grinned sleepily, bleary eyed. Alucard stood up and hauled her up with him, practically dumping her on his bed that was about two easy steps away. He could barely support the both of them combined, giving his own current strength.
"Either you're heavier than before, or I am just getting weaker." He made himself comfortable next to her as she closed her eyes and flopped onto her back.
"I hope I haven't gotten heavier..." She grumbled. "Ah, well."
His arms snaked their way around her waist from the side. "Just me being weak again, I suppose." He crept a little closer and she absentmindedly rubbed her eye with her hand, closing them and relaxing herself.
"You are not the only one who is feeling weak right now..." She said, a tired bounce to her voice as the coffin lid closed, enveloping them in the darkness. Alucard's head instinctively found the material of her collar as he leaned comfortably against it. Seras did likewise with the crown of his head, resting her cheek against his jet-black hair, closing her eyes and falling to sleep.
"Good day, master."
The usual. First to sleep, first to rise; as it was with Alucard. He cracked open his eyes and peered out slowly, trying to evade all signs of waking and burying his face into the material of her shirt and collar. But it was all futile attempts; he was still tired, evidently, but now he was awake.
Indeed, his movements did not wake her; she continued to sleep inhumanely quiet as Alucard watched her chest rise and fall mysteriously. How she breathed in and out as a habit still amused him; she did not have any use for her lungs now, and yet when she was unaware, she would pretend.
The coffin lid was still tightly sealed, meaning that Alucard was either up earlier than he should have been, or that it was an opportunity to sleep in. Oh, what a rare occasion!
But he decided for himself that it was the latter and lay there, knowing that nothing would rise him from where he was at the moment. His blackness seemed not to stir for once as it usually would have; he found that slightly odd, but nonetheless he did not complain.
After a moment or two more as his thoughts drifted somewhere, he felt some little motions beneath him; Seras was starting to stir. She had shivered before unconsciously in her sleep, but this was more of a shiver. She was waking.
Finally!
As she moved, she somehow forgot her master was there. Moving her arm then stopping midway in the air, she almost whacked her master in the head; she stopped moving and put her arm back down where it was on her side and buried her nose a little more into the top of his head.
She had no idea that he was awake, too. And she liked the darkness within the coffin and would rather have it down, than up.
Even in the darkness, he could feel her eyes on him. Not to mention the little rub on the back of his head. He enjoyed the silence for once, and the dark of his coffin lid, which he knew would rise sometime, anytime. It was only a matter of when.
He broke the silence, getting a hunch that it was too dark for her to realize he was and had been up.
"Evening, Seras." He said lazily. "Sleep well?"
She jumped as his voice suddenly boomed out from the quiet still darkness; she settled herself back down to her position she was in.
"Very."
Alucard inched up and moved his head so that he could try and see her. It was still resting on her neck, in such a way so he could see her profile or neck: it depended on what he felt like at the moment.
"You shiver a lot in the day, Seras." He pointed out, and she blinked, moving her face away from his head so he could move, as he wanted. He wrapped his arm around her waist more.
"Do I? That is strange."
"Even when I am asleep, my mind can sense your movements: from the tiniest eye flutter, to individual body motions." He opened his eyes to look at her. "It is fine if you still shiver and such; your body is still undergoing adjustments."
Seras could feel his arm draped lightly across her waist, but she couldn't actually SEE him; blinking around, she looked for him, then put up one of her hands and felt around. She found the top of his head and patted it.
"Ah, there you are, master."
Alucard, feeling much like a dog being patted for a reward for doing something good, cackled lightly, forgetting that she was not as good as seeing in the dark as he was. He moved closer, adjusting his arm so that he could feel and basically guess how he was positioned against her.
"Of course, I am here; could you not hear my voice so close?"
The hand on his head slid down the back of his head like she was petting him and stopped at his neck, kind like a miniature hug with one arm.
"But I wasn't totally sure of where you were."
He continued to look at her unnoticed, and slid up a little to kiss her for a moment, before settling back to rest the way he was.
