A/N: Hello, it's been a bit of a last few days and I'm very sorry not to have updated sooner, but between being run over by horses and being shot at in the dark, I've not really had much time.

This chapter is a little more violent on Alucard's side and doesn't explain much other than the pair of them are unhappy with each other - but we already knew that - so feel free to miss this one if you want. It was originally intended to end on a lime.

Please enjoy this update,

The Weak.

"Take that fucking thing out of your mouth." He snarled and the wasted end of the cigarette dropped to the floor, a red lipstick mark colouring the end. Since when did she wear lipstick? "Smoking is a dirty habit."

"It's not like picking your nose." She countered, tapping a new cigarette out of the box she held in her hands and grasping it gently with her lips. She flicked her lighter open and struck up a flame, allowing it to tickle the tip of the cigarette, eyes probing his for a reaction. What was this, a game?

"You hate smoking." He snapped, trying not to let his curiosity show. She has always made such a huge show about hating smoking, berating Sir Integra about the habit – claiming it would ruin her lungs – and refused to enter the human barracks until all cigarettes, fags, pipes or cigars had been well and truly snuffed. So what changed?

She shrugged and lit the thing properly, breathing slowly and deliberately through it. 'Have you ever wanted to do something for a soul?' She sent the thought into his head and he received it without hesitation. He wished now though that he'd blocked it. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled as he shook his head. No. He wouldn't even consider it. 'Even a soul you cared about?'

That damned Frenchman! So she was fuelling his addiction despite her own aversion! Against his aversion! Alucard was positively fuming at the implication; that that dead Frenchman meant more to her that his words did. All the while she continued to breathe through her cigarette, burning it nearly to the filter. He snatched it with a snarl from her mouth and tossed it to the floor.

"What the hell?!" She yelled, giving him a hard retaliatory shove in the chest and sending him into the table. His eyes widened momentarily at the action – he couldn't even remember the last time someone had actually shoved him – before he had her reflexively by the throat and had tossed her across the room in a similar fashion to the cigarette. She crashed into a full length mirror by her chest of drawers, bending the frame with her back and showering the back wall in fragmented glass.

"Don't disobey me." He spat as he stood over her. She was peering up at him from between her bangs and fear tinged the corners of her gaze. He was her master and she would obey him or suffer the consequences, suffer his wrath. "I told you to take that cigarette out of your mouth and you will do as you're told! I'm your master!"

He faltered as she sneered, unable to predict what was going to happen next – she had gotten remarkably good at blocking him from her mind while he'd been away. "You're nothing but a broken end."

"What?"

"You're empty. You only have one life left." She picked herself from the floor, the tinkle of glass falling to the floor complimenting her words. The apparent beauty of the scene was not lost on him, but his anger was too strong to allow him to bask in the atmosphere, or the look in her eyes. Those eyes… Those beautiful, dark, glistening eyes that were narrowed, malice-filled and probing. Predatory. "You're even weaker than me right now, Master."

The titled was a taunt now. He snarled and grabbed for her throat again, noting with some surprise that she didn't attempt to dodge, or stop him. Her confidence in her own strength only heightened his anger; he could barely get his words out. "You have no fucking idea how far apart we are," He hissed, bringing her closer to him so that his breath ruffled her hair and all he could really see was her eyes. "Do you?"

He couldn't recall ever being this angry with someone, if he ever had been then it was lost in the ancient archives of his memory and was not to be remembered. But the way she was acting was so intolerable that even he could not compose himself. His gazed flicked between each of her eyes, looking for the fear that should have been there but was at this time strangely absent. "You don't know. Do you?"

"I know how far apart we are, Master," Another mocking tone, "I'm so high above you I can hardly see you any more." What? "You're just a speck on the ground, so far away that you hardly matter now."

He turned and threw her away, as though unable to be anywhere near her any longer and her ribs crunched horribly inside her skin as her back met with the table-top. Pain exploded all over her body as nerve-endings screamed in protest, still his voice cut through the muddle and clouds of agony in her head, cool and sharp like the wet edge of a sword. "You think so highly of yourself, Little Bird. But I wonder if your beloved Frenchman would think so much of you too, if he could see you now."

Were the tears that stung her eyes because of his disgusted words? Or because of her broken ribs? She didn't really want to attempt to distinguish her pain. His footsteps echoed down the hall and her bedroom door clicked gently shut behind him. Why was everything so quiet now that he was gone? She was expecting things to calm down when he was around, for him to sooth her mind like he had in the good old days, but so much for that; things had only gotten worse. She chuckled a little at the idea. 'The good old days'. They seemed so far away now, not that was all that long at all. She had only been a vampire for 6 months or so by the time of the Battle of London, but even by that point she had formed a strong attachment to her master. It felt odd to think that they had already grown so far apart by this point. She hardly knew him any more and was fairly certain that he didn't know her either.

'Maybe', she couldn't contain the thought and it raced across her mind, completely open to any prying eyes, 'It was time they went their separate ways…'. As for the beloved Frenchman… He wasn't really beloved and although she had decided to take him with her for eternity, it had been years since he had raised his head and spoken to her. It was as if he wasn't even there, the only evidence for his existence being the packet of cigarettes now abandoned under a dining chair and the roaring inferno that existed in her gut. It wasn't his addiction any more, it was hers.

A/N: Like I said, didn't explain much, feel free to have missed it out :P

Please drop me a review telling me what you liked, didn't like etc.

Feel free to make requests as well, I have already recieved a semi-request for a lemon/lime and I'm currently hunting for a method by which to bring that about, so any ideas would be great, maybe I'll combine a few, who knows!?

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.

-Lapin