I was having some Andercard urges earlier… and it occurred to me that I don't necessarily need to wait for inspiration or prompts, I can just scavenge interesting ideas from the internet. Like some kind of uninvited and slightly impolite crow.

Anyway full kudos and credit to everybody on tumblr (I believe Anderseeds and loadinghellsing were the main culprits) who thought it'd be hilarious if Anderson saw Vladcard and was just immediately suplexed by every last gay thought he'd been repressing for god-knows-how-long throughout his entire life. This fic's for you.

And if y'all listen reeeeeeal closely as you read, you might be able to hear something catastrophic snapping in my prose-dominated brain as I write an Andercard fic that's less than 15,000 words.


The thing that separated good vampire-hunters from great vampire-hunters –and therefore the living from the dead– was how they reacted when pushed past their limit.

It always happened, sooner or later: the leavings of some monster would be so terrible, so grotesque, that they would overwhelm all sanity, goodness, and decency in one's mind. Most of even the hardiest men broke when pushed that far, and therefore they died, and therefore they were merely good at hunting vampires.

Father Alexander Anderson was great.

He was the best.

He was the best, and yet each wave of the countless bayonets he clawed into his hands and sent flying into the roaring, writhing crowd of dead seemed like mere leaves scattered before a tempest. There were too many, and soldiers both holy and undead were dying on every side of him. Any normal man would have panicked. Any normal man would have broken.

Alexander had cut his teeth on facing visions of Hell, and yet if he had ever fought something that seemed to be drawn in heaving waves from the deepest, blackest pits, he had to admit it was this. This was no longer a battle. This was a brutal, one-sided massacre.

It was not vicious. Viciousness implied malice, and the rolling horde of unquiet dead had no more malice or thought than the thundering, bloody tidal waves that they so resembled. They killed and killed and killed again because it was all they knew to do, because they were deaf and blind to anything that was not the commands of their unholy general. Their No-Life King.

Alexander ground his teeth.

It felt almost disturbingly like a betrayal, beneath all the horror. He had thought he'd known Alucard, known the infernal beast right down to his favored taunts and quips –and then this. And then this.

Sir Hellsing commanding her pet monster to fully unlock his seals, and what felt like Hell's entire damned cauldron spilling open and letting loose a flood of lost souls to torment the still-living in London. The vampire shedding all restraint, all possible sense of mortality, shredding his ordinary guise until he became-

Words to describe it escaped Alexander's tongue, unless they were curses and frantic renditions of all the demonic figures and unholy eldritch entities that he had learned in his long years of monster-hunting, listing them off in a frenzied muttering chant as he tried to make sense of this echoing, screaming mass of unnatural chaos.

No wonder Alucard was so arrogant. No wonder a cloak of unconscious self-assurance always licked at his heels, despite how brutally the two of them clashed. Alexander knew his vampire lore, knew these for familiars, and how many thousands of them would he have to scythe through in order to deprive Alucard of his faux immortality? How many millions? It was like trying to destroy a forest by cleaving through it one tree at a time.

He was going to kill Alucard for mocking him with the promise of a fair fight. It had never been fair from the beginning, and while Alexander would gladly rip asunder each and every one of these lost souls on his way to the damned vampire, he did not appreciate being tricked.

Insurmountable odds were one thing: he prided himself on challenging such obstacles. But being played for a fool, a token enemy who did not even deserve to know the sheer depths of monstrosity that lay beneath Alucard's leering visage –that grated.

Was he not powerful enough to be taken seriously?

Did Alucard even consider him a real challenge, or was Alexander just some… token entertainment; a mere barking dog that the vampire could amuse himself with, assured in the knowledge that he could never truly be threatened; a toy to be entertained by and then thrown away when bored of it?

Alexander would show him.

He would fucking show him.