"If you feel even a part of me, you know I am here. I mean, where else would I go? You are in my bedroom, after all."
Surprising her a little as his gesture was a little unexpected, she wriggled her other arm out from underneath him as he moved back to where he was. She put it with her other hand behind his neck, burying her face in the top of his head again; hugging his head like she did when he was decapitated.
What a nice memory.
Alucard moved his other arm around her waist and brought himself closer into more of an embrace; he expected to feel something stir inside of him, but nothing did. It was silent and calm.
"Normally I would feel my darkness by now, but...I feel nothing." He closed his eyes with a little grin.
"By pulling him out more, you may have helped. For awhile at least."
"A little while is better than nothing at all, master." She found this sounding familiar to something else she had said in the past; she shrugged it off as mere coincidence.
"Unfortunately, when dealing with my darkness, a 'little while' could mean a lifetime...or two minutes." His face buried into her collarbone. "But for now it's better than nothing. It's just that," He paused. "I wonder, when the next time he returns, or starts to act up, if he will be even more powerful. I do not know if I can stop him then..."
Seras found herself at a loss for words again. No words of comfort to utter, nothing of advice.
Her: give advice to her master? That'd never happen.
She just hugged him a little more, nuzzling herself comfortably into his thick, yet stringy and short, black hair.
"I should be stronger than this; this is no way for a No Life King to behave. Still deteriorating, it shouldn't have any effect on me...but...these human emotions. They are unnatural, yet, without them, I could not feel your comfort." He paused again to think. "I never did before, until recent."
"And yet, I am hardly comforting you at all." She said, low and muffled as she spoke into his hair. Alucard looked up slightly; though, he could not directly see her.
"You have been more comfort to me than you know. You just being here is enough; before your influence and my deterioration, it was long since I had been able to feel a woman's touch. And I didn't even do anything back then; nothing like this."
For some reason, she snickered lightly and pulled her head back to look at him—or try to, at least.
"Is that a good thing, master?"
"What do you think, Seras?" He said, surprisingly not sarcastic for once, but levelly with a slightly raised eyebrow. "...Would I be here if it wasn't a good thing?" Seras smirked, realizing how much sense that made, and she shut her mouth.
She blinked at him, cocking her head to the side a little; hugging him again, lightly but affectionately, she rested her cheek on his hair and closed her eyes. Doing nothing more than that.
He did nothing, at a loss of words for her simple motion. Because of the humanity that seemed to be seeping into him from her, he could feel her concern and love. He closed his eyes too, and moved his arms around her so he could feel her. It soothed him unnaturally, as he mused into the simplicity of the hug. Her gloved hand slid across the back of his neck to swipe some of the ends of his short hair out of her way, and she rested her hand back to where it was before.
She tilted her head, her cheek resting on his hair, to speak into his hair and near his ear.
"Master...Try not to think of the past; please, try not to say anymore about the past." She was asking him to do something, which was very out of her rank; but it was worth a long shot.
Besides, she was polite.
"When I am around you, I am reminded of so many things; things that weren't supposed to be. I would say that is what you call regret. How amusing." He snickered into her shirt.
"Regret…I still feel that, too." She murmured near his ear again; she still felt the majority and maybe even all of her emotions. It was strange.
"I have not felt, nor have I been able to recognize human emotions for centuries." He averted his eyes from her. "It is odd, I can give you that." He faced her and rested his cheek up against her's. Seras smirked, despite his musings, her eyes still closed.
"Things are strange enough, my master, so I guess that fact can add to the list."
Alucard grinned, inside of him wondering what all of this meant. With the Super FREAKS being spotted elsewhere, his seemingly momentary loss of his own darkness. It was all too strange.
But strange was a big word in Alucard's vocabulary.
"There are a lot of strange happenings, that is true. But which is stranger?" He raised his eyebrow with a hint of sarcasm. "The fact that all of this seems to happen at once, or that I can do this," He leaned forward to her face, his lips just barely brushing hers as he finished his sentence. "Without my darkness coming up to crash the party?"
