Vash found himself awake hours before the sun came down. He yawned, walking away from the hotel and finding himself sitting on yet another semi-secluded bench every town seemed to have -along with saloons and bakeries- watching the people move to and fro in the market. As always, he found himself recapping on what had happened recently, and found himself in a melancholy mood without his perky insurance girls there to keep his characteristic front in check. It seemed as if the day had been pointless without another smack upside the head from Maryl, or Millie giving him those angelic smiles to him at random occasions.
"Ow! What was that for?" Vash complained, a sharp pain focused on the back of his head throbbed as he dug a pebble from his flesh. The tiniest specks of blood glinting on the index finger used to dig the pebble out. A pebble made me bleed? He turned to see who had hit him.
"Stop whining, a person could hear your thoughts a mile away!" Alucard stated simply, a few more pebbles in his hands. "Do you always have to think of your insurance girls?" He asked, his detached and floating hands dropping the pebbles still in them, and disappearing as if leaving through an invisible door. Vash -now traumatized by what he had just seen- stared where not Alucard, but Alucard's arms and hands had been floating, mouth agape. That's funny, it almost sounded like he was complaining for a sec there! Vash thought randomly as he slowly recovered from the newest trick Alucard had revealed to him. "Simpleton, I was complaining," Alucard echoed in his mind.
Can't you ever act normal for a second? Vash complained back, realizing that there may be a chance to reform him if given the chance.
"Reform me? From what, eating a few 'bites and snacks' along the daily trail? Leave me to enjoy the simple things in death!" The vampire retorted. "Now let me sleep, I haven't had a drop of blood in two nights!" Vash froze as the tiny presence in his head disappeared.
Oh yeah, he …er…oh crap! For a frantic moment he tried to figure out how the vampire gained his victims blood. I'm sure it'll be something simple…he wouldn't slice off an arm or anything to get it, right? Maybe slitting a wrist or something? Vash stopped his sudden preference to slitting his wrists as he realized what Maryl would say when she saw the scars. After a few days or weeks or so of slitting them they wouldn't heal as quickly, the scars becoming noticeable to the over protective insurance lady. Then she'll think I tried to kill myself. Would she believe me if I said it was for an insane weirdo who drinks blood? No, it takes some serious proof to convince her of something, and I can't introduce Alucard to her. Crap! His mind reeled with possible ways to feed his new traveling companion
I'm sure he knows a way to make it unnoticeable after living as long as he has, Vash assured himself as he watched the suns slowly make their way out of view, and darkness ate away at the market's previously bright nature. He stood up, stretching in the last rays of sunlight, and headed slowly to the hotel.
-!-!-!-
Vash hesitated before entering the hotel room, the thought of his blood in Alucard's mouth disturbing him to no end. The door opened unexpectedly, and he could see Alucard stretching next to his coffin. Did he open the door without touching it? Vash almost laughed but the expectant patience for something in Alucard's eyes stopped him. I saw his hands floating earlier and I am still amazed at most of the stuff this guy does! Vash managed to force himself a few steps forward. Alucard sat on his black coffin, waiting for his meal, or so Vash assumed so.
"You," Vash managed to choke out, "won't turn me into a thing like you right?" Alucard chuckled and nodded. The door shut behind him.
"What, are you a virgin?" he asked, looking incredulous. He laughed harder now as Vash looked at the ground. "This is new, but I highly doubt I can turn a monster into another monster," he said. "Even if that monster is a virgin," he added.
"What do you mean 'even if that monster is a virgin'? How does it matter?" Vash asked, not caring in the least that he was a virgin at his age. I am not a monster, he thought offensively. He must have some way of telling who's human or something. He said something about me not being human when we first met, but I was too shocked at the other stuff he was saying to me at the time. Did he figure it out by reading my mind or something?
"Now Vash, I'm hungry, and you seem to think the world is better off with me feeding off of you instead of humans, so stop hesitating. You are the one who set these rules by which I must abide by. If you wish to change them now it will not matter much-" Alucard stopped as his new blood bank stepped forward and sat down next to him.
"So uh, how do you …erm... get my blood exactly?" Gosh, I hope it doesn't leave a scar for Maryl to see if it's something like cutting my wrists! Alucard blinked and looked at him as if amazed at Vash's stupidity. It ended and he chuckled again.
"You didn't realize how I fed on people, even after seeing the corpses?" Alucard asked with a hand on his head as he laughed uncontrollably. That was him…feeding!? The bodies with their necks missing patches of skin on their necks, and the ones with their head ripped of by some weird weapon? That was his teeth? Is that what he's saying! I have to let him get near my neck? He'll kill me! 'Fight or flight' mode didn't begin to cover this...
