A/N: I'm twenty! :Runs around like a beheaded chicken: Luckily for you peoples, I've been scribbling on his fic during my English class. And I'm actually allowed to. So that's why you got the shiny update so quickly. That and I enjoy torturing my muses. Chapter title thanks to awesome girlfriend of DOOM.

Before I forget, I'd like to say that I don't own Gundam Wing, Hellsing, or Dracula. I'd like to, but I don't. So read, enjoy, and leave a nice review on your way out the door or you'll make the kitsune sad. Also, I've been told to add "That if you make the Kitsune sad... Said girlfriend will come hunt you down." And that is a direct quote from the lovely girlfriend, unaltered in any way, shape or form. I feel loved. (There are no threats intended from the author.)

"Violet Turned Red"

Chapter Seven

Death's Beating

Duo was furious with himself. He was an L2 street brat for shinigami's sake! He'd gotten out of strangleholds before. So why was this one different?

Since struggling the way he had been wasn't producing anymore results than doing more damage to his already trashed neck, he went for a new tactic. Feeling which way the brush in his hand was oriented by which side was curved, he swung his arm back, praying that he'd hit.

The wire brush that hit Alucard in the face was more of a shock than actually something that hurt. But the shock was enough to make him drop the intruding vampire as he stared in disbelief at the blood on his hand from touching his face. On the floor at his feet, the other vampire lay crumpled in a heap, his hair spread all around him.

Alucard sneered at hearing the other's harsh panting as he tried to breathe instinctually. "Pathetic."

Red eyes glared up at him from behind auburn bangs before a hand rose up to treat him to the universal one-fingered salute. With a snarl, Alucard swooped down, grabbing hold of the bruised neck and slamming him against the nearest wall.

Duo was in a world of pain as he was shaken like a rag doll. By the time the iron grip holding him was switched to the front of his shirt, he knew that his neck was not the only thing broken. Limp, he still had a terrifying first-person view as a pair of jaws filled with sharp teeth closed around his throat.

"Master, no!"

Alucard froze at the first taste of blood in his mouth, barely registering his fledgling's plea. He knew that taste as well as he knew the taste of his own blood.

Seras almost cried in relief as Alucard carefully unlocked his jaw from Duo's throat. She had still been asleep when Alucard arrived home, and had not awoken until a wash of bloodlust had shaken her from her dreams. Seeing them from the other end of the hall, she'd feared that her master was going to kill her childe.

The nosferatu stared at the boy still hanging, unconscious, from his grip with disbelief. Bringing his other arm around, he cradled the broken body, staring a moment longer before turning to Seras. "How did you, all of people, find a Draculae?"

"A Draculae?" Seras asked, eyes wide.

"Yes, idiot police girl, a Draculae!" he yelled. "As in a descendant of my father, an heir of my family's line!"

"He was a Preventer, Master," she said, cowed by his fit of rage. "There was a bomb, and he was dying, I- I-"

His eyes softened and he reached out a hand to ruffle her hair. "Your soft heart did me a favor this time. Well done, Seras Victoria. Tell me, what is his name?"

"Uh, Duo Maxwell, Master," Seras said, flustered by the use of her name.

Alucard did a double-take. "Maxwell? A member of my line, a Maxwell?"

"Maxwell's a common name, Master," Seras corrected. "And Captain Bernadotte said that he didn't even have a name when he knew him before, so it probably isn't his birth name."

"Birth name or no, it's the name he introduces himself by," Alucard said, face unreadable. "And our master is letting you keep him?"

"He's already been briefed and given a room," she said with a nod. "Though it looks like he'll need a new uniform shirt. Will he be alright, Master?"

The old vampire looked down at the body in his arms. "He'll be fine. Your whelp is already healing. He's taken to blood a lot swifter than you if he was just turned in my absence."

"From what I saw and what Pip told me, once he figured out what happened and calmed down, he barely hesitated except to ask for a glass," Seras said, glancing at her fledgling, still cradled in her master's arms. The behavior was certainly out of character for the normally bloodthirsty and sarcastic monster. He was looking almost... gentle. "It's so sad. He had to leave behind his lover."

"What of his parents?"

"He's a war orphan," she said.

Alucard nodded. "Which is his room?"

-

Duo was hungry when he recovered consciousness, and no later than the thought had entered his mind there was warm blood on his lips. He licked them clean and more dripped down. The process was repeated several times before he opened his eyes.

A pale hand hovered over his face, index finger covered in blood. Looking past it, he suddenly jerked back, pushing himself into a seated position. "You!"

Alucard chuckled, cleaning the blood off of his hand and setting aside the glass he'd been dipping into. "Yes, child, me."

"Should have killed me while I was out, red," Duo said, climbing backwards out of the coffin he was in. He didn't need to look to know it wasn't his. "I won't let you surprise me again."

The other vampire smiled, and it wasn't a very comforting expression. "If I still intended to kill you, I would have, and I certainly would not have fed you, child."

Duo scowled, looking around as best as he could without letting the red man out of his sight. There was something familiar about the room that he couldn't place. "I'm not a child."

"You can say that once you've passed a century in age, or freed yourself from your master at the very least."

"I don't have a master," Duo said, glaring at the vampire.

Alucard laughed. "You do now, child. Your master is my darling fledgling. The police girl may never call herself that, but it doesn't make it any less true."

"Seras? Then you're Alucard," the pilot concluded, relaxing a hair fraction, but not anymore. "Why did you attack me, and why aren't you now?"

"My Master failed to inform me of the adoption of another pet vampire when I returned from my play," he said, amused. "As for now, why would I attack someone of my own family line?"

"You mean your line of vampires, right?" Duo asked.

Alucard shook his head, looking the other straight in the eye. "On the contrary, I mean my bloodline from when I was human."