Alucard does wear a white shirt beneath his duster and his suit, and after staring at a bunch of manga panels and OVA screenshots I've concluded that his suit jacket has enough of a V-neck to prove that he is probably only wearing that long-sleeved white shirt underneath, since the suit jacket in question almost looks like a vest itself sometimes and it'd be unreasonable to wear a second, smaller vest underneath.


Though he had been shaken out of his sleep in the middle of the night by the cold and damp filling the room from the abruptly-opened window, Alexander's training let him sleep soundly even in the most uncomfortable of situations. All through the rest of the night, as the storm raged and thunder boomed high overhead, accompanied by the roaring crash of the waves on shore, he slept, undisturbed by noise or by foul magic. The latter, at least, would have awoken him, but Alexander's wards held strong –if the witch even tried to probe at them at all– and he remained beneath the many layers of his partially-torn clothing and the scavenged blankets for some time, recovering his strength and resting his mind.

He slept warmer than he would've thought, though, but even that faint addition to his comfort was not enough to stir the paladin. His senses were acute and attuned solely towards the monstrous, the unnatural, the wicked and profane. A mere rise or fall in his personal level of comfort was not worth noticing, not worth the splitting of his keen attention, and so his brain ignored it. All of Alexander's senses were poised, even in his deepest sleep, to react to the first faint hint of the uncanny, the first thread of wicked magic that intruded within his wards. Since no such thing occurred, he slept as soundly as he might back home, within the walls of his orphanage –despite the storm that thundered continuously overhead and the drafts in the unheated room.

That calm was sorely tested when Alexander finally awoke again sometime after sunrise, though it was difficult to tell what the exact time was with the storm-dark sky. There was nothing wrong with the lack of light in and of itself, but there was something else that was most definitely wrong.

Despite his best efforts at scavenging, the mice had gotten to many of the stored blankets before Alexander had, and his cassock was full of holes from the animated wood of the lighthouse tower. Though he could layer the hoarded blankets over himself in cunning patterns to help mitigate it, the fact remained that both they and his clothing had gaps, places for the cold air to stream through and chill his slumbering body. Alexander had gone to sleep cold, and had been cold when he groggily stirred to tell off the vampire, but now, at last, he was warm.

He was warm because Alucard had laid his unbuttoned jacket over the topmost layer of blankets, covering Alexander's chest and shoulders.

Alexander stared at the charcoal-grey fabric that was draped over him for several seconds, just processing. That was definitely Alucard's jacket, and it was definitely on top of him. How the vampire had put it there, why the vampire had put it there, was a baffling mystery –to say nothing of how Alucard had managed to do so in the middle of the night without Alexander noticing it.

It was so strange, shocking, and simply out-of-character that for a while, Alexander could do nothing but stare.

Alucard did not help people, least of all him. So far as Alexander had been able to tell, the vampire was only courteous to his erstwhile Master, Sir Hellsing, and even then it was subservience with a bit of teeth, a flash of warning fangs that told her not to treat him like a tamed creature, however obedient Alucard may be. This kind of- of- of consideration was entirely alien to Alucard's whole personality. The vampire didn't give a damn about anyone else, he was as inherently selfish as all undead were. So why had he done this?

Alexander's mind flashed back, traitorously, to that groggy and entirely-too-unguarded conversation he'd had with the vampire earlier in the night. He knew Alucard was old, so perhaps this was…reflexive courtesy, an echo of the vampire's former inborn manners that compelled Alucard to pay Alexander back for feeding and, however minimally, sheltering him. It was plausible. Vampires could be compulsive creatures as well as obsessive.

And as much as he would like it to be, this was clearly not a jab at him. If Alucard had done this to mock him, to bask in Alexander's discomfort as he awoke and realized he had been slumbering peacefully beneath a vampire's jacket, then Alucard would actually still be here to see his reaction when he woke up to realize the situation for what it was. Alucard was not: he was somewhere else in the house, somewhere else within the wards. And why would he play a prank on Alexander like this, anyway? The vampire had shown that he understood their situation very well so far, been cooperative in order to avoid a fight that would end up only damaging him.

Alexander sat up, sliding the jacket down to his lap. He looked at the dark grey fabric almost warily, like he was expecting traps, but of course, there was nothing there. This was a real jacket, unlike the mimicry made of shadows that Alucard wrapped himself in most of the time. Its prosaic mundanity was proven by small slits in the tough serge fabric, places where the roots of the curse had burrowed deep into Alucard's flesh and bones. No blood, though: whatever droplets had leaked out when Alexander had ripped the curse from him had been flawlessly reabsorbed back into Alucard's healing body.

The paladin reached up for his glasses, which he had left hanging on the bedpost, and slid them back onto his face. As much as he hated to admit it, he was…curious, about this garment. Alexander was not in the habit of touching a vampire's clothing, except, perhaps, when his fist was striking the undead flesh beneath. This was an unprecedented opportunity for study.

The fabric seemed distressingly…normal, though. It was like a suit jacket that you could buy anywhere, from any store that catered to well-paid gentlemen; double-breasted, with two lines of ebony buttons marching down the front, made of sturdy, serviceable dark grey wool. It was unremarkable, except that it belonged to a vampire, and perhaps the most powerful vampire Alexander had ever seen.

Where did Alucard keep it, when he wasn't wearing it? Alexander knew that the vampire's quarters –whatever they may be– were beneath the Hellsing estate, but he didn't smell any damp stone or mildew from the charcoal cloth. Really, even when he lifted a sleeve and pressed his nose into a fold of the charcoal fabric, there wasn't anything but the faint lingering scent of machine oil and gunpowder, with even fainter strains of bleach and whatever soap Hellsing used to clean. And over and under it all, the thick, metallic scent of blood, because it was always blood with vampires.

Speaking frankly, the jacket didn't smell like something someone would wear. It smelled like it had been hanging on a stand somewhere ever since it had been purchased, perhaps in a gunroom or a machine shop, and given a thorough scrubbing now and again to bleach it of any stains that had landed on the fabric. Alucard left no traces of his essence on his clothing, and it was only by knowing him that Alexander could tell that this suit jacket belonged to the vampire at all.

How very like a vampire. Physically present only in implication, unnatural enough to leave no imprints of themselves on the rest of the natural world.

Alexander realized what he was doing –more specifically, the exact position he was in– and drew back hastily, letting the sleeve slip through his fingers to land in his lap again. The rattling hiss of the rain pounding against the walls and ceiling of the small house had not abated even after all this time, but now the sound seemed to close in around him like a hand, accompanied by the oddly soporific booms of thunder overhead. Alexander shook himself, moving to get out of the bed and hand the jacket back, as was proper. He could just –ignore this. Ignore all of this.

A quick search of the upstairs rooms told him that Alucard was downstairs, and Alexander's fingers tightened slightly on the jacket that he'd slung over his shoulders. Alucard wasn't the only one with ingrained manners, and as much as he would like to trail the vampire's coat on the ground, covering it in water and grime and whatever other filth was on the floor, Alexander had been raised better than that. As much as he would like to, he would not toss generosity back in the face of its wielder.

As much as he would really, really like to.