"Besides the fact that I could kill you without a fight, being so close, I highly doubt I could turn you into one of my kind," Alucard reassured him again. "So you realize what it means now? Good. Do you wish to continue in this particular rule, then?" He asked, laughter ceasing. Vash stared at the ground, knowing there were no alternatives.
"I'm not going to let you hurt anyone- the rule stays, but…is there any other way besides letting you…er…you know, near my neck?" He asked, hopefully. Wait, did he just say highly doubt? As in not knowing for sure! Well, ah… crap!
"Well, if you want me to cut off your hand to get the amount of blood I need in a decent amount of time, no. The largest vein in the human body is the jugular, and quickly dispenses blood when punctured," Alucard said grinning. How can he grin at this? Vash thought, disturbed at yet another aspect of Alucard's personality.
"So basically," a deep sigh overtook him, "I have to trust you and hope you don't break my neck, or turn me into a vampire?" The response was a nod.
"If it helps at all, I continue the agreement that I will not do either. My promises are binding." Alucard said with a smirk replacing the previous movements of his face. Vash's eyes shut tight for a brief moment as he summoned the courage to trust the man he knew murdered innocent people. Please let him keep his word! He sent his hope to a God he wasn't sure existed.
"Okay." Alucard's gaze on him narrowed suddenly and as Vash looked up to see him reaching towards him, jaw seeming to separate like a dogs more than a mans, fangs included. Involuntarily he jerked out of their reach. Realizing what he did he wondered if he should apologize or something, and looked up. The vampire merely watched him, hunger not being hidden from his red eyes. "Erm, yeah…" Vash muttered, the words falling off his tongue nervously. He moved back towards Alucard and closed his eyes, not wanting to watch.
For a brief moment he wondered if it would be better to have his revolver pointed at the man's arm or something, but realized it wouldn't help at such close range. Slowly he undid the two buttons holding the protective neck piece on his trench coat, eyes still tightly shut. Cold emanated from Alucard's gloved hands as he ensnared Vash in his arms. At first it seemed almost ticklish, but then came pain: sharp and prolonged, growing and changing in strength every second. It surprised him at just how much pain he felt, the feeling of skin suddenly being punctured and then a major vein in his body. He thought he could hear a crunch, and the pain enveloped him soon after it. Cold replaced blood in his veins, it seemed, with a sudden rapidity that shocked him. The feeling was soon added to a colorful background of sharp and unending pain.
His hands tightened into balled fists and he squirmed to no avail in Alucard's unyielding grip as he felt the strange and consistent pulling of the blood from him. It continued for what seemed like forever, the pain so intense Vash couldn't think. He knew his eyes were open, but he couldn't see anything but black, and the feeling continued until it reached a medium and stayed there, not becoming bearable, and not letting him escape it for a moment. When it stopped, it left him in a state of shock while Alucard gently removed his fangs and licked the wound until it had healed completely. Vash, still blind from the pain, fell to the floor, convulsing and reduced to hugging himself with his arms. It took a half hour for him to regain any sanity he had previously begun with, site returning to his eyes.
"Congratulations, you are neither dead, nor a vampire!" Alucard stated sarcastically as Vash sat up from next to the rooms one bed –Alucard had slept in his coffin. Vash couldn't bring himself to even look at the man.
"So that was it? When's the next time?" Vash asked, fear creeping into his voice. He felt light headed and woozy, and his neck ached slightly, he felt it for wounds –nothing. How is that possible? He wondered.
"You took it extremely well, in my opinion, stayed awake the entire time-though whether that is a good thing for you to be enduring it the entire time or not is another thing entirely. Most would have either had died from shock of it all or gone unconscious for hours. It has only been a half-hour and you're awake, quite the feat. I haven't taken enough but I have had enough for another day or so. Did you know that under extreme stress your body can convert you're arm into a nasty looking piece of equipment?" Alucard asked casually. Vash stopped breathing for a moment. My arm…it...No way! I could've blown up the town!
"Please note that you are very much alive and did nothing to break my promise," Alucard pointed out the smirk returning to his face. "So what is your verdict? Are we going to do this every time I am hungry or…?" Vash closed his eyes and shuddered out his next words.
"Every time until you find that other way to eat, cloning blood or whatever," Vash managed, through his teeth. I won't have anyone go through what I just experienced if I can help it! He thought resolutely, though fear wove itself in and out of his thoughts. Next time, he thought with an involuntary fist on his knee, it'll be done away from anywhere I could hurt anyone, just in case my arm goes berserk again.
