"Alright, so everything's mapped out in my head, and I had my doughnuts. I feel like a million bucks," Vash said with stretch. It was one of those rare days where the sun was covered haphazardly by wisps of clouds and a warm breeze blew all cares away. Now all I have to do is pretend Alucard doesn't want to use me at meal time and then I can really enjoy the day! Vash sighed.

Speaking of which, I haven't had a bite in two days now, Alucard's voice reminded Vash lightly.

"God, do you ever sleep? You spend all day in that creepy coffin and whenever I say something that gets your attention you randomly pop up in my head!" Vash complained aloud, trying to suppress a shudder. The market was empty so he decided he'd use his mouth for conversation – he missed being sane.

"Funny, I remember asking you much the same question yesterday," Alucard commented casually.

"Just leave me alone for a while. We're chasing after my brother and he's been tormenting me ever since the landing. I've never been able to find where he was before unless he wanted me to. A week ago I ..." Life was simpler. Who'd have though that possible? With that Vash stood up, deciding to get as far away as possible from the Nosferatu before their travels resumed. He found himself sitting on a hill overlooking the city before he felt truly safe from Alucard's mind reading abilities, soaking in the light bathing him in energy.

Hey Alucard, you there? Vash tested. No response came, only the occasional noises leaking from the city to his distance. Can you hear me? He tried again. Still nothing.

"I guess he can't read my thoughts then. Good," Vash commented, enjoying the sunlight for a change. He was tired of waking up just before night time. The day before he fell asleep in the hotel to find himself awake early the next day due to the poison –today now- and though he could still its effects somewhat, he could at least move around and tell the passing of time like usual. Man, what was that stuff? He thought, enjoying the missed privacy Alucard had stolen from him with his habit for reading thoughts.

I wonder if Knives made it. Does he spend a night now and then just getting freakishly wasted to forget our past? 'Sure, he was beat up a lot by that hot head in the space ship but so was I, and I don't hate humans for it. They just aren't used things that are…different from them is all. Then there's Rem… how could you possibly hate humans when there are people like her? Maryl and Millie too! Vash stopped thinking about Knives and Rem. They wore on his weakening demeanor.

For a while he stared at the town, its many buildings and large center space for socializing and shopping drawing his eye and memories, casting a haze of afterthought on all of it. The sand had kicked up a bit, giving the wind a more arid and hostile feel to his walks down things long past. And then there's Alucard. His gaze hovered over their hotel, images of a casket and a supposedly sleeping dead guy who seemed a nightmarish version of his self. A kind of Vash that Knives could only dream of having for a brother. The kind he would only accept for a brother.

He makes no sense whatsoever- everything he does is confuses me. Why does he kill an entire building of innocent people one moment and then suddenly find me and not kill anyone just 'cause I told him not to? It doesn't make any sense. Wait, why is he with me in the first place? Vash thought, wondering when all of this happened. It all felt too poignantly nightmarish and real.

That's right, he thought, his alarm shrinking, he woke up in a T.G.C building or something, because someone he called his master locked him up for a long time…Wait. Who's his master? The Hellsing family? But who are they? How can he say he has a "master" so casually in the first place! Agh! I didn't understand a thing he said when we first met and I just joined him as if it were the natural thing to do? I've helped this guy out when he murdered all those people- no, I helped him because he asked me to and if I hadn't he would have hurt more innocent people. Now my brother gained his attention and I'm not sure if he'll let him live –no, he hasn't lied so far, why would he now? I have to trust him or else I'll be paranoid about it the entire trip. But...how do I know he doesn't actually want to meet someone like himself? Neither of them care about anyone else! I told him not to kill anyone, and he hasn't yet. Crap, why does this stuff always happen to me!

Vash stood up, realizing that he had to get some sleep before night came or he wouldn't be able to withstand another feeding from Alucard and be able to wake up in less than a half hour like the last time.

Slowly, he walked back towards the entrance to the city, ignoring the growing feeling of dread that after he went to sleep in the hotel he would have to find an isolated location. So far, he had narrowed his options to the farthest possible and private locations –the last thing he needed on his conscious was killing anyone within a large radius with his 'angel' arm.

He managed to walk past the gate before spotting a familiar tall blond making her way into a saloon. What! Vash thought, shocked at how narrowly he had managed to escape their sight. How did they find me?! Frantic, he raced towards the hotel for shelter.

"Vash!" He heard Maryl yell. He froze. Oh crap..erm...Alucard! Again Maryl called his name, he could already hear her running towards him.