His shoes clomped loudly on the sagging, creaking wood of the stairs, giving the vampire plenty of warning that he was coming, though Alexander knew that Alucard hardly needed that. While day had definitely dawned, the sky was overcast enough to give the vampire some modicum of freedom and power, and it would be easy enough for him to track Alexander by the sound of his lungs and heart, even when the building was wrapped in holy wards.

The vampire was in the kitchen again, and Alexander had to do his noble best not to stare.

Because while he had finally, barely, managed to come to terms with the fact that Alucard had lent him his suit jacket for warmth –probably out of compulsive repayment of his debt– somehow the dots had not yet connected in Alexander's mind that since Alucard had given him his coat, the vampire would then be left wearing –whatever it was that he usually wore beneath the suit, and the answer to that question was, apparently, "distractingly little."

The vampire was clothed, of course. Alexander would have skewered him with bayonets, and damn the consequences, if he was not. And to be fair, the thin white shirt that Alucard was currently wearing was primly buttoned up to the neck and down to the wrists –it was even tucked into the dark trousers he wore, matching the color of the suit jacket that now dangled distractedly from Alexander's hand. But there was a world of difference from the heavy, bulky duster and sturdy suit jacket that the vampire habitually wore, to this. Alexander couldn't not stare.

The vampire was missing his usual red cravat, too, leaving the folded collar of that white shirt to dangle open, just a little, with the first in a line of silver buttons holding it shut at the base of Alucard's throat. A mortal man would have been freezing, in this single dress shirt and nothing else above the waist, but Alucard didn't even seem to notice the cold. Of course he didn't. He had fed on Alexander yesterday, but that blood had long ago lost its warmth. The vampire literally had no body heat left to lose.

Alucard was staring out the window, the mostly-intact window, with his pale lips compressed into the hard line of a frown, and Alexander shook himself sternly and coughed, intending to draw the vampire's attention if Alucard had been so focused on whatever he was watching that he hadn't yet noticed the paladin coming down.

The vampire turned, glancing over his shoulder, and his frown shifted into a small smirk as he saw Alexander standing there.

"I have your jacket." Alexander said, somewhat needlessly. He tossed it over, somehow not wanting to have contact with the garment anymore, and Alucard caught it one-handed without breaking eye contact, that small, amused smirk still on his lips. "What was that all about?"

"I'm not above returning an act of generosity." Alucard said, breaking the line between their eyes at last as he shrugged on his suit jacket, settling it on his shoulders with a few brisk tugs. "Did you expect me to be ungrateful?"

Speaking frankly? Yes. That was sort of what monsters did: they took everything while giving nothing. Being kind, or charitable, or merciful to a vampire was an exercise in futility, because the vampire would take that gesture and do nothing beneficial in return. Such actions were simply wasted on a creature who, by its nature, was selfish and self-absorbed.

But then, Alucard was unlike any vampire Alexander had ever encountered –even when he was like this, drained of almost every vestige of power he had.

"What were you looking at this time?" he asked, shifting gears abruptly. Alucard glanced out the window, his frown returning, even as his gloved fingers quickly moved to lace up the line of black buttons across his front.

"Trying to gauge if the witch was influencing this storm in any way." the vampire said, doing up his last button and making Alexander's shoulders relax a little as some wisp of familiarity returned to the vampire's image. "The sky cover is somewhat helpful, but I have my doubts about the running water."

"Mm." Alexander grunted in agreement. If the witch had enough power, they could enchant the clouds themselves to add to the potency of the running water that fell from them, further incapacitating Alucard. Still, there was a way to check that, and it was easy enough to execute right at this very moment. "Well, only one way to find out."

Alucard gave him a somewhat amused look.

"You're going to shove me out the door into a storm?" he asked, his voice injured even when his face was grinning. The vampire contrived to make his lower lip wobble for a moment. "Before breakfast?"

Alexander glared at him wordlessly, his expression flat, which made Alucard cackle. The vampire's changes in mood were distracting, unpredictable, but Alexander was starting to get his measure. Alucard threw out quips like that carelessly, without thinking of the meaning or the consequences, because the vampire had always been powerful enough to ignore them. What did he care about the subject and content matter of his offhanded jokes? Alucard could brush the anger or the humiliation of his listener aside like so much chaff. They barely merited a distraction.

But that was true –they were a distraction, and Alexander was starting to be able to read the vampire's true mood in the line of his shoulders and the direction of his eyes, flickering restlessly outside. Alucard was uneasy, chafing at his forced confinement, eager to find and destroy the witch that had weakened him so. He wasn't reckless enough to throw aside all caution or restraint in doing so, but –he wanted to.

Alexander, too, was rested and ready to tackle whatever this island threw at him, and he considered his options as he stared grimly out at the sky.

"We'll see what the rain does to you." Alexander said after a long moment of consideration. "And then we'll deal with that kraken."


The rain, thankfully, did nothing more than make Alucard look like a drowned cat, flattening his sleek black hair against his skin and crushing whatever meager volume it had. Though the constant downpour also somewhat obscured Alexander's vision by plastering his glasses with water, he, at least, was used to fighting while partially or completely blinded. His human limitations –not to mention his need for prescription lenses– meant that Alexander's eyesight was one of his most severe hampers when dealing with monsters, and he had learned to wield it as a weapon rather than let it hold him back as an impediment. He didn't need to see to be able to kill something.

He was grateful that Alucard had put his suit jacket back on, though. The collar of the vampire's white shirt was clinging in translucent patches to his neck beneath his wet black hair, and Alexander was very, very glad that he had neither the vision nor the opportunity to see those damp patches in more detail. Seeing the vampire in his bottommost layer was odd enough, seeing the white dress shirt turning foggy and transparent as it clung to the vampire's body –that would irresistibly pull his train of thought in directions that Alexander absolutely did not want it to go. Curiosity had its limits, especially where it intersected with dignity and propriety.

And aesthetics.

Alexander mentally slapped the thought away as the two of them slowly approached the stairs to the shore, stopping at the head of them.

"Have you ever killed a kraken?" Alucard asked, his voice just loud enough to be heard over the roar of rain and surf, and no louder.

"No, but I know the general method." Alexander replied. The first thing anyone who faced a kraken had to do was get to land –fighting them from aboard even the largest of ships was considered very close to suicide, given the unpredictable and indeed, impossible-to-categorize variation amongst the species. No one kraken was identical to any other, given the variability of both their unholy creators and the original animal that the magician had taken as a source. There was simply no way to tell how truly big a kraken was, or how many strange additions it had, which meant that fighting it from on board a ship was risky in the extreme.

Dry land was another matter, however.

However many unholy mutations the witch had forced upon their creation, a kraken was, at bottom, a creature of the sea. Though it could unspool long and vicious tentacles, sometimes edged with poison or claws, the one thing it couldn't do was climb up onto the shore. Therefore, if you were on a solid and large-enough piece of dry land, all you had to do was pin the tentacles down –one by one. You couldn't cut them off, because some krakens could regenerate, and completely severing all the limbs of the monstrous beast would leave it free to slip away in the water, where its creator would inevitably find and repair it. No, to successfully kill a kraken, a hunter had to, quite literally, pin it down to the shoreline.

What happened then, of course, depended on the exact nature of the kraken in question, as well as the specifics of the situation and environment. Considering how large this one was, they probably wouldn't have to dive too deep to reach the main body and kill it after they'd pinned down all its limbs. Even better, though, would be if the kraken tried to heave itself up on shore in its fury, leaving its mantle even closer to the surface.