"Shall we leave now?" Alucard asked, securing his coffin with either some kind of magic or invisible straps which Vash could not see and hefting it onto his back. The question had been rhetorical. The desert had dropped to its normal night temperatures – freezing. Vash relied on the hundred year old suit under his trench coat for warmth.
They made it to the outskirts of the town in minutes, the hotel being less than quarter mile from it. Alucard stared at something on the ground as Vash walked a few feet in the direction they had planned to head, thinking Alucard was following. "You can find even a rose in a desert if you look hard enough," he murmured, reciting a quote from an ancient play from Earth- though his partner had no idea. Realizing the distance between them, he sped up enough to maintain a solid five foot bubble of space.
"A flower?" Vash asked questioningly. The town had little water to speak of, and yet he could tell it was healthy even in the dark. "Were there..." Vash paused looking at the flower as if it were a giant diamond they had stumbled across, "lots of flowers on Earth?" Alucard looked at him curiously, but responded. His voice much less painful than looking directly at him.
"Yes, though I don't remember much of them since I was human. They came in all colors imaginable. I seem to remember roses best."
"Roses, huh? Figures," Vash commented, knowing all to well the crimson color roses held, though he had only heard of them in books he had read when Rem was – he stopped that train of thought, not wanting Alucard to read his thoughts.
Finally, Alucard moved away from the flower and followed Vash. "So you can see in the dark, right?" Vash asked, looking straight ahead into the semi-darkness. Full moons always lasted two days on the planet, just as there would be two new moons and two crescents and so on, so he could see most things in the darkness.
"Yes," he responded.
"Good, 'cause if any sandworms come, we're going to need to get a heads up."
"Sandworms?" Alucard asked, curiously.
"They're like giant worms with teeth and they can eat someone whole if you don't look for them."
"I see," Alucard said, curiosity edging his voice. Then, as if it had just occurred to him: "your resilience is unnerving if you've managed to speak to me even this much after earlier," he commented. Vash wondered if it was a compliment but didn't reply. The rest of the night went along quietly, no worms, and no surprises.
A few hours before the morning, Vash realized that the next town would be too far off to reach before the suns rose in the sky, and he was tired. His gut told him that it was from Alucard feeding off of him that had sapped his energy, but to take his mind off that whole ordeal he chose to think it was him getting out of shape. Having traveled the sands for upwards of a century he knew exactly where a large cavern under the sand sat not too far off. It had once been a proud member of the seeds ship but had been too damaged for him to try and repair the last time he visited. Another reason was that Alucard didn't seem to like sunlight, and tried to avoid if it at all possible.
I wonder if something bad happens if he's in the sunlight…? He wondered after explaining to Alucard his intentions of spending the day in the cavern. The tall man agreed. It bothered Vash more than a little that he acted as if there existed no reason to rush anything, to get anything done. An uneven mix of caring and not caring.
It took about an hour to reach the cavern and another half hour to make sure the place wasn't being used by robbers or anything along those lines. Alucard placed his coffin in the innermost corner of what was left of the underground ship. After years of sitting there the once empty ship had gradually been filled with sand until only that small portion remained, top thirty-five feet or so of something that easily covered a small town. It was lucky for him that it hadn't been completely filled by time when he reached it. I need to take into account the passing of time more often, or I'll get screwed next time!
The moons were beginning to hide behind some far off sand dunes and the sun's glow had reached a small portion of the desert when Alucard walked from the door he had stood post at all morning.. In his hand was the flower from the beginning of the night, his fingers feeling its petals and his eyes examining it with a sudden interest. Vash noticed.
"Why'd you pluck it! It was healthy where it was!" It was then that he realized it was significantly easier to look at the crimson vampire. Alucard looked up, no smirk or all knowing smile overcoming his face.
"I didn't. This is another flower. I had thought they were rare, but on our way they seemed to be around every half mile or so," Alucard said.
Vash curiously looked at the hole at the top of the ship, they were at least thirty-five feet below ground as he could judge. Weird, maybe the plants are finally adapting or something, he thought, making space for his bed under a sand covered computer desk-type object. Alucard lay in his coffin and shut it, not to come out again until later that day when the sun was completely gone.