"You have no idea how familiar this feels..." Alucard mumbled, materializing behind Vash and towering over him slightly. "Get inside the hotel before she realizes that she really saw you," he ordered calmly. Vash, too amazed at how quickly Alucard had come and figured out his situation nodded and sprinted the remaining few yards to the hotel, carefully shutting the door behind him.

"Vash! You jerk! Me and Millie had to go through Heck to find you!" Maryl yelled, hitting Alucard on the head with a random object she was able to procure from her purse and fling at him. The temperature fell a few degrees and she stepped back, obviously taken back at how 'Vash' had failed to fall dramatically to the ground begging for mercy from the thrown object. Alucard turned around with a toothy smirk and lifted an eyebrow.

"May I ask why you felt compelled to do that, Miss?" Alucard asked, a subtle undertone of threat included. Vash, I hope you fully comprehend what she has just done and that I will pay it back in full to you, Alucard commented to Vash mentally, the object in his hand. A tin traveling cup had been the offending object.

Maryl stepped back a few paces as Alucard smiled with fangs showing from the corners of his mouth just as casually as ever. His body was a full three feet taller than hers as he loomed over her.

"S-sorry, m-mister!" Millie finally said as Maryl stared at Alucard with apprehension in her eyes. Breaking from her thrown situation, Maryl made a deep bow to hide her embarrassment and fear of the man in front of her as apology. Her stomach held a pit of fear she had experienced before. She knew when to back away in haste.

"I-I'm sorry,"She stuttered finally, still unable to look him in the eyes completely. "I thought you were someone else…you had his kind of clothing on – kind of anyway. How s-silly of me, your clothing is very different from his. The only thing in common is their color –crimson," Maryl finally finished, though she was beginning to walk away at this point and somewhat rambling in amazement. "That guy was creepy!" Alucard heard her say to Millie, thinking they were out of hearing range.

He stood there for less than a moment and then walked into the hotel.

"Thanks. Uh…What'd you mean about the whole 'pay me back in full'?" Vash asked anxiously. Alucard raised the tin cup and grinned menacingly.

"You won't know when, and you won't know how," he said simply, the grin replaced by a smirk wide enough to split his face in two. He got that mad over getting hit with a tin cup? Vash thought, slightly confused but tired nonetheless. Alucard walked past the front desk to the stairs leading to the floor with their room. His boots made seemed to pull in noise instead of make it as he moved.

If your insurance girls are here, it is a safe gamble to say they will be needing a place to stay, correct? Alucard thought as Vash made it to the hotel room.

Oh crap! You're right! Vash thought, his face scrunching up at the thought of leaving and not getting any sleep first. Only one hotel in this town existed in town.

'Don't worry, we should be fine if we just stay in our rooms, Vash assured him after a quick pause. Entering the room, he threw himself on the bed, Alucard already fazing into his coffin against the foot of the bed on the floor.

"Worry?" The voice sounded amused.

"Then why bring it up?" Vash asked before nodding off.

Because every time we rest, you wake up halfway through the day and decide to wonder through the city, Alucard replied simply.

Oh right, Vash said sheepishly, already feeling sleep grip him.

-!-!-!-

"Holy crap! Don't ever do that to me again!" Vash yelped as Alucard began laughing cruelly with a cup of water in his hands. "I have heard that this is one of the best ways to wake up people –apparently it was true. I've always wanted to try it but I didn't feel like incurring the wrath of any of my previous masters - though I did attempt to wake you up at least once before this measure was taken" Alucard remarked, now smirking from on top of his coffin.

"You really have to explain this whole 'master' and 'Hellsing' thing to me," Vash said annoyed, shaking cold water from his hair dog-style.

"We have two hours to find a remote place for me to feed and for you to gain consciousness after I am done," Alucard stated abruptly with his usual smirk returning, completely ignoring Vash's statement.

"What if I don't become conscious before the two hours is up?" Vash asked curiously, wondering why the vampire was being so specific.

"You'll be wasting another day and prolonging our trip together," Alucard said, examining his gloves with a look of curiosity. Vash's face scrunched up just thinking about how many more times he would have to be fed off of if the trip were prolonged by a day every time it happened. I just have to hope, Vash thought to himself with a sigh. He silently walked down the hotel steps and into the first floor. The suns were about to hide themselves from the horizon as he pushed the front double doors open to have Millie crash into him.

Oh God! It's Millie! He thought, not able to believe his bad luck. Quickly he grabbed Millie and forced her to the side of the building.

"Okay, Millie. I need to tell you something very important, Alright?" Vash asked pleadingly. Millie nodded with her trademark smiles.

