*I personally do not really ship AlucardxIntegra as such, but I do believe that at the very least they respect each other greatly. I dunno if they actually do LIKE like each other, but for all I know they do. These prompts just sorta seemed to click with some of the different ways their relationship could be taken.
Prompt: I feel so foolish.
Integra stared coldly at the tea on her desk.
It was soothing Earl Grey, and there was nothing pressing to be done for the moment, and rain pattered down on the roof of her mansion and tapped against the large windows in her office.
So, in theory, she should at least be relaxed.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Integra was tense and agitated, as she had been for years now, for one reason or another.
However, this reason was always reoccurring.
Alucard.
He was a monster.
He was a black-hearted monster that killed his own kind, slaughtered innocent, ordinary humans as if they were nothing more than playtoys for his convenience, and loved nothing more than to be in the thick of a battlefield, right in with the blood and the screams, and feel the warped insanity of war and slaughter wash over him.
She knew this to be true.
The Hellsing bonds told her what was in his mind as he killed, showed her, as if she too was there with him and delighting in the death of those he deemed enemies.
It made her sick to her stomach sometimes how his emotions carried over to her.
Her father had warned about this.
Her grandfather had warned about this.
All of her ancestors, all the way up to Abraham Van Hellsing, they had warned about this.
Alucard was a monster.
But he was an attractive monster.
Vampires could lure in human prey with their inhuman grace, charm, and looks.
They could entice them with their hypnotic bodies and forms and the humans would be too enraptured to even notice as the fatal bite was delivered.
It was one of their most basic powers, and luckily one the FREAKs plaguing her did not posses.
But Alucard had it.
Oh dear lord, Alucard had it.
And he knew it.
And he delighted in it.
Thus, her problem and her tension.
She was the first Hellsing heir that was, in fact, female.
Her ancestors quite clearly warned their descendants about what would happen with Alucard and females in the journals and documents she had found and read.
And what they said wasn't encouraging.
She had denied all of her emotions towards him, carnal or otherwise, burying them as deeply far down as she could and ignoring him whenever he attempted to make a move that could be considered seduction.
But he kept trying anyway.
It seemed to frustrate him and amuse him at the same time at how hard it was to bend her to his will.
It had become a game with them, a game of emotions and leverage and raw will, sometimes with her emerging the victor, sometimes with him overcoming her iron resolve.
She knew the game of cat and mouse, and she knew that she was a participant in it.
She just hoped that she would come out the victor.
Prompt: We wasted so much time.
"Master?"
"…What?"
"Was it really thirty years?"
Integra looked at her most loyal servant, steepling her hands as she rested her weight on her elbows.
He looked almost vulnerable, uncertain, as if this was some trick he hadn't figured out and didn't quite like.
"Yes. Thirty years exactly."
His face expressed shock for a split second, but the expression instantly went away as he looked down at his hands, staring at the red pentagrams.
"Thirty years…"
She nodded as he repeated her words in a soft, hushed tone, her single remaining eye melancholy.
"Yes."
He looked up again, his pale lips curving into a slight smile.
"Seras has become a true vampire, hasn't she?"
Integra nodded slightly, also smiling as her vampire silently prided over his fledgling, then spoke again.
"I haven't had an heir."
Alucard's expression froze, and he looked at her in surprise.
"Master?"
"No heir, no husband, no relationships. I'm just as much the Iron Maiden as I was when you left."
He shifted his fingers uncertainly, looking at the white gloves she had never seen come off his fingers and the red seals on the back.
She knew what he was thinking.
If that was so, when she died, he was free.
Freedom was an entirely unfamiliar sensation, one he hadn't experienced in some two hundred years, give or take a decade.
What would he do?
Where would he go?
Who would be his enemies?
Who would be his allies?
"Master…are you sure?"
"Quite sure."
"No cousins?"
"No. Richard had no offspring and I was an only child."
"But…"
He peered down at his gloves again, as if he wasn't quite sure what to do with his hands.
Integra's face softened.
"I still have a few years Alucard. More than a few, to be honest."
"Only a couple decades. Nothing more."
His voice was bitter, and he curled his hands into fists as his eyes glowed a little, angrily.
But not at her.
At himself.
They had played hard-to-get for most of her teenage years and all of her adulthood, sometimes him chasing her, other times her pursuing him, in a playful game of cat and mouse.
If he had just made a more serious advance, sometime, anytime…then maybe… maybe…
He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling Integra's cool gaze on him as he tried to rein in his churning emotions.
What's done is done. I lost my chance the moment I left her side.
He opened his eyes again and smiled blankly at his master.
"Thank you."
With that, he turned and vanished.
Prompt: Too far gone.
Alucard drifted silently through the halls of the Hellsing compound.
Boredom.
He got bored so very easily nowadays.
Perhaps Seras was doing something interesting.
He reached out and connected to her mind, only to find her dreaming happily of something soft and fluffy, backing quickly away in disgust.
Maybe some of the mercenaries were awake and he could terrorize them.
He stuck his head through the wall, and mentally sighed as they all were revealed to be either hungover or dead-drunk asleep.
Perhaps Walter would be awake and he could discuss the war with him.
It was better than nothing.
He phased to the butler's room, only to growl and shake his head as it was revealed the old man was asleep as well.
Did these people have nothing better to do than sleep?
He had one option left.
Integra.
He faded quietly into her room, making sure she was asleep before doing so.
It would not do for his nighttime checkups to be noticed.
He had his reputation to consider.
First order of business was to check for either spiders or mice.
Integra had no childish fears of such creatures, but he kept her room meticulously clear of them, just in case she suddenly developed one.
Next he had to make sure her shoes were in place and all her socks and were paired up.
Integra always kept them that way, and Walter checked in the laundry, but again, Alucard had to make sure.
This task completed, he crept over to her bed and sighed.
She had this annoying habit of rolling out of bed when she was younger, one she had grown out of, but she still managed to free her body from the blankets and nearly from the bed nine nights out of ten.
He carefully, ever so gently, tucked her back in, making sure she took no notice, and nodded in satisfaction as she was adjusted to his specifications.
Tucked in, in the middle of the bed, her head on the pillow.
That was done.
Now he absently prowled around her room, straightening things, refolding clothes, and just generally tidying up.
It was one of the things the seal had afflicted him with.
During Van Hellsing's rule, he had resisted with a furious hatred.
When his son was born, the constant, nagging urge to protect, ease, and serve had built up and he tolerated the boy, with ill grace.
When the heir after that was born, he had stopped trying to fight it and just ignored it best he could.
With Arthur, he had begun helping with small tasks he didn't really need to do, but would please his master.
With Integra, he had finally caved.
Now everything revolved around his master and her comfort, even when she was asleep.
Especially when she was asleep, as she couldn't yell at him then.
He sighed wearily as he managed to tear himself away and float through the opposite wall, finding a mouse and scowling at it as it squeaked and darted under the empty cabinet of the extra guest room beside his master's.
That done, he wandered off in search of entertainment, unaware of the tiny smile hidden on Integra's face.