Sleep came with much difficulty; every time he shut his eyes he would think he felt Alucard trying to feed off of him again and would wake up trying to escape his imaginary foe. Finally, during the hottest part of the day he gave up and climbed the sharp incline out of the ship to get some fresh air. It was about an eight foot drop from the bottom edge of the ships ragged entrance to the sandy ground. He fell with a slight "umph!" at the unexpected feeling of the ground. It was hard, and yet it was sand. He looked at it suspiciously, kicking the ground to reveal a tightly woven and intricate pattern of roots just inches below the sand. That would explain why the ground feels like cement, but what's with the roots? He wondered. At least five of the flowers were around the ship that had not been there the previous night, he noticed trying to figure out the reason for all the roots.
He covered his eyes with his right and peered into the endless miles of sand; a sudden wind blew sand into his eyes and forced him to look down. What is going on here?
"Hi, are you Vash by any chance?" A voice asked from behind him. He whirled around to the voice to see a crippled old man leaning on a cane. He had sunglasses over his eyes and behind him was a teenager a few feet taller than the at least four foot high man. His arms were folded and he watched Vash intently with guns strapped all around his belt and a rocket launcher hanging to his back. Crap! Who are these guys?
"Are you Vash the Stampede?" The old man asked, annoyed by Vash's lack of response. Hurriedly, Vash looked for any possible ways out but knew he was surrounded by miles of sand and nowhere to hide but the sand dunes and the ship, but with that rocket launcher they could cave the ship in if they wanted to.
"You want to know who I am?" Asked Vash seriously to the old man and the teenager. He paused thinking of a way out of this predicament while examining his opponents. The teen had short brown hair and eyes, and the old man had graying hair and cloudy blue eyes, both didn't look friendly. He sighed giving up the thought of running away-it would be useless. "I am Erick Longbottom Aluwishous Doughnuthaven Love N' Peace the Third, or you may know me as Erick Longbottom or Aluwishous or Love N' Peace or the Third –wait…that wont work…okay any of the above except 'The Third," because that sounds weird!"
"What a load of bull, yep that's him! According to the others he likes to waste time and act dumb," the teen said. Immediately the teen raced forward and began to shoot at him with two of the guns attached to his belt, Vash barely dodged the semi automatic. He managed to evade a few of the kid's kicks and punches as well as his revolver and other gun while pulling out his own revolver and aiming for the child's arm to injure him a bit. He fired and missed. To his shock a tall thick root had come out of ground and blocked it, though with a price: it was now withering into dust. Vash stared amazed, I bet Alucard would find this interesting, he thought as the teen overcame his bewilderment at almost being shot and began yelling at the old man. "I could have handled this buffoon on my own! I would have dodged the bullet!" he complained.
Vash turned to study the old man briefly who had moved his cane slightly and found himself leaping into the air to avoid tendrils grabbing at his ancient boots. Apparently the roots didn't care. They waited for his innevitable fall back to sand, curling around his limbs instantly. Oxygen quickly ran a deficit. Light headed and off guard he fought to aim his revolved to the largest offender... the tendril moved out of aim. Fruitlessly he began trying to point his gun at the cane. The old man, seeing what Vash intended, moved his cane again in another direction and the roots forced his hand to move the gun to under his chin. Damn it! He thought, looking around.
"Alright, Mr. Knives's brother, Vash the stampede, your brother wants to know how you've been able to block his attempts to find you in the past few days. If you don't answer things could get sloppy since he said that if we lowly worms could kill you, you weren't worth anything alive," the teen said menacingly.
Knives? They work for him? He's only a kid! The tightening roots loosened slightly allowing him to breathe enough to not pass out. Vash looked at the ground, trying to persuade them that he was alone. Okay Alucard, you say you can hear my whining a mile away, let's see if its true! Vash thought suddenly, hit by an idea. I miss Maryl, and I miss Millie… Life is soooo much better with them! I miss Mayl's daily slaps upside the head… He thought, emphasizing the words in his head to make them as annoying as possible. The response was immediate.
"Vash, I thought you could handle yourself against two humans? And must you use them as a means of annoying me awake?" Alucard's voice echoed in his head.
"Yes!"
"What?" The old man looked to the ship as if something there were hurting him and fell to the ground gasping. "Jake!" he gasped to the teenager, and with an even greater struggle he managed to utter: "-The cave! Something is killing my flowers from there! Blow it up!" With the last sentence he collapsed convulsing, the roots slackened and withered. Vash fell to the ground much like the old man, taking in great gulps of air before racing to 'Jake' to stop him. Crap! He thought as he saw him grab the bazooka from his back, aim, and fire. The result was immediate. A great fire emerged from where it had been shot inside the ship, and the barrier preventing much of the sand from coming in broke. Sand entered the ship in torrents as Vash raced to the quickly filling ship. Oh crap! He's in there! He thought as another large explosion forced him off his feet.