Still, that was for later. For right now, firstly, they had to get the damn thing's attention.

Since Alexander now had the vampire by his side, that wouldn't be hard. Alucard at any time, but especially in his weakened state, was a fine prize for a witch, and probably an irresistible temptation to try and snatch with the kraken that even now was probably still circling the shore, waiting for a futile escape attempt.

The vampire knew that as well as he did, and even through the blurry lenses of his water-streaked glasses, Alexander caught the vampire's sardonic look.

"I suppose I should go down and dip a toe in the water?" Alucard asked, his resonant voice rumbling with deep amusement out of the falling rain.

"Just don't fall in." Alexander snorted. "I'm not dragging you back out if you do."

And he wouldn't, too. Not wanting the vampire's power to fall into the unscrupulous hands of a witch was all very well and good, but Alexander wasn't bending over or worse still, diving into a bay that in all likelihood contained a living kraken. He was the finest agent that Iscariot had to offer, the best fighter the Vatican had at its command, but he wasn't invincible, and he wasn't an idiot.

Alucard laughed, cocky as he ever was despite the fact that Alexander knew very well how weakened he had been, and strode confidently down the steps, to the point where Alexander could almost see his red duster swishing about his heels.

The paladin rolled his eyes and readied his blades.

At this distance, since Alexander had remained at the top of the stairs, the vampire was an indistinct dark blur against the lighter greyish blurs of sand and surf, tall and narrow and moving aimlessly along the beach. Alexander caught the pale flash of Alucard's face on several occasions, the vampire probably glancing back to check if he was still in Alexander's (admittedly limited) line of sight. Arrogant as the vampire was, he wasn't stupid either, and he knew better than to range out of view of the only ally he had.

There was a tension in the air. Alexander didn't know if the witch's eyes were still upon them, but he and Alucard knew very well what they were doing: trying to tempt a behemoth of unknown size and power into attacking them directly. Amidst the endless grey curtain of rain and the occasional distant spidery flashes of lightning out above the waves, wary expectation hung ominously in the air. As he had been when he first sailed to this island, Alexander was ready for anything, for the slightest twinge in perception or power that heralded the arrival of something uncanny.

And as before, there was no warning. Alexander was too far away this time to hear the irregular slosh of water that came as a tentacle surged out from the ocean, but he certainly saw the trunk-like limb spearing towards Alucard as the vampire jumped, agile as a flea, and landed on a boulder higher up the slope, further away from the beach, with one knee bent and the other foot braced against the slippery surface of the wet rock. More mottled limbs swung towards him, but the vampire was already launching himself back again, bounding quickly up the slope of boulders as Alexander once again heard that rumbling, bursting sound of rage deep below.

Alucard didn't land beside him, but some distance off, and Alexander closed his eyes and opened his senses, attuning himself to the swish of the writhing limbs through the air and the subtle shifts in pressure against his skin that told him where the tentacles were coming from, rather than the delayed, beleaguered messages from his eyes. Already having a sense of just how tough the creature's hide was, he moved with venomous force, stabbing a bayonet into the thick limb swiping horizontally towards him and skewering it wholesale. Before the kraken could even begin to rumble in pain, Alexander adjusted his trajectory, burying the blade deep into the wet earth of the island and pinning the tentacle there.

An earth-shaking roar rumbled up from the depths of the bay, and dozens of tentacles furiously converged on his location as Alexander strained to hold the twitching limb he had skewered against the earth. That was the main problem with this method as it applied to the paladin: his bayonets were sturdy steel, but they were nowhere near heavy enough to properly pin this beast's limbs in place, not unless he was holding it down himself or, perhaps, if he skewered multiple bayonets along the same limb. And that was something he really didn't have a chance to do, as he focused all his energy on holding this one tentacle in place and grimaced in preparation for the bludgeoning of the rest of them.

Alucard's pistols roared, and Alexander opened his eyes and glanced aside in surprise, seeing even through his blurry glasses that the vampire was shooting the converging tentacles down, before dashing forward to engage the remaining limbs directly. He kicked one with enough force to knock it into a boulder, still shooting with his black and silver guns both, before kicking up his boot to pin the squirming length there and dropping one gun into its holster. His red eyes flashed to Alexander, and without hesitation or thought Alexander opened his hand and summoned a blade, flinging it to the vampire, who reached out to seize the incoming weapon at the same instant.

No matter how it burned him, smoke rising up from his pristine white glove just as vigorously as it had his fledgling's back in Badrick, Alucard gripped the hilt firmly and stabbed the bayonet down, sliding it through the kraken's flesh and pinning the second squirming tentacle to the heavy boulder. Unlike Alexander, the vampire was strong enough to sink the blade hilt-deep and lucky enough to catch one of the extreme ends of the tentacle, leaving it thoroughly pinned.

In that brief respite, as the injured tentacles flailed backwards in alarm and pain, Alexander stood, quickly flinging a flurry of blades into the tentacle stretched out beneath him, pinning it, too, to the soft wet earth.

He stepped towards Alucard, glancing down one side of the shore as Alucard wordlessly turned to face the other. Unconsciously, he and the vampire moved to stand back-to-back as Alexander readied a fresh pair of blades and the vampire drew his guns. For a moment, for just this moment, they were not enemies: they were fighters united by a common purpose, and it served them well to stand back-to-back. Strategy was all that mattered right now, and survival: not pride or lost grudges.

Alexander's blades hissed as he slid them together in the shape of a cross, the silvery sound igniting every ounce of bloodlust he had been holding back all this time, and despite the deep foolishness of turning his back to a vampire, particularly this vampire, Alexander couldn't help but grin.

"'In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.'"

"Amen." Alucard replied with much less of his usual mockery, crossing one gun beneath the other in a blasphemous inversion as he, too, smirked dreadfully.


The one metaphorical silver lining amidst these quite literal clouds was the fact that since it was torrentially pouring for most of the fight, Alexander didn't have to give a damn about being soaked to the skin with seawater. He was drenched within five minutes of walking outside the ramshackle hut, so the stinging waves of oceanwater that the beast occasionally flung at him were little more than temporary impediments as he and Alucard slowly pinned down the beast's multitudinous limbs, one by one by one.

At last, the beach stretching up to the line of wave-breaking boulders –and part of the sparse grass field– were covered in a writhing, twitching matt of skewered tentacles, ichor dripping onto the rocks and sand as the kraken bellowed and attempted to flail. Alexander felt sorry for it, since this monstrous beast had originally just been an innocent seagoing creature that neither deserved nor wanted any part in this, but he knew of no way someone could free a kraken from its unholy state except by killing it. He resolved to pray for the creature after it died, though he doubted that it would need much help in being delivered to the Almighty. Animals always had the purest souls.

With the kraken pinned, its long mottled limbs writhing and twisting over the ground as they flowed back into the sea like the black veins of the curse had once flowed from Alucard to the tower, it was time to strike the final blow.