He was the greatest vampire-hunter of his generation, of several generations, and his one and only target was the greatest vampire of them all. He would massacre his way through this roaring, unseeing horde and break down Alucard's assurances of immortality and drag the damned vampire down to choke in the dust, before Alexander decapitated him. His wounded pride would accept nothing less.

If Alucard thought he was nothing more than entertainment, then Alexander fully intended to show him just how wrong he was. Alucard would pay for underestimating him.

The downfall of almost every tyrant was hubris.

Such thoughts ground in his skull like a headache as Alexander cleaved and hacked and fought his way, step by blood-drenched step, towards the forest of impaled bodies and broken standards where Alucard held court with his mistress. Alexander would not be used as a brief, cheap entertainment and then thrown aside. He was a threat. He was a threat, and he would damn well make sure the arrogant vampire treated him that way, if he had to butcher him to do it.

He blocked the relentless screams of the dying and the damned from his ears. The Vatican had fielded one of the greatest armies ever collected under Catholicism since the Crusades –arguably the greatest, ever, since they fought with modern armaments against creatures straight from the darkest depths of Hell– and yet they, too, were falling like so many leaves in the face of a storm.

Blessing one's weapons in a church did little when there were twenty enemies to every bullet, every spear, every blade. Wards and holy barriers that would have held back a horde of ghouls cracked and gave way under the sheer ponderous physical weight of the familiars crashing down in a seething tide of swampy blood that rose and fell like a kraken's groping tentacles along the streets.

Alexander was not the only one trained to combat the undead –not even the only one skilled enough to take on a vampire by himself– but his comrades were fighting –and dying– by the hundreds, simply because they were being overwhelmed.

Not even the most voracious modern vampire managed to accumulate more than a hundred or so ghouls and familiars before they were brought to the Vatican's attention and taken out, but these familiars were pouring down by the thousands. Perhaps, even, by the millions: Alexander could not know, could not see the hellscape spreading wider and wider to engulf the streets around the square.

As ever, Alucard took anything that was good, holy, and ordered, and smashed it to bits under his heel.

This was not the way vampiric engagements were supposed to work. Vampires were incalculably faster and stronger than the average human, and could tear through them like rags, and amass a tidy gathering of undead abominations to serve as shock troops –but that was it. That was all.

No vampire that he and other vampire hunters were used to facing could summon actual, literal armies. No vampire they knew could call upon so many dead and groaning bodies that the wave upon wave of familiars could simply run right over the top of any holy magic or defenses. No vampire in history had ever been able to disgorge enough victims that any and all hunters –though they may be many, though they may be an army of their own– would simply be overwhelmed and crushed under the tidal weight of undead.

Even taking in the unnatural horror of a vampire's existence, this sort of thing was simply not possible.

And yet, because it was Alucard –it was.

Alexander hated him for it, and his back teeth ground together as fought his way towards that ring of unnatural calm surrounded by broken spears. Blood splashed down his body as pain tore into him, lances and swords and bullets piercing into his flesh, but he splintered the hafts or swept aside the hands and kept going, pouring more and more bayonets into the horde as he forced his way closer to the pale hair of the Hellsing woman, floating like a wisp of morning fog among the spears.

He could attack her if he wanted, probably –but Alexander refused to stoop to the vampire's level. Sending bayonets slicing towards his mistress to gain Alucard's attention was a cheap shot, and an unworthy death for her, if by some miracle they actually managed to connect before Alucard took notice. To send such a worthy enemy to her grave by catching her from behind was the act of a coward, and Alexander refused to sink so low.

And perhaps the familiars knew it –or perhaps Alucard's commands to form a ring around himself and the lady Hellsing ran too strongly in their minds– because when Alexander swept a slavering ghoul's head from its shoulders and finally broke into that space cleared of enemies, none of the familiars pursued him. For them, it was as though he had ceased to be, even though only a few steps separated Alexander from the puddled mass of roaring bodies, half-submerged in shadows and blood.

He shut the instinctual revulsion from his mind and gripped his bayonets more tightly, setting his shoulders back and his chin high.