"Gee , Maryl sure was upset when she thought she saw you earlier, but it turned out to be some really scary guy-" She started, but Vash shushed her, putting a finger to his lips.

"Millie, please don't tell Maryl I was here!" he begged, eyes sparkling and widening for dramatic affect – his normal façade appearing. "If you tell her, she'll follow me and if she does, she'll get hurt! I don't want that to happen. I'm about to go after some really bad guys and when I'm done I'll go find her okay?" Vash explained looking Millie in the eyes.

"Promise?" She asked, her eyes fierce as she prepared herself to face Maryl –wherever she was at the moment.

"I, Vash the Stampede, do solemnly swear and promise to find you and Maryl after fighting the bad guys!" Vash said, his hand covering his heart for further effect. Millie, accepting this, gave him a giant bear hug which prevented him from breathing properly and nodded. She released him, leaving him gasping for breath with a solid thumbs up to show appreciation.

"Okay , I trust you, but if your make Maryl cry I'll never forgive you, okay?" She finished with a look that told him she meant it. He nodded and smiled, loving the giant teddy bear that was Millie with all his heart for letting him get past the city without being caught by Maryl's Vashdar ((radar…gaydar...vashdar…sure, it works:D)).

"Wish me luck!" Vash whispered as he crept his way from Millie and into the market circle trying to be unseen. Wish me luck and hope I survive is more like it, Vash thought as he finally reached the outside of the front gates.

He found Alucard already sitting on his coffin waiting for him, peering at the already moonless night sky outside the city. Prepared, he brought out a flashlight and beamed the light forward as the suns finally surrendered to the darkness, getting his bearings before leaving the city behind and heading towards the area he had chosen for his next experience with Alucard's literal blood-lust.

"Can you see in this? It's pitch dark with the moons gone, I have an extra flashlight," Vash asked, his mood somewhat improved after speaking to someone besides Alucard for a change (Millie). The earlier breeze had turned to frigid gusts.

"I can see perfectly accept for a certain area in which your flashlight is shining," Alucard said sarcastically, his gloved hand making impossible shadow beasts in the flashlights beam as he passed it through the light. Vash blinked and shook his head, and the many shadow puppets gradually disappeared though Alucard's hand hadn't been through the light in over a minute.

"You make me really glad there aren't any others like you on this planet," Vash commented, recuperating from what he marked as possibly the sixth thing Alucard had shown him since their first meeting that confused and shocked him. "erm, I mean… Sorry, I didn't mean it like that, well I did but not like-" Vash rambled, realizing how cruel he had sounded. Crap.

"You said nothing wrong, it's good that I am the last of my kind on this planet. I spent at least two hundred years eliminating them on Earth before my hibernation," Alucard commented casually. Vash froze and turned, unable to believe what he had just heard. His face was twisted into an expression of pain and astonishment.

"W-what? Why!" Vash asked, seeing Alucard suddenly in a new perspective. Alucard, as if himself amazed looked back at Vash, his smirk gone.

"Perhaps I have said too much about my past for now. I will explain to you my job as a servant to the Hellsing family after we have defeated your brother and his subordinates, though maybe it would make more sense to you after I find my new master," Alucard explained coolly to Vash who was at this point extremely confused. Why would he destroy his own people! Was he forced to? He thought, almost brought to tears at how positively horrible even the idea of it was. I never really thought much about why I had never heard anything about vampires and stuff like that, is it really because he killed his own kind?

"I wouldn't dwell on it too long." Alucard interrupted, breaking his sudden chaotic conscious. "I'm hungry, and we've only traveled a short distance." Vash continued to look at Alucard, trying to guess why he would possibly do such a thing when he realized he had mentioned 'his new master.'

"'New master?" He asked, starting to walk again after the shock subsided. Alucard grinned, lifting up a gloved hand.

"As long as the symbols continue their presence, a member of the Hellsing family is alive and thus I am still bonded to them. Having been awakened so recently, I do not know who." The look on his face was the exact opposite of what he had expected – it was joy!

"I don't understand you at all," Vash complained half to himself, head shaking.

Another hour past before they finally made it to the sand dunes. The hilly nature of the sand created isolated spots in between them, and being miles away from the last city making it the only safe place for Vash to be bitten.

"Well, this is interesting. Sand dunes without plants holding the sand up," Alucard commented as Vash sat down.

"Sand worms go nuts during a certain time of the year and their jumping makes the sand move, and for some reason the sand tends to group in hills until the wind flattens them again. No one's ever really tried risking their neck to find out how it works, but I know at least that much," Vash tried to explain.