Alucard, just as drenched as he was and somewhat worse the wear for it, considering his unholy nature and the purifying effect of saltwater, grimly gripped his black gun and started forward, feeling his way carefully down the shore. The rush and tossing of the waves let them know that the kraken was close to the surface, and while Alexander would have been able to get closer, perhaps even swim up to the creature's mantle under the water, it was probably wiser to stay a delicately-calculated distance away. People who knew how to make krakens generally knew how they were destroyed, and the beast might have additional, much-smaller limbs to grip, sting, or otherwise revenge itself upon an unwary hunter that got too close. The vampire also had to aim carefully: the beast was in pain now, but that was all, and if a missed shot failed to kill it, it would realize its danger as any predator would, and start to heave and writhe furiously, potentially ripping free some of its deadly limbs as it did so. Alucard's keener eyesight was better-suited to taking the final shot.

The rain was slacking off at this point, and as Alucard raised his iron gun, Alexander took off his glasses, at least attempting to rid them of excess water with sideways swipe of his gloved finger –even if there wasn't a single dry part of him, gloves included. A rapid spate of gunshots rang out, Alucard quickly emptying his clip into the beast's brain through its eye, and there was a long, warbling rumble. Alexander mumbled a quick prayer for the poor, defiled creature as he redonned his glasses, seeing blood begin to leak into the water from deep within the bay. The massive body of the kraken wasn't still, its tentacles still twitching and reeling, but that was fine. Creatures this large took a while to realize that they were dead.

When even the last little bit of movement had stilled, Alucard finally tucked both of his guns away and moved to climb back up the steps. Alexander frowned as he did so.

The vampire had moved smoothly enough when they were fighting, but now that he could afford to relax a little…Alexander saw that he walked almost gingerly, like his joints pained him, or that they were set at odd angles within his body. As the vampire got closer, Alexander saw that there were splashes of discolored skin on him where the seawater had struck and Alucard had not healed, like he had been attacked with acid. Alexander realized, suddenly, that even if the witch was no longer draining Alucard directly, it was probably only a matter of time before Alucard hurt himself too much to function. The vampire was just so damn used to not caring about any damage he took, he had forgotten to be cautious in his weakened state. Instantly remembering and starting to dodge hadn't helped him when the ocean water struck, because the damage was already done, and little by little, such almost-misses would whittle away what remained of the vampire's strength and power.

Alexander could not afford that.

With the lightening of the rain, too, the sky was beginning to grow brighter, and Alexander saw the vampire cast a resentful glare upwards for a moment, briefly, before his accustomed predatory mask slid back into place.

"So, now we need to find the witch." Alucard said without preamble when he reached a human's comfortable speaking distance with Alexander. "Any ideas?"

"Can you even face the witch?" Alexander asked, eyeing him. "You look like you'd fall over if I pushed you hard enough."

Alucard bared his teeth at him in a brief frustrated snarl, which was more than enough to show both his fraying temper and an uncharacteristic lack of control. The vampire rarely let unprofitable emotions such as anger show at all, and he was displaying a hard line of his mouth right now, letting an experienced hunter like Alexander take note of the subtle sharpening of the teeth beside his fangs. It wasn't the serrated maw he'd been faced with when he'd first come upon the vampire on this island, but it was definitely an indication of sharp emotional upset.

"I am weakened, Judas Priest, not decrepit." Alucard hissed at him, before he took a slight, subtle breath and calm washed over the vampire with disturbing swiftness. If Alexander had ever needed proof of just how thoroughly Alucard had sold his soul to go beyond a human state, this would have been it. Between one moment and the next, all of Alucard's icy fury had crystalized into flat neutrality, with a curl of amusement at the corner of his mouth.

"In any case," Alucard continued, his red eyes glinting with dark promises. "-if you're that concerned about my state of being, you know an easy solution."

He did. He could regenerate, too, which made such an offer much less risky than it would be for an ordinary human.

Alexander still hesitated, for reasons both obvious and not-so-obvious. Feeding a vampire his blood was wrong, by any reading of the doctrine he had spent his life following. Helping an enemy was counterintuitive. Those were the obvious reasons. But he had also been having thoughts about the vampire, thoughts he would not be comfortable with sharing until he could understand them, and blood was the vehicle to the soul. There was a chance, however small, that Alucard would taste those thoughts in his blood, and Alexander vehemently did not want that to happen.

But still.

But still.

"…only what you need, vampire." Alexander muttered at long last, drawing out a fresh bayonet, and caught a subtle widening of the vampire's eyes, like Alucard hadn't genuinely expected him to agree to it. Alexander was honestly surprised at himself, but there was a niggling little voice at the back of his mind that told him to do this, a place that came from just beside his instincts. Alexander had learned to trust his instincts on the job.

He rolled up his sleeve and slit his wrist, just as before, but this time the vampire seized him by the arm, steely fingers wrapping tight around the spread of Alexander's bones as Alucard drew the wound to his mouth.

"The rain makes indirect drinking difficult." Alucard murmured, cold lips brushing over his wrist, and Alexander was horrified to find the tips of his ears growing warm at that unexpected soft contact of skin against his own.

There was nothing- there was nothing sensual about this, the paladin told himself stoically. He was just feeding the vampire. He was standing still and providing a necessary nutrient. It was clinical. It was detached. He was calm and cool and collected and absolutely in no way blushing as the vampire's mouth pressed against the bare skin of his wrist, pale throat moving in greedy swallows. Alexander watched as those discolored patches of skin faded and healed, and when the vampire seemed settled back into his normal self, standing as strong as steady as ever, he tugged once at his wrist.

To give Alucard whatever infinitesimal credit he deserved, the vampire let him go easily, pulling back and simply watching and licking the corner of his mouth as Alexander's flesh healed back together within moments and the blood flow stopped. There was something almost…curious in his fiery red eyes, and Alexander steadfastly averted his eyes from the vampire's gaze as he rolled his sleeve back down.

"We should make a more thorough search of the shoreline." he said. "Unless you have any better ideas to offer? You faced the witch once, at least."

"Alas, I was hit from a distance by ritual magic." Alucard drawled, apparently letting whatever odd thought that had come into his head pass as the gleam in his eyes faded. "I awoke on a ritual table, true, but my senses were hampered. I do know it was not in the tower you so charmingly rescued me from, since I was eventually lifted and carried there."

"I didn't rescue you." Alexander said, turning away sharply. "I was going to kill whatever I found up there."

"Until you realized it was me." Alucard replied, still sounding amused. "And it would serve neither of us for me to fall to such a paltry opponent, now would it?"

"Exactly." Alexander gave a terse nod. "And I wanted to –I am going to hold it over your head, vampire. You, despite all your arrogance and your supposed power, needed my help."

Alucard gave one of his deep, rumbling chuckles, and surprised Alexander was a mock-hearty slap on the back.

"Well, perhaps I'll have a chance to even the scores." Alucard replied, casting a toothy grin back at Alexander as the vampire brushed past him. "We do, after all, have a witch yet to kill."

The paladin narrowed his eyes, but after a moment, followed after him. It was much easier to search the shoreline now that the kraken was gone, especially once the rain abated completely and Alexander had brought out some of the flashlights from the still-warded house. He knew better than to let his writ fall slack when he and the vampire were not there: the mission was not yet over, which meant that Alexander still needed a safe base to fall back to. The witch may have recourse to magic, traps, or monsters they had not yet used, and keeping that one building warded constantly would give Alexander and Alucard a safe refuge.