Alexander then began stepping forward among the dust and ash and broken poles, searching for the vampire himself. Alucard would not have strayed too far from his mistress, not now, and Alexander's eyes found her soon enough, standing in the open space within the center of the forest of spears, proud and aloof and cold as any pagan goddess amidst the carnage she had wrought with but a wave of her hand and a few choice words.

And there was the dark shape of the vampire, standing before her –no longer kneeling in an act of subservience that mocked the howling undead ocean spreading throughout London– as the long cape dragging at his shoulders rippled in the slight wind, and-

-and he must have stepped into a particularly acrid drift of smoke, because Alexander suddenly found his throat working like something tarry and hot was caught in the back of it, choking him into temporary silence.

Alucard was. Well.

Not Alucard.

And really, Alexander had expected that. Of course he had expected that. Alucard had peeled his physical vessel open and disgorged what felt like the entire population of Hell, it would be ludicrous to expect the vampire to still be smirking there in that garish candy-red duster and his overdone cravat.

But, well, Alexander had expected something decidedly more monstrous –a grinning scarecrow of blackened shadows that moved like living tar; an eerie conglomeration of that damned smile and blood and teeth all snapping together like a Jacob's Ladder; even a spindly and dedicated corpse. Not- hrm.

Well.

This.

Alexander wasn't quite sure what to call this.

As a priest, he was –naturally– fully aware that people's thoughts would occasionally stray to unacceptable paths, and the most frequent unacceptable path of all was lust. It was his job to counteract that, to listen to confessions and provide guidance and alternatives.

One of the most unacceptable branches of that lustful path was homosexuality, to love another man as you would a wife. Sex was meant to be used as a tool for procreation, not pleasure, and two men laying together was therefore inadmissible.

So, strictly to advise and teach against it in the flock he tended to, Alexander had been informed of homosexuality. He had been told that some men felt these urges, that they were wrong, and given various techniques to assist him in guiding errant members of his flock away from these disgraceful impulses.

He had been given many such talks regarding many varied sins, but for some reason, this particular subject had seemed to linger in his mind for some time. Occasionally he would find himself running his fingers along his jaw while staring into the bathroom mirror after shaving or brushing his teeth. He would feel the faint bristle of his persistent, omnipresent stubble catch under his fingertips and wonder, what would it even feel like, to kiss someone like this?

Not that he felt such impulses. Of course. It was just… clean, natural, simple curiosity.

Alexander had firmly kept to his vow of chastity all his life, but he still knew, at least in theory, of what a woman's kiss would feel like, courtesy of many late-night confessions and the occasional stilted conversation with some of his older teenage orphans, trying to guide them all into the right path.

It was supposed to be soft. It was supposed to taste a little, perhaps, of her. It was supposed to feel –good. Maybe a little awkward and wet, in the younger cases, but it was still supposed to be something soft and magical. He could hold all of these things clearly in his mind's eye, envision them with a certain amount of detached understanding even if he had never done so himself.

But kissing a man…

Well, certainly no one ever spoke of such things. Alexander knew that it was different, and understood that it happened: but that was all. There were no passionate television kisses like there were on the battered old set in the orphanage, no couples sighted in the streets, and absolutely none of his wards or his penitents had ever confessed such a thing of him and asked his advice.

So when Alexander thought of men and kissing, rather than the rosy but rather blurred impression he had of more normal couples, he drew a somewhat disorienting blank.

So, what was it even like, he would catch himself wondering sometimes. Kissing a man was not the same as kissing a woman –that was universally agreed upon– so what was it like, to kiss another man? Was it still soft? Or was it something else entirely? Every once in a while, in private, he would brush an ungloved finger over his lips and think, does this feel the same as a woman's mouth? Is it supposed to?

What does it feel like, to…?

And he would look at the occasional pictures of handsome men and think, how do other men find this attractive? What would they like to see in…?

