Alucard comes off softer and more sympathetic in this story than I would usually write him. I'm basing that aspect of his characterization on the Alucard/Dracula/Vlad Tepes connection in that Vlad was a hostage to the Turks for some time, and there are implications that he was abused by them during that period. Given his young age at the time and the no doubt shocking nature of the experience, it's one of the few human experiences that I could see still holding emotional weight for him. Thus the nicer side of Alucard.
"Go away!"
The door slammed in the vampire's face.
Being over five hundred years old may make most things unsurprising, but Alucard was nonplussed by Walter's reaction. He walked through the closed door and silently regarded the young man until Walter spun and reflexively threw out a handful of wire.
Alucard blocked the worst of the lashes with an arm, particularly the one aimed at his head, and stood staring at Walter while he dripped blood on the floor.
"You have not been yourself since we returned from Poland," he observed. "Your hair trigger reflexes are too easily triggered of late." He unwound the tangled wires from his arm and dropped them to the floor where Walter retrieved them with a quick flick of his fingers.
"You don't have to keep bleeding on my floor," was Walter's terse non-response as he cleaned the droplets of Alucard's blood off his rings where the wires had left traces when they retracted.
The blood flowed across the floor and merged with Alucard's shoe, the drops on Walter's fingers seemingly evaporated away, the red stains on the vampire's white suit were absorbed, leaving it spotless once more.
"Better?" Alucard crossed the room and pulled Walter away from the window to push him to sit down on the bed.
"Tell me." Alucard stood in front of Walter and watched him seriously. "Arthur has noticed the change, too. You don't sleep, you rarely eat, and you've entirely lost your good humor."
"He sent you, didn't he? You wouldn't come asking about my feelings on your own."
"What affects your duties, affects Arthur. What affects Arthur, affects me." Alucard answered, pulling the chair away from Walter's desk to sit across from him.
Walter shook his head and looked back toward the window. "I don't want to talk about it."
"You were right. I am here at Arthur's orders. He wants to know what your problem is. With orders like those it would be well within my scope to find the answer directly from your mind…" Alucard leaned forward and put gloved fingertips on the young man's cheek to make him look away from the window. "Tell me and I won't have to take it from you that way."
"You taught me yourself – never admit fear. Never show weakness." It was as close to an admission of fear or weakness as Walter was willing to give.
"Then I'll have to get it myself. Are we going to do this the hard way, or the easy way?"
"What's the hard way?" Walter scooted back on the bed, out of Alucard's reach, to rest his back against the headboard. He pulled a cigarette from a pack in his pocket and lit it while watching Alucard's face.
"The hard way means that I force my way into your mind and take anything that appears to be relevant to your problem. It's invasive." Alucard shrugged, red eyes gleaming under his bangs. "I suppose it probably hurts, too."
Walter took a slow drag from his cigarette and watched the stream of smoke he exhaled dissipate before he looked back at the vampire. "I'm not afraid of pain. What's the easy way?"
"The easy way requires that you lie down and get some rest. I'll join you and take what I need from your dreams."
"You'll join me?" Walter blinked and covered his surprise with another drag from his cigarette. "I can't say that sounds very easy – letting a vampire watch me sleep."
Alucard grinned and leaned forward conspiratorially. "I've done it before and you're still alive and kicking."
Before Walter could find a response, Alucard bounced out of the chair and began to rifle through the young man's dresser drawers. He found what he was looking for and tossed a pair of pajamas at the surprised young butler. "Put them on. I know you don't sleep in your clothes unless you're ready to drop."
"I didn't say I was going to do it." Walter caught the clothes and leaned over to crush out the remains of his cigarette. "I don't want to do any of this. Just go back and tell Arthur it's none of his goddamned business."
"Never show fear, Angel. Remember?" Alucard climbed onto the bed and leaned against the headboard next to him. "A coward runs away now."
Walter's angry glare was met with a smug grin. Alucard picked up the pajamas and shook them out. "Pinstripes suit you." He laughed at Walter's back as the young man snatched the clothes out of his hand and stalked out of the room to change.
He was still sitting on the bed when Walter came out. Alucard hadn't lied about watching Hellsing's Angel sleep, but he'd never seen the young man walking around in his pajamas. The sight made him chuckle while he patted the pillow next to him. "Come to bed."
Walter waited until Alucard moved to the far side of the bed before getting in. He settled stiffly on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling.
"You don't sleep like that."
"No. I don't. But I also don't sleep with a vampire in my bed." Walter scowled at Alucard. "I prefer sleeping alone."
"Then tell me what the problem is or give me permission to take it forcefully. You have the luxury of three choices; don't complain to me if you don't like them."
Walter squeezed his eyes closed and forced his body to relax starting from the bottom up. He pushed aside the guilt for what Alucard would find, the embarrassment, the anger at being forced to give up this secret and concentrated on his toes and his ankles, his legs and his arms. His hands didn't want to relax, but with an effort, he unclenched them and laid them loosely at his sides.
Alucard silently observed the discipline that Walter used to make his body obey him even in a circumstance where he was obviously both angry and uncomfortable. The young man had such potential. He would have gone far in past times where his self-discipline and mental and physical strength would have put him head and shoulders above most. It was really too bad that he had no desire to lead.
He watched Walter's face finally relax into sleep, noting the change in his breathing and heartbeat. When Alucard was certain that he was deeply asleep, he moved the blanket and sheet and slid under them to mold himself against the other man's body.