Of course, exhaustively searching an island several miles wide –especially when you were going over it with the fine-toothed comb required to catch even the smallest hint of evil magic– was no short or easy task, even with two people. They couldn't exactly split up, after all: while Alexander knew full well how deadly Alucard could be even in his weakened state, the fact remained that all the power he had lost was firmly in the hands of the witch they'd be facing. Even Alucard –or perhaps, especially Alucard– knew what kind of doomed uphill battle that would be.

No, he needed a hunter like Alexander, someone who was not prone to the traditional weaknesses of undead –who, in fact, had the tools and skills most useful in destroying them– to help him defeat the witch. That, of course, unfortunately meant that neither of them could stray too far from the other, though once again, it was easier to coexist when they both sank into the habits of a lifetime, of the quiet, predatory pattern of a hunt. Hunting undead to purge them from the world or hunting humans to feast on their blood –it was all much the same, when everything was said and done.

Tracking down a weaker, overconfident soul, and slaughtering it.

Witches were unpredictable, of course, and that was where most of their threat resided. You simply had no way of knowing what spells they had mastered, what tricks they were capable of. Cultists and other heathen worshippers followed a fixed belief, and magical sects followed a specific path of dark magic, but witches were the magpies of the supernatural world. They picked up anything and everything, were frequently mavericks, and almost never conformed to a single belief.

Take this witch –an aquatic spell to create and mutate a kraken, but also reanimation spells, vampiric alchemy, and a form of binding and releasing power that Alexander had not yet been able to identify. It was a hopelessly jumbled and mixed bag of styles and rituals, and the two of them could only hope that the witch had nothing deadlier to pull out of it as a last resort. Although, whatever artifact that Alucard's power had been condensed into would likely prove deadly enough on its own.

Exhaustive though fairly rapid searching proved that the grassy field and the occasional low plants around the two buildings had nothing to offer in the way of magic, and so the two of them began to slowly and painstakingly comb the boulder-strewn slope of the shore. Alexander kept a sharp lookout for more of the human hearts that had been flayed into the ground, peering under the crevice of every boulder with his flashlight, but there was nothing.

The dark skies continued to bless them, inasmuch as they provided enough cloud cover that Alucard could actually still walk outside with him, though Alexander saw that the vampire still had a tendency to slip between the sides and linger in the most shadowed portions. He looked annoyed as the day wore on, and Alexander could sense impatience rising within him –the vampire was eager to be rid of his weakness, and even caution could not hold him back forever. There was a reckless streak that ran beneath Alucard's mocking, controlled exterior, and Alexander wondered what it meant.

That wondering would have to wait, however.

They were about halfway around the island when Alexander noticed an odd depression in the rocks, a fold in the line of the huge boulders that didn't seem like it belonged. He caught Alucard's eye without saying anything, silently summoning bayonets into his grasp, and then slowly, cautiously began to prowl forward as the vampire laid a hand on his gun. It seemed like a natural dip in the landscape, but appearances could be more than just deceiving, and besides…something about it felt off. Not by much, not even enough that Alexander could actually point at the source of his unease and say that that was the source, but…something was off, nonetheless.

He couldn't silence his steps completely, and so Alexander didn't bother to try, instead keeping his tread firm and unhurried. If he didn't sound like he was creeping up on something but instead walking normally, the chance was high that whatever was here –if, indeed, anything was here– would dismiss the idea that he had noticed anything, at least initially. As he got closer, his prey's suspicions would naturally begin to climb, but even then there would be traces of doubt. Perhaps it was only a coincidence that the paladin's steps were drawing ever-closer to their hiding place…perhaps he would pass right over them without realizing what was beneath…perhaps it was better to remain in hiding, just in case…

From tingling to screaming, Alexander's instincts were telling him that something was off about this innocuous stretch of rocks, but he still couldn't spot the source of his unease or figure out what had tripped his wariness. The vampire was on edge, too, and unlike Alexander, he could move without a sound, casting back and forth on the rocks like a thwarted hunting dog as his leather boots glided over the sand and gravel and Alucard frowned down at the soil. He, too, sensed something wrong –perhaps an edge of dark magic that was so well-cloaked that they could only catch the barest whispering thread of it.

Alexander paused for a moment, tapping a restless finger against the hilt of one of his bayonets. It was incredibly frustrating –he knew something was off, but couldn't pin down the source. Very well then, he had other options at his disposal. The witch knew that they would be coming eventually, so if this was indeed a lair, their element of surprise was still minimal.

Whisking one bayonet back into his sleeve as Alucard glanced up, Alexander reached inside his somewhat tattered cassock and pulled out his Bible. The vampire raised an eyebrow, but shrugged and waved a hand at him in half-comic resignation.

Alexander called the Holy Writ forth in his mind as a shimmering glow leapt from the book in his hands, pages tearing themselves out and flying free as they swooped down like birds to plaster themselves against the sand and rocks. Like cleansing water dripped down onto salt, holy power had a tendency to corrode and dissolve wicked magic, and Alexander was hoping that it would have some kind of tangible effect on what was very likely to be disguising magic beneath their feet. It would almost certainly alert the witch that they had found the hiding spot and were coming, but no strategy was without risk. Sometimes you had to be a little bit reckless to complete a hunt, and Alexander was eminently well-suited to taking risks.

There was a reluctant groan of rock as Alucard took a step back, his gaze falling to the ground again, and he and Alexander both watched as a spiraling crack curled its way out of the seemingly-solid sand a few meters away, splitting wider and wider until it formed a deep, dark crevice between several boulders. Jackpot.

Cold, damp air hissed out from the newly-exposed entrance, and Alexander wrinkled his nose at the scents oozing out with it. Rotting seaweed, old blood, and other, even more noxious things…this was indeed the den of a witch. He and Alucard exchanged glances, and the vampire grinned, before sweeping one hand out in what would, under any other circumstances, be a courtly gesture as he bowed towards the hole.

"Pearls before swine?" he suggested, giving Alexander a toothy smirk. Alexander scoffed at him.

"Age before beauty." he returned curtly. "I want you where I can see you, vampire, in case the witch has any more magical hooks in you that we haven't noticed yet."

One of Alucard's brows rose as he straightened up again, but he couldn't deny the logic of Alexander's reply. Without another word, he drew his silver gun and stepped without even a moment of hesitation into the dark crevice, as smoothly as though it was his own front door. Alexander gave him a moment and followed after, closing his eyes after he had stepped into the damp, reeking tunnel. After about ten seconds to let his vision adjust to the gloom, he opened them again, seeing with some relief that the image of the vampire walking ahead of him and the dark, ragged walls of the tunnel hadn't changed. So, the witch probably didn't have any magical traps set up –yet.

The distant roar of the surf echoed oddly the further they walked, and Alexander contemplated the walls of the tunnel warily. They were blotched with slime and algae and other water-loving molds, and mostly seemed to consist of the dark dirt of the island crushed flat, with grimy rocks studding the walls for variation. The floor was mostly the same sand and gravel as the boulder-strewn slope behind them, but even that straggled out after a while, leaving the same dirt as the walls and ceiling and giving Alexander, at least, the sensation that he was walking into the burrow of some huge, noisome beast. It was a strange and not entirely wholesome sensation, and he brushed aside the claustrophobia looming in the air, threatening to tighten his throat and weigh on his chest like a tombstone.