He was only curious about a very undiscussed thing –that was all. Most of the sins he combated, he was allowed to learn about intimately: to take in as much information as he needed in order to fight them more effectively in the real world.

He knew of drink and pride and envy and hate and desire of men towards women, at least –and most of all for his own particular brand of inequity, bloodlust and violence. He was permitted to see most of those sins at work within his fellow Vatican agents, or hear of them through examples in training.

But with this… there was nothing. Only strict silence and slapped hands, as it were. Such secrecy was somewhat annoying, even if he fully understood the reasoning behind it.

But looking on the vampire that now stood before him, Alexander felt his heart slam against the wall of his chest like an overbearing gong and suddenly he understood. He never really had before, but now he could see exactly why men could find other men attractive. The vampire was –attractive. Very, very attractive.

The tips of his ears felt uncomfortably warm. Was he blushing? Just from seeing his mortal enemy?

Alexander gripped at his last crumbling fragment of rationale –and self-control– with desperate mental fingertips. He shouldn't be this –flustered– because of Alucard. It was Alucard. It was Alucard. It. Was. ALUCARD.

And yet it really, really wasn't.

The only feature that remained of the vampire that he knew was the dark hair that fell in waves to his shoulders, and even then, there was a brownish chestnut tint to it, rather than the deepest black of living ink. Alucard had stubble, too, a close-shaven face complete with a trimmed mustache.

What does kissing a man with a mustache feel like? Alexander definitely did not hysterically wonder because he didn't care and it wasn't relevant and also London was burning down around his ears and he currently had more pressing concerns than what kissing a man like this would feel like.

Honest.

He'd never wanted to- he'd never thought about kissing Alucard, had he? He couldn't recall. His main thoughts upon first meeting the vampire had been a surge of delighted bloodlust and joy at finally finding some worthy prey.

Their further encounters had only made heat bubble like tar in his veins, the urge to crush Alucard and lay him low always itching hotter and brighter at the ends of his fingertips as the vampire smiled that damn smile at him with those sharp, gleaming teeth. Alexander didn't want to kiss him, he wanted to punch his face in.

Bastard.

He knew the vampire's first form –the form that he had originally seen Alucard in, that is– was attractive. You'd have to be blind not to, and indeed, wasn't that the point?

That aristocratic framework of bone and sinew wrapped up in flawless pale skin, a rakish fall of silky dark hair and red eyes winking like gems –it was obviously the bait for a trap, for the sharp fangs that hungered for human blood. The more seductive a vampire's appearance, the closer their prey came, and the lower their guard was. Alucard was supposed to be enticing. It was his whole point.

But this-

It wasn't-

This was almost certainly Alucard's actual original form, his human form –not a polished, unnaturally flawless, handcrafted shape meant to lure unsuspecting men and women into sin. This was entirely natural, and totally unprecedented for it.

Alucard's figure alone told that: unlike his earlier form, the vampire was now built in a way Alexander could only describe as solid, muscles of thigh and shoulder filling out against the plates of his armor, his chest both broad and sturdy. He looked like he would be able to challenge Alexander for raw physical strength, which was impressive, as the vampire seemed to be several inches shorter in this form.

Alucard normally did not bother with shaping himself in such a way. When Alexander tore him open and he reformed, his muscles pulled taut and smooth against gleaming white bone –there was no effort to make himself look bulkier or more intimidating. And why should he? It was superfluous in a vampire, whose physical strength was already magnitudes higher than a mere human, even if they were whipcord skin over bare bone.

The fact that Alucard was so muscular now argued that this was merely the way that he had looked in this form. The armor, the tattered velvet cape hanging down over Alucard's back, the sword on his hip –all of these things served to back that theory up. This was what Alucard had looked like as a living man, with very little cosmetic changes beyond fangs and eyes.