"I must see these 'sand worms' sometime," Alucard replied, placing his coffin next to Vash and sitting on it. Cold sweat ran through his pores. Now he remembered why he was there in the first place. I wish it wasn't so painful, he thought forcing himself to sit next to Alucard. The flashlight sat on its side so he could see, but Vash turned it off. The small click somehow seemed ominous.

"You realize that every time after the first becomes considerably worse, correct?" Alucard asked before closing the small space between them. Vash nodded, his skin crawling and a shiver going up his spine as he sat there with Alucard next to him. How much worse could it possibly get?

Just as before, the sensation was ticklish at first but then Alucard bit down, the crunch associated with it obliterating all thoughts as he braced for the rest of it. Cold replaced the warmth in his body as pain came in full volume, not staying in the same level for too long and not once becoming tolerable. Vash unconsciously struggled and fought, his eyes seeing darkness enclosing him. The pain continued to gain strength, as if pulling energy from Vash's struggling and torment.

Do not give in to the darkness! Vash heard a harsh warning voice say as he felt the unholy blackness coil around his body, slowly pressing against his skin tighter and tighter until he couldn't breath. He heard sickening crunching as his rib cage. He felt all sanity leave him as he struggled harder against the death that ensnared him. Finally he stopped moving, unable to struggle anymore, and it was over in a sudden unending moment.

"Vash-" Alucard began, his voice filling the darkness Vash had thought had finally been ebbing away and bringing alarm that screamed 'fight or flight' to all sections of his brain. 'Frantic' did not begin to assess this properly. Not thinking, not hesitating: Vash lifted his revolver and only vaguely registered the squeezing of his trigger finger. There were a loud series of clicks and bangs and consciousness left again.

-!-!-!-

Vash woke up shivering. Quickly, he felt his ribs, they were fine. He felt his neck, it was free of any marks just like the last time. I thought I was going to die! He thought, a bright light shining into his face and breaking a few rays of sanity into the melancholy glooming his reality.

"I thought you would like to wake up with some light. You did pretty well, no one's ever lasted the second time before." "Although I stopped early for your sake. It's been one hour."

Vash didn't say anything, too preoccupied with the revolver in his hand – he smelled sulfur. Again his mind seemed to want to hide everything that happened when he was being fed off of, and he did not question why. All he remembered was the black thing that almost killed him –or so he thought, since his ribs were not actually broken. His hands trembled, still in a state of shock, as he checked the bullet chamber. It was empty. Reading Vash's confusion, Alucard answered: "You have wonderful aim when you're scared to death! You shot me in the head five times, and once in the heart when you couldn't see me!" The vampire applauded, standing in the shadows.

I did that? I don't even remember taking my revolver out, not to mention anything before I was bitten. Was the thing that tried to kill me real or just a nightmare within a nightmare?

"It was very real, but you felt pain because it was trying to kill your soul by crushing your will. That is what every human feels before their body dies, only I withdrew before you gave in –not that many remember the severity of the experience after turning into my kind of monster. In most cases they forget completely, too interested in their new powers. Giving in is what would have made you into me, or at least for a human it would. I've never dreamed of your particular background." Alucard lectured as if Vash were his student. Again it took more energy than Vash thought he had in him to even listen to that voice.

"'Sorry," Vash apologized; still trying to remember when exactly he had made the decision to shoot Alucard. If he would have been human, he'd be dead right now. I would have killed him if it weren't for that! Vash thought, though he couldn't bring himself to beat himself up too much. All too quickly Alucard was beginning to mess with his sense of right and wrong –corrupting his morals, and he knew it. I have to hurry and get this whole thing over with!

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

Authors rant

Yay! They're finally getting somewhere! Alright, this chapter is one of the long-ish ones from what I can tell…so I won't rant too much. I think I'm loosing my touch, what do you think? I spent a little more time on this one since I had to explain some stuff about Alucard to Vash…once again I cant wait until the Knives/Vash/Alucard battle….its going to be in Alucard's pov I think…it'd be more fun to write that way, but it all comes down to whether or not I can figure out his thoughts..since his logic is kind of twisted…thinks I can kind of grasp it MEEEP! will try anyway: hope you liked the chapter :D

Vash: You haven't done anything over the fact that I haven't eaten anything but doughnuts the entire story so far…how do I survive!

Me:…good question..erm…you eat sunlight and gain nutrients from erm…water…yeah…water you drink.

Vash: But I've been traveling at night…

Me: yeah….erm…you eat moon light?

Vash: its been a moonless night like twice already due to your twisted logic of how the world works….

Me: you know what?

Vash: What?

Me: STOP COMPLAINING! flings doughnut box at him and runs away before he can complain more