Alexander was not claustrophobic. In fact, he had no real phobias to speak of, which was a blessing when one considered his line of work. However, the definition of a phobia was an irrational fear, and Alexander felt perfectly justified in being slightly wary in and of tight tunnels like this one. He was a big, burly man, towering over six feet and with muscles built to match, which made him the likeliest candidate in almost any party to be stuck, trapped, or otherwise accidentally entombed. Being aware of that fact was just logic, and even in this case, Alucard was likelier to escape unharmed than he was. After all, the vampire could shapeshift to mist or a cauldron of bats to escape tight spots.

Unless he used his writ –which he could not, without his Bible– Alexander would simply be trapped.

But of course, that was only a ghost of paranoia in the back of his mind, something Alexander was mindful to keep consistently shoved to one side. As crude as this tunnel undoubtedly was, probably hollowed out by a very basic expenditure of magic, it was not about to collapse, and so far it had led on almost completely straight, though with a slight downward slope.

As they got closer to the witch's presumed lair, though, Alexander winced as the noxious smell began to thicken, becoming enough to almost choke him. More things than seaweed were rotting in this tunnel, and when he looked down, he could see numerous tiny skeletons around the fringes –mice and other rodents lured down here to a miserable death, picked over by scuttling crabs that even now retreated from he and Alucard's feet. Some corpses had clearly been down here for quite some time, little more than tangles of fur and bone, but others were newer, and still putrefying. Alexander had dealt with his fair share of corpses and their stench, but in this case it was rather gruesomely intensified by the unwholesome, overpowering addition of wet sand and rotting seaweed, of blood thickened into iron and the nameless reek of other ingredients.

It would have nauseated a lesser man, and really, Alexander didn't know how the vampire could stand it, unless Alucard had chosen to simply stop breathing and spare his nose. Alexander wished he could do the same.

Something else was billowing in thick and choking waves through the air, though. This tunnel was alive with the feeling of magic –powerful magic, dark magic. It pressed down on them like the thickening gloom, a heavy and malignant buzzing in their ears as Alexander's skin prickled with its proximity. It didn't feel familiar, so the witch probably wasn't using Alucard's power in this –but it was certainly powerful, nonetheless.

He shuddered and kept walking, following a few meters behind Alucard, who was walking with tight shoulders. If he had been in the shape of the many-eyed hound Alexander had seen him transform into on one or two occasions, he knew that the vampire's hackles would have been up and his muzzle split open in a menacing snarl, his body a coiled spring and his teeth ready to find someone else's throat.

The transition between tunnel and a hollowed-out grotto was abrupt –Alucard did not hesitate walking forward, and between one stride and the next for Alexander, the walls dropped away into a wide, roughly circular space a little larger than the house they had been staying in. It was dim and gloomy, with no light shining in from outside, though a few glowing lights shifted and sparked furtively inside some of the artifacts ranged about the room. The strongest –not the brightest, for it was glowing a sullen red that diffused more than it illuminated– was a large, circular thing that Alexander might have called a table under any other circumstances, except that its polished surface was shifting sluggishly, rising and falling like a pool of tar in constant motion. It was disturbing, the more so because some of the sullen veins of red running through it looked familiar, like the flickering embers that coiled within Alucard's shadows when he used his unholy power.

This rippling table was in the center of the grotto, and the witch was standing before it, hands clasped tight over the edges as that tarry substance clung to her –the witch seemed to be female beneath her rather stereotypical hooded cloak– curled fingers. Her lips were moving rapidly, and a buzzing roar filled Alexander's ears as nausea surged up in his gut, like he had been suddenly plunged deep below the water. Without giving her more time to weaken him, he flung his bayonets, a shining torrent of blessed steel plunging towards the witch as she hunched over her unnatural basin and muttered. A tongue of that tarry substance gushed upwards, catching every last blade and absorbing them utterly. Already moving to the side at an angle opposite to Alexander, Alucard shot at her, and another gout of that glistening black substance caught his bullet as well.

They did not exchange glances as Alexander's lips curled back in a snarl and Alucard drew his second gun –the black one. They both knew what they had to do as Alexander hurled a second storm of bayonets and shifted his position, and Alucard moved in the opposite direction at the same moment, picking off several shots. More sloshes of the tarry black substance erupted from the table again, but they were not as quick as before, even if they were just as strong.

More bayonets sprung into his hands as Alexander moved in close –he could afford to, he had the holy power that ran counter to this witch and Alucard both. He kept his distance from the ever-shifting table, though. While the tarry black substance oozed over the witch's hands, holding her fast in place, that was deliberate on her part, and Alexander had no idea what that…gunk did otherwise. Quite possibly it was harming the witch while she kept her hands embedded in it, but she had judged that as less of a threat than the two of them.

She seemed to be unprotected as Alexander swung a bayonet for her neck, but he knew better than that. The witch had been canny enough to catch Alucard by surprise, and she had obviously known from the beginning that whatever ritual or spell she was in the middle of, it would leave her rooted to the spot. No dark practitioner worth their salt would put themselves in such a vulnerable position without protections, but that was exactly the point of this attack. Alexander didn't know what kind of magic the witch was using to protect herself, and the best way to find out –was to trigger it.

Her eyes opened beneath her robe, bloodshot, and the tarry black substance suddenly surged up her arm, engulfing the tip of his bayonet as it plunged towards her. Alexander let go immediately, letting the darkness take his weapon. He had plenty more, after all, and he was not willing to let that shadowy murk make contact with him.

The witch's foot hissed against the ground, however, and Alexander was caught by surprise as it hooked around his ankle and jerked sideways in a move more suited for brawls in a bar than a witch combating a hunter. It only made him stumble for a moment, though, with his innate balance and training kicking in almost immediately as he steadied himself. The bad news, however, was that that stumble knocked him back a little, his elbow jogging the table, and making some of the tarry black substance slosh out onto his sleeve.

Horrible dry, sucking cold. It was an emptiness that latched onto him with a physical hunger, and a sickening lurch wracked his body as Alexander felt his blood shift inside his flesh, drawn to the point of contact even when his skin had not been pierced. It all his many years of fighting the uncanny creatures of the night, he had never felt anything so uncomfortable. More of the heavy darkness was escaping over him, flowing like eager and avid honey as it spilled over his arm, engulfing more and more of him by the second, and with a shudder, Alexander braced his feet against the gritty earth and strained. He pulled with every ounce of desperate strength he possessed as the shadows clung to him for a moment, and then broke away as he staggered back, away from the witch and the table, feeling briefly dizzy.

But mere physical discomfort couldn't stop his mind from working. There was a clue, there, in the familiarity of those shimmering red-black shadows and the horrid drain of them pulling on him. Alexander was willing to bet a respectable amount of money that this was the artifact that the witch had drained Alucard's power into, that the shuddering sensation that had latched onto him with such ferocity was the essence of a vampire.

So, what did that mean?

His eyes flicked back to the witch, hunched over the table with her hands buried, as they had been this whole time, in that parasitic darkness. Why did she need physical contact with that essence? Probably to make it do what she wanted. What was the best way for a magician to use and manipulate vampiric essence? Give it blood. Why did she keep her hands in the substance after giving it blood? Probably because it needed a continuous flow of blood to keep working.

So…what would happen if she couldn't maintain a continuous flow of blood for the spell to drain?