This was the strength and breadth of thigh and back and sinews born from long hours mastering the heavy blade of a broadsword, of riding on horseback, of holding a lance steady during the gallop of a joust. These were muscles built over decades of work, a lifetime of combat, and the swell of power in Alucard's sturdier body was somehow very, very distracting.

Heat tickled Alexander's face again, insistently. He tried to brush it away, feeling his heartbeat stuttering in a quick staccato rhythm inside his chest. He didn't know if it was the infamous butterfly feeling, or simply a hysterical internal scream against said light, giddy impulse.

He wondered how long it had taken to forge that armor. He wondered how Alucard's measurements had been taken, if a knotted cord had been wrapped around those powerful thighs or stretched across that back, to see how the metal would be sculpted about him. He wondered if the tailor had been able to slide their fingers down the solid core of Alucard's midsection, feeling out the bulk of those powerful, well-practiced muscles, as they measured his waist. Alexander's palms felt hot, somehow, and his fingertips itched.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

His fingers tightened around the bayonets he'd almost forgotten he was holding, letting the harsh dig of the grip into his gloved palms quell that strange feeling. Right. He was here to kill Alucard, not- not ogle at him.

Except he wasn't ogling. Obviously. That would be wrong. He was just...

Fuck, there was so much that Alexander was understanding, all of a sudden, and he was not prepared for any of it.

He suddenly understood what it was like to find his eyes unconsciously seeking out each slice of exposed skin on the man before him, following the line of that strong neck and wondering without any true thought what it would be like to follow that line with his hands, with his mouth, what the vampire would do if he was the one being bitten. He understood what it was like to look at the clothes swathing another man's body and feel the irresistible urging of more than just curiosity in the back of his teeth and the bones of his fingers to know, see, discover what lay beneath.

He understood what it was like to want to be shoved up against a wall and crushed beneath the implacable force of a vampire's form as fangs sought his neck, just because it would mean those lips on his throat and that body against his. He understood what it was like to want to left hanging only to be pulled apart in every way that mattered by those lips and those teeth, to feel a tingle ghost through the pit of his stomach at the thought of them finding a home in his flesh.

He understood, suddenly, the thrill inherent in the idea of finding a partner of equal or greater strength and making them slide to their knees before you through nothing but sheer desire, of seeing them want nothing more than to find worship in the temple of your flesh. He understood what it was like to crave willing submission from one who would never submit to blades or blessings; a chance to see and know and experience just what it felt like to have Alucard kneel before him as the vampire knelt before his Master.

All too abruptly, Alexander understood what it was like to want so many things that he did not know what he wanted, only that he wanted each of them and all of them and every one of them coming from Alucard. It was overwhelming and disorienting and fuck, he could not find a way to think right now.

Which was a shame, because he really, really needed to.

Alucard's eyes found him, and a thick swallow knotted Alexander's throat as that hellish joy he so remembered but really really really did not need in this context lit their simmering depths, a slow smile peeling those lips.

"Ah, my beloved rival joins us at last," he said, and the mere word 'beloved' made Alexander's heart involuntarily jump like he'd been kicked in the chest.

It didn't help –at all– that Alucard's voice was as deep as ever, but was now a velvety, controlled purr rather than a crisp snap of carefully-placed comments and drawled mockeries. His voice didn't hum at the edge of Alexander's hearing anymore, resonant with unearthly power: it was so nearly human, so close to the voice of a living man. A subtle Romanian accent curled around the edges of Alucard's words, rich and warm, and Alexander felt that damned hysterical feeling build up in his chest again as his ears burned red. He could only pray to Almighty God that a similar blush was not branding itself across his face.

Alexander was afraid that if he opened his mouth in return, all that would emerge was a highly undignified choking noise.

Decades of training fought against the sudden desperate urge to turn tail and run, to flee from this unfairly handsome visage as he had never run from man or monster before. His legs twitched with the restless energy of it, his body wanting to do something –attack, hide, flee, stand his ground, anything– but not knowing what, not able to decide between any of those impulses, and leaving him standing there like a fool.