He drew his mind over Walter's when the young man stirred, soothing him back into slumber. He lay quietly basking in the human warmth and vitality, hearing the blood rushing through human veins, smelling the life on each of his exhalations. There were so few opportunities of this sort since Alucard had lost his freedom to Abraham van Helsing.
If only he could take the next steps.
He brushed his lips over the fluttering pulse in Walter's neck. Despite almost aching with the desire for the blood he smelled so near, van Helsing's little charms still held.
Some night, though, he would taste this man. Walter would beg him to do it.
Another night.
He shifted a limp arm until he was comfortably settled with his face pressed into the crook of Walter's neck. The vampire smiled to imagine his reaction upon waking to find Alucard cozied up to him. With a bloodless nip to the inviting skin under his lips, he closed his eyes, drifting his consciousness down and through Walter's, catching pieces of drifting dream and pulling them up to be examined.
-
He hurt so much, but the worst was the pain where his shoulder had been dislocated. They hadn't popped it back into place when they'd handcuffed his hands behind his back, and every movement of the lorry jostling down the unpaved road was an agony. He closed his eyes and bit back a cry of pain when the lorry went over another bump.
"Wake up."
He opened his eyes and blinked, clearing his vision before widening his eyes to recognize the fat German officer. Somehow he'd lost time and was no longer in the lorry, but in an antiseptically lit room lying on a cold metal table.
He registered the fat man speaking, but the words came to him sounding as though they had passed through water to get to his ears. He shook his head to clear it and yelped when a big hand grasped his dislocated arm to pull him up off the table.
The fat man and the man with the strange glasses looked very happy, but he still couldn't understand what they were saying to each other or to him. They said something to the one holding him upright and left the room.
He looked up at the big man and felt a moment of thoroughly numbing terror when he realized that it was the werewolf. They'd left him alone with the werewolf. He looked around for an avenue of escape and cried out in a combination of surprised fright and agony when his captor jerked him roughly around by his injured arm and roughly pulled his trousers off, ignoring his struggles and kicks as though they were nothing.
No.
He was treated like little more than a doll by the big man who paid no attention to his struggles, bending him over a table and jerking brutally on his injured arm to make him cry out again despite his resolution to remain silent no matter what happened.
No.
He screamed with the sudden invasive pain that drowned the agony in his shoulder and felt hot tears roll down his face at his helplessness before this violation.
NO!
-
Walter sat up, panting and covered in cold sweat. He barely noticed Alucard's presence in the bed with him, instead hunching over his knees and shuddering with the force of the memory.
"It was just a few hours before you found me. I told you then that they'd just slapped me around, but I lied." His voice trembled under the tight control he was keeping.
He stiffened and tried to pull away when the vampire put his arms around him, but Alucard did not permit it, tightening his grip on the larger man as a physical reminder of which of the two of them was actually stronger.
"Do you have to tell Arthur? Can't you just tell him you know what the problem is and I'll get over it if he'll just leave me be?"
Walter looked over his shoulder at the vampire when he heard Alucard's soft words, "I can't, but I can help you."
"I'm not weak." Walter jerked against Alucard's restraining arms almost growling with the anger that grew to cover his fear and shame.
"No, Angel. I know you aren't weak." Alucard brushed the hair out of Walter's eyes and spoke quietly, confidingly against his ear. "There are pains I would wish on my enemies, but this is one I wouldn't wish for an ally."
"What kind of help do you think you can give me?" he asked dully, humoring the vampire to get on from this as quickly as possible.
"I can make you forget. You won't remember any of it. No more nightmares. No more memories of what happened."
Walter's almost caught his breath at the speed with which he wanted to say, Yes! Yes, I don't want to remember this. Do it! He stopped and forced himself to breathe.
"I'm not weak," he repeated for his own benefit, missing Alucard's almost-smile in response to the comment.
"No, Angel. I know you aren't weak," Alucard responded once again. He tightened his grip on the young man until he was forced to recline against the vampire's chest. "But clinging to this does weaken you. You are less effective now. Keeping the memory has no benefit to you or to Hellsing."
Walter tried to find an argument against the reasoning, but had none. He dearly wanted to forget what had happened in Poland. Hellsing had full reports from him about everything; he didn't need to remember.
He relaxed himself against Alucard and nodded, giving his assent. "For Hellsing." He could live with telling himself he was making the choice for Hellsing's sake.
"For Hellsing," Alucard agreed, withholding his own opinion of Hellsing. "Now try to relax, this won't hurt." And if it did, Walter wouldn't remember anyway.
Nervous, he found himself analyzing every sensation, trying to determine which would be the feel of Alucard beginning to erase his memories. Was that itch on the back of his neck the sign? The need to blink more than usual? Perhaps the creeping along his spine? He was driving himself crazy with minute analyses and embraced with relief the sudden darkness that fell, welcoming the dreamless sleep it brought.
•••
Walter opened his eyes and jerked to realize that he had a person in bed with him, fumbling backward out of bed and onto the floor when he realized it was Alucard. He rose immediately to his feet and unconsciously rubbed his hand over his unmarked throat where Alucard's face had been resting.
A look at the brightening sky outside told him that he'd been asleep the entire night. "Did you find what you came for, Alucard? I don't remember any dreams."
"No." Alucard stretched slowly, luxuriously, before slipping off the bed, smiling brightly at Walter. "Your dreams told me nothing, but I think I'll tell Arthur that you'll be feeling better on your own soon. You're not weak, Angel."
"I know I'm not weak," Walter responded, frowning at the déjà vu those words evoked. "Thank you."
"It was nothing," Alucard said with a smile that bothered Walter for the rest of the day until he realized that the problem with the smile had been its complete lack of malice.