Probably nothing good, for the witch.

A sharp and deadly grin slid onto Alexander's lips, and he flicked a cluster of four more bayonets into his hand even as he backed away, readying himself to hurl them at her back. He threw, and did not care as the living darkness surged forwards to intercept his attack. If anything, that just invigorated him, and he summoned twice that number into his hands as he hurled them, too, at the immobile, chanting figure of the witch.

Alucard seemed to notice what he was doing quickly, those red eyes flicking from him to the witch and back again as calculations ran behind them, and then the vampire, too, started staggering his shots, raking them up and down the witch's form instead of merely aiming for her head or chest, forcing the tarry substance to surge in new directions, reach higher and lower, as she strained to protect herself.

The witch's face turned pale beneath its coating of dirt. Still her thin lips moved, still the vampiric essence surged to protect her.

Alexander surged in again for an overhand slice, making sure to approach from behind, her maximum area of vulnerability and the furthest point that the essence had to reach. It broke over her head in a tidal wave, catching his weapon as the tarry substance flowed like a cloak of oil over the witch's stooping shoulders. Alexander backed away before it could splash him, watching the witch tremble under that intangible weight as another gout of it reared upwards from her shoulder, absorbing one of Alucard's bullets.

That, however, seemed to be the last piece of ammunition the vampire had in his clips, and he growled in annoyance. Without thinking about it, Alexander shifted so that he was standing between Alucard and the witch, ready to stop the vampire from charging recklessly –he wasn't sure what would happen if Alucard contacted that stolen essence, but he was willing to bet that it would be nothing good, if the tarry goo was still under the witch's control.

Alucard seemed to know this as well, since his next move, rather than lunging past Alexander with teeth agape and hands ready to claw and rend, was to throw a moderately-sized rock with deadly speed and accuracy towards the witch's hip. Once again, like Alexander's, it was a move meant to draw the witch's attention and force her to act defensively rather than actually hurt her in any way, and it worked to perfection as the living clot of darkness surged downwards, absorbing this attack as well.

Alexander put the vampire's safety out of his mind and lunged to attack. Like a hammer and tongs, they beat upon her and the gouting sprays of sticky darkness, forcing them to ripple and surge like a pot of boiling black oil. Not for one instant did they let up, not for one second did they give the witch a chance to catch her breath and realize what was happening, as she paled and paled and paled. First the skin –then the hair.

The witch was covered in filth and grime, her hair tangled and matted and impossible to discern in terms of color, but Alexander could see it begin to whiten, growing lighter and lighter under the grunge as the witch's face sagged in on itself, wrinkles webbing across her face beneath its hooded shroud. She groaned, and finally seemed to realize her danger as her lips stopped muttering and she took a step back from the table –or tried to. The vampiric essence held her fast, and now her complexion was beginning to grey.

Both the vampire and the paladin watched as she began to shriek wild curses at them, but Alexander did not move to slice her head from her shoulders, and Alucard did not pick up another stone to throw. They simply watched as the grey of her complexion became the grey of rotting flesh, and she tottered where she stood. They watched as her hair turned white and cobwebby, as her wrinkled skin collapsed in on itself, as an ancient crone rather than a grubby matron struggled frantically to free herself from the shadows hungrily sucking her lifeforce away.

They watched as within the span of moments, the witch was shriveled into a dusty, desiccated corpse, wobbling vaguely on spindly feet. Another moment, and she collapsed to ash, as her grimy cloak billowed gently down around her to land on the damp earth and stone.

There was a ringing silence in the room for several moments.

"Pride goeth afore a fall." Alexander said at length, and Alucard huffed out a laugh, stepping cautiously forward to toe the pile of ash with his boot.

"As I thought." he said, his voice deepening into that smug bone-rattling resonant hum that Alexander hated so very much. "Lucky, rather than skilled. It was probably only a matter of time before she did something to get herself killed."

"Whatever makes you feel better about being caught, vampire." Alexander snorted, swishing his blades through the air as he looked at the other occult paraphernalia scattered about the cavern. Iscariot policy was always, always to destroy rather than retrieve, since even the holiest of artifacts were generally profaned by falling into the hands of wicked magicians like this. The only question now was what to do with the giant table, as well as the myriad other artifacts the witch had kept here.

The table, at least, had seemed to settle with the witch's death. Rather than the rolling, pointed waves of before, it had quieted almost completely, smoothing over to a black and glossy surface, like a huge mirror made of the finest polished obsidian, shimmering with opalescent glints of sullen coals deep inside itself. It looked beautiful, in a demonic and ominous sort of way, quiet and calm and dark as the deepest ocean. Alexander still wasn't willing to touch it.

Alucard, it seemed, had no such reservations. He leaned over the gleaming surface from where he stood near the witch's place, his crimson eyes gleaming, too, with a matching unholy light. Alexander's grip tightened on his bayonets as the sudden, visceral urge to attack welled up inside him –this was profane, something that should not exist. It was his duty to snuff out wicked lights like these.

"Alucard-" he hissed, needing to push something out through his clenched teeth and finding that it was the vampire's name as the instincts of a lifetime rose up in him, and Alucard absentmindedly hummed in response, those hellish red eyes distant as he extended a hand, stroking one white-gloved finger over the surface of the blackened substance. It rippled, but only subtly, like a shiver in the surface of a lake caused by the wind.

"No need to worry, Judas Priest." Alucard said, still without looking away from the table's surface or losing that hungry, eager expression. "This is mine. This is my power."

That really wasn't reassuring in the slightest. Alexander remembered that hungry, sucking darkness, the desolate chill that had torn through him, the brief impression that he was scoured hollow and there was nothing that would fill him ever, ever again. Was that what Alucard always felt like? No wonder he seemed at least a little mad.

"As within, so without, isn't that it?" Alucard asked, speaking in a murmur as if to himself, and making a fist, he suddenly lifted his hand and brought it down on the oily black substance –which shattered like the glass it now resembled. Alexander cast a wary eye on the shards as they tinkled to the ground –they were frozen and no longer moved, but he had seen what that essence could do. The vampire was focused on something else, however, wrenching one of the shards that had remained in the table's frame out of the wood, inspecting it for a moment before bringing it to his mouth and biting down with a gruesome crunch, something that briefly made Alexander wonder if it was the glass or the vampire's teeth that had broken.

It seemed to do the trick, though.

All the individual shards on the ground, and the fragment Alucard still held, melted and liquified, running towards him in a sudden whirling torrent of red-haloed ribbons of shadow. They sucked into Alucard as the vampire straightened, glowing for a brief moment too as his eyes shone and he bared his teeth in a triumphant laugh. That laugh echoed madly against the cavern walls as Alexander watched the vampire's red duster and cravat whirl into being, sweeping around his shoulders and throat as they fastened of themselves, and he felt the sudden, heavy press of Alucard's power flex against his senses as the sigils on the back of the Hellsing vampire's gloves flared a brief, bright crimson.

Alucard was back.


After all that, moving to smash all of the witch's instruments and thoroughly purify every inch of the ground was but a trifle, more busywork than anything actually important. Alexander got down to it, while Alucard excused himself on the basis of needing to at least try to make contact with his fledgling and Master.