"Oh no, you don't! Whoever's down there is dead now!" The boy yelled glancing at the old man apathetically and firing another round from the bazooka without warning. Vash felt himself flying from the impact. Shards of sharp metal flew from it. Several imbedded themselves into the back of his head as he ran away.
Jake fired off round after round at Vash's body until he was out of shots, and then pulled out the two guns and walked towards him confidently. The bazooka had been thrown down beside the old man. The shards of metal covered the ground and now a line along vash's ear to his chin. Experimentally, he grasped one and yanked. It did not come out smoothly. A piece of his flesh came with it followed by the sensation of warm liquid to the side of his brow. Dust kicked up in the air made it sting.
"This is the great Vash the Stampede? Beaten by a teenager? What a joke!" He sneered, kicking Vash in the side. "All it took was a modified bazooka and some poisoned shrapnel! A dying monster! I can't believe I beat you! Everyone made you out to be so much…more than you really are, ya know that?" The kid continued on as Vash flopped over, pretending to be dead. Personally the poisons had affected him tremendously, but he did not feel like he was dying – not yet anyway. He could tell already the toxins had only made him slower so far. He silently cursed himself for not telling Alucard to get out immediately. Now he's buried under at least thirty feet of sand. In a coffin no less! Vash almost chuckled. Do I really dislike him so much that I can laugh about this? Even if he was a monster –no he was human once, Vash began.
"Do you still need my help?" Alucard's voice broke through his self ridicule.
"Alucard!" Vash managed to mumble. He was beginning to feel less slow and more ...drunk. Flippity floppity. Oh this was bad, the poison wasn't deadly, it was the magical boon he'd wanted all his life except not right now at this very freaking moment. Though, hands down, he felt absolutely invincible and king of the world – so why did he need Alucards help again?
"Nah, I got this...'Ole Red Eyes..i dooooo...i do..." Vash couldn't help slurring the words towards the end. It seemed as if he'd swallowed an entire pitcher of expensive wine in five minutes. Had it been five minutes? Things were moving, but maybe that was because he was moving...
"Oh so you're alive, are you? Amazing. I guess you live up to at least half your reputation then, Vash." The boy commented with a kick to Vash's head.
"Well?" Alucard asked again. "I won't ask again, if you can still handle this I am going back to sleep."
"You do realize you'ree under, like, thirty feets of sand riiiiight?" Vash asked aloud, amazed.
"Of course, how could I not? The noise was horrid, but I refuse to get into the sunlight just to save someone who can save himself. " A short lucid moment hit Vash for one coherent thought:
"I 'm not sure, the kid used poison or something when he tried to blow me up earlier and now I can't seem to function..."
"Do you have any idea how ludicrous that sounded?" Vash heard vaguely. A sigh followed. "Alright, I'm coming up. I am not going out into two suns."
"Well, I've had enough of this! Screw Knives, you're hardly worth my time," Jake announced. A genuine look of sadness sifted through Vash's increasingly drunken haze. He put his semi automatic on his belt and raised his revolver to Vash's head.
-!-!-!-
authors rant:
I AM SOOOO SORRY GUYS! I didn't mean to have you wait so long, I had a lot of stuff to worry about and such, and I'll have even more to worry about until school over in about a month…but don't worry! I plant to have this story done with by the end of the year AT MAX! that's funny I thought I heard a few of my fans just fall over backwards from a heart attack at the words: "less than a year at max" ….i shrug now and laugh maniacally. Anyway…the thing where vash gets bitten is my innermost fantasy..not that he gets turned into a vampire or anything just the cuteness of having alucard…ermm..nvermind…hits head on desk BE GONE EVIL THOUGHTS THAT ARE VERY CLOSE TO HAVING THEM GAY SOUNDING! I refuse to help in the rumor that Alucard may be bi…to me that is just….Sacrilegious! to me worshipping alucard is my religion…:D I am a very twisted person..and I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to steal his hat…. . ….anyway: sorry to leave you all on a kind of cliff hanger thingy…the next chapter begins with some cool stuff….see alucard come OOOoooOOOoh! A shiny object! Plays with shiny object and forgets what I was about to say :) yep…sorrys if this chapter sucks..once again I accept flame mail since that's how you improve stuff. I have fixed the fact that Vash has green eyes and not blue eyes on the files on my com but have yet to fix them online until they are completely edited sooo yeah… hope you enjoyed this:D