As he finished, she blinked, and he kissed her to prove his point. She wasn't expecting that one, either, but hey, was she complaining? I think not!
Lifting a hand from his neck she put it on the back of his head, not constricting him, just merely resting it there so he could finish when he thought best. Since he was pushing his luck, yet again, with her, though, nonetheless she took advantage of the moment and kissed him back.
Really now, she's not that thick to slip up an opportunity as good as this.
Alucard pulled back from her slowly; as if sad to part but knowing he'd have to sometime...or someday. He nuzzled her neck, but did nothing more than that. Seras rested her surprised face on the top of his head, her eyes a little wider than they should have been and her mouth small and surprised; a sweatdrop ran down her head.
"And nothing happened?? That is strange, master." She cracked a smile and laughed a little.
"That was what I was trying to tell you. I do not feel his presence..." He stared up at her from his favorite spot on her neck. "Amusing how being naughty actually helped in some ways." He laughed maniacally and she stared at him again, sweat dropping and raising an eyebrow.
"Is it not true?! That being...bad always has better to offer? Of course, good is the supposed path, but where's the fun in that? It gets boring doing the same thing to appease someone who no longer watches."
"Well, master, you could have said it like that in the first place. What you said before was a little suggestive." He mouth formed a line and she rested her head on his hair again. His eyebrow rose as he looked on in amusement.
"'Suggestive,' Seras. Well it seems that you are worse off than me, thinking things meaning different meanings. That is your own mind at work, and you are the one who calls me a 'hentai.'" He cackled in his throat.
Seras growled this time.
"Master!!" She said defiantly, then growled again; if there could have been black smoke coming from her head, there would have been so much even they would be gagging.
But this made him laugh more as he moved his head back, taking her head off of his so he could stroke her hair. He stared at her warmly, a little spark in his eyes; even her anger amused him.
"That's it, Seras. Get angry, feel the fury. You are more like your tiger that way."
She fumed at this, her mouth forming a sadistic grin. Then her face turned back to normal; somewhat calm, her hair a little disheveled.
"Hmmm...I should save my anger for when it is really needed."
Alucard looked at her, a little discouraged that there was going to be no performance.
"Like when? Anger comes and goes; it doesn't build up so readily. It has to be worked on for years to make it really interesting."
Seras smirked. "For those Super FREAKS...that Integral often reminds us about."
He shook his head. "What you had was momentary fury, not the type that gets 'stored' if unused. Now that you are relaxed, it is a lot harder to get that rage back to as powerful as it was."
Her smirk stayed, her eyebrow raised. "So you want me to be angry at you?"
"When your anger is that way, fine, take it out on me. But if you let it get away, you can never learn to control it for a real fight. Worse than those Super FREAKS. Nosferatu, if necessary."
She watched as the coffin lid moved itself up.
"Nosferatu...You, master?" The lid stopped and she looked at it simply, trying not to overload her mind so early yet. Alucard took a hand and cupped it around her cheek to make her look at him.
"If need be, Seras. You can never be too careful; nothing is ever over, you may have to fight my darkness again, or worse." She blinked solemnly.
"The weird thing is, master, that I understand this."
"Then why do you not try to learn how to use your anger, Seras? If you now what could happen; you let it go as if it were nothing. It can be the ultimate source of your power."
Her eyes stared into his. "I don't know, master. Old human habits; I used to never really like my anger that much; it gave me negative results each time. But now, I all of a sudden need to use it, as it would be helpful. It's taking a bit to break myself of this."
Alucard stroked her back with one of his hands. "We all do what we do not want. For your case: humanity still plagues you. And it starting to do the same to me, as well."
She patted the side of his face strangely, her voice low and airy.
"Ah...Poor, poor vampire."
AN: There we go, finally finished another chapter ^_^ A nice long one, too...lol
Preview for Chapter 68: Uhh ohhhh! Hentai is on da way! Because Alucard can't feel his darkness, he takes advantage of this rare opportunity ^___^ And hentai is what everybody is alookin' for, eh? You've come to the right place, so until then…^^