Alexander tried not to think about everything that had passed as he called down the wards on the lighthouse building, letting that monument of his power fade and relax as he recentered his attention to this grotto. These last few days had been –odd. Very odd. He wasn't sure if the return of normality was something he welcomed, or something he wanted to avoid until he got all his feelings identified and sorted out. Then again, the faster everything went back to normal, the quicker he could forget any of this actually happened…

Well, there was no right answer.

Alexander was exacting and thorough in making sure that not even the smallest hint of the witch's power remained, although a cleanup crew would definitely have to come by the island to seal up this tunnel and take away the debris, as well as make the buildings fit to live and work in again. That would not be his job, however, and Alexander found his hackles standing up as he finished and turned to see Alucard waiting in the tunnel entrance, watching him work with a faint smile on his otherwise-inscrutable face.

One of the paladin's hands twitched with the urge to skewer that smile with a bayonet, but he resisted, and made a mental note not to form a habit of it. He could destroy the vampire after they had gotten off the island and made contact with their respective organizations, not before. It felt…wrong, to think of doing anything else.

"Did you manage to get something through?" Alexander asked as he approached the vampire, voice stiff, and Alucard's smile turned into a smirk.

"I contacted the Police Girl and informed her of the situation, yes." he hummed. He stepped aside, slightly, to let Alexander walk past him, and the paladin eyed Alucard warily. He could understand Alucard being polite to him when Alexander could rip his head off without much struggle, but Alucard continuing to be almost courteous after he had recovered his power was…odd. Even suspicious.

"Something you wanted to say to me?" Alexander asked after a moment, brushing past Alucard as he headed back towards the entrance. Alucard fell into step just behind him, something that made the hair on the back of his neck prickle.

"Did you want me to grovel a little more in gratitude for saving my life?" Alucard asked, amusement thick in his voice. "Even after we worked so well together as a team?"

"I wouldn't mind it." Alexander snorted. "But that's not what I meant. You're being nice, vampire, when you have no reason to. What's your game?"

"Ah." Alucard paused and snapped his fingers, mockingly imitating the idea that he was anything like a human who was prey to memory failure. "Thank you for reminding me, Judas Priest."

Alexander half-turned towards him, warily.

"Remind you of what-?"

Suddenly, with a swirl of his duster, Alucard was standing before him, and before Alexander could do anything more than register the wry mischief glinting in the vampire's eyes, Alucard leaned in and pressed a kiss against his lips.

It was gentle, and that was the only –the only– reason Alexander didn't punch the vampire away immediately. He'd expected –not that he ever had expected such a thing to happen to him, he had- he had expected it in theory– a vampire's kiss to be a harsh and biting thing, a mere prelude to the teeth that would soon seek his blood and soul. Or he might have expected it to be an iniquitous and sinful thing, a dark thrum of power and pleasure that tempted him down to his bones as the vampire pushed his will upon his mind and body.

This was not.

And the shock of that rooted Alexander as firmly in place as though he, and not Alucard, had been the one bound to feed the curse in the tower.

As he'd noticed either, when Alucard had mouthed at his wrist to feed, the vampire's lips were soft, and even as he recognized the fact for what it was Alexander realized that at least part of the taste carried on them was his own blood. It should have been repellent, but it felt –natural. It felt natural to taste his own essence on the vampire's lips, like there was never anything else that should be there. They were already bound so closely together as rivals. Why should Alucard not have already absorbed Alexander's blood into his very being?

It took him entirely too long to realize that his fingers were trembling, that his whole body was trembling. It took him even longer to notice that the vampire was touching him, hands lightly curled into the collar of his clothes, drawing him gently but irresistibly into the kiss.

He didn't want to stop him.

Alexander hated that about himself, but he didn't want this to stop.

It was far more intimate than he had ever thought a kiss could be, slow and careful and drawing every last scrap of his breath away, and when Alucard finally ended the kiss, pulling away just enough to let him gasp, Alexander could do nothing but blink dumbly for a moment, overwhelmed and struggling to process all too many things.

"What-?" he asked hoarsely, trying not to register how close Alucard still was, close enough for their lips to still brush against each other as he spoke.

Alucard settled away from him with a downright unholy smirk.

"Conventional wisdom dictates, Father Anderson," the vampire purred, running his fingers almost mockingly against Alexander's neck, straightening his collar slightly as those unholy red eyes flicked down to his mouth in a way that made Alexander swallow. "-that when you rescue someone from a tower and a witch, they must reward you with a kiss. I'm merely bestowing your due payment upon you."

Alexander felt like his face had turned red all the way down to the very marrow of his bones.

"I- you- this isn't-"

He didn't even have the breath to deny it, despite the fact he knew he must. He knew that there could be no other course of action but denial, because if he didn't-

He mustn't. He had to.

"Merely a token of my appreciation." Alucard told him, his red eyes glinting with smug promise, the side of his mouth curled up in a taunting smile. "Nothing more than that."

Right. Right. Yes. This was just –an attempt to throw him off balance.

It was damn well working, to be honest.

"If you want another kiss, however," Alucard said, abruptly letting go of his collar and stepping all the way away from him as the vampire grinned in a way that seemed almost human, despite the way his red eyes still sparkled with mischief. "-you'll have to earn it. It's not like I'm accustomed to playing the damsel in distress, after all."

Before Alexander could even begin to pick apart all the arguments and contradictions inherent in that statement –and there were a lot of them, beginning with the fact that he absolutely had no intentions of earning another kiss and ending at the absurdity of Alucard referring to himself as a damsel– the vampire turned, his duster flapping at his heels as he glided easily towards the entrance. He waved one hand behind himself at Alexander, nonchalantly, and it took a great deal of the paladin's self-control not to skewer him in a dozen different places.

"In the meantime, I suppose it would be rude if I didn't let you share my transportation back to the mainland." Alucard drawled. "I'll be waiting at the docks, should you need me."

Alexander did not follow after the vampire as he left, instead focusing on closing his eyes and taking deep, calming breaths. He needed to –figure out how to deal with this. Yes. He needed to rein in his two immediate urges, one of which was to run after Alucard and eviscerate him in twenty different ways, and riddle the resulting mess with more bayonets than even he knew what to do with. His second urge was a bit more shameful, mainly consisting of the memory of the vampire's lips on his and how much better it might have been if he had actually leaned into that kiss and responded to it.

He shook those urges from his mind and just breathed, trying to focus on the slow, sleepy rush of water against the shore, and the clean breeze blowing down the tunnel. It was okay. It was over. Everything was over and done with and all he had to do was leave this damned island, and probably spend a hefty amount of time in the confessional booth once he returned to Iscariot and finished his report. Alexander couldn't leave sins like these on his soul, temptation like this in his mind. Murder was permissible because he was killing monsters, but there was no such leeway when it came to lust. Lust only stopped being a sin when one was with one's spouse, and only when one had their consent and approval. He had no spouse. He was a priest.

Almost unconsciously, Alexander's fingertips rose to touch his mouth, feeling a ghost of memory there. His face reddened.

He was a priest, and he was absolutely going to have to undergo absolution for the thoughts running through his head right now.

Alexander turned on his heel, and began marching doggedly towards the sea. He was going to have some words with the vampire, while they waited for a boat to come retrieve them. And then…and then…well, he would see where things went. One thing was for sure, though: he would get Alucard for making him feel this way, sooner or later, one way or another.

He swore it.