The tips of his bayonets sagged towards the ground again as his tense posture slackened, and internally Alexander was screaming to bring them back up again, to at least look like he meant to offer a fight, but he still couldn't move, and he still couldn't think.

Fuck.

"Indeed," Sir Hellsing drawled, confident as ever despite the raging battlefield around them –but why shouldn't she be, considering what stood at her side? "However, though I appreciate your prior service as an escort, Father Anderson, you can see that I have no need for it any longer."

Even as Alexander's eyes sought and found her figure with the desperation of a drowning man clutching a plank of wood in a hurricane –because at this point, anything was better than continuing to stare at Alucard– his mind caught on the phrase prior service as an escort and ran with it down paths that he, as a priest, was entirely unaccustomed to his thoughts going. He could feel more heat gathering in his face, now, and knew with a bone-deep certainty that he was blushing.

Which hopefully would be taken as a flush of rage, and nothing else... even Alucard, wretchedly observant as he was, couldn't know the precise reason blood was gathering in Alexander's face –only that it was.

He opened his mouth –but he couldn't fucking think of anything to say, and closed it again with a snap. More heat bloomed on his cheeks at what he knew was an uncharacteristic lack of retort, but even while his knuckles creaked and popped as his grip tightened on his bayonets, Alexander could not force a single coherent thought through the blank, screeching white noise overlaying his mind.

Fuck.

Fuck

Fuck

Fuck

Fuck

Fuck.

And because Alucard knew him –because Alucard knew him, because he knew him– Alexander caught the vampire's eyes narrowing slightly when Alexander did not bark an immediate reply, watched a slight shift to Alucard's chin that betokened potential disappointment.

"Don't tell me that the mere sight of this carnage is enough to perturb even you, my rival?" he rumbled, gesturing slightly at the bloody tide of familiars around them.

In the crumbling quagmire of Alexander's panicked mental state, outrage surfaced at those words; and the wounded pride it brought with it was finally enough to unstick the paladin's tongue.

"Don't flatter yourself," he snapped, and if it was a tad more raspy than he'd meant it to be, well, Alexander could blame it on the coils of smoke from gunpowder and burning buildings drifting all around them.

Alucard, damn him once and damn him a thousand times over, looked pleased at that response. Alexander let loose another string of frantic mental curses at the slew of images that slight curl of mustachioed lips invoked in his head.

"Well then," Alucard purred, and the earthquake rumble of his voice had more heat flooding through Alexander's face. He tried not to pay too much attention to one gauntleted hand as it shifted, Alucard's fingers curling almost painfully slow around the hilt of his broadsword as a fine sweat broke out over the paladin's skin. "Can I presume that you have arrived to cross swords again?"

"No," Alexander snapped on reflex, and immediately regretted it. He hadn't meant to say that- he'd just- he'd been so focused on denying this very persistent and very unsanctioned attraction to the vampire before him… the word had slipped out instinctively when he'd realized he was being addressed.

It was, after all, a word that was currently a predominant part of his internal monologue, alongside the words 'fuck' and 'him' and 'God' and an incoherent slew of screaming frustration and fury.

(And maybe a little bit of panic, although he would never admit that.)

Alucard's eyebrows rose slightly at the priest's response, and although he did not remove that hand from his sword, his grip did loosen, and his arm relaxed against his side, no longer immediately prepared to draw it.

"Oh, really?" he asked.

'No,' Alexander almost said again, except this time he managed to bite his tongue and be silent. He didn't want that –or any of the other words streaking in a frenzied merry-go-round in his mind, for that matter– to slip out again.

"What are you here for, then?" Sir Hellsing asked, her voice cutting sharply into Alexander's haze. His eyes flicked towards her, grateful… before they slid back, as though irresistibly tugged on a string, towards Alucard. His throat worked around the word 'him,' except Alexander was exceedingly certain he would expose far too much if he spoke that now –even if it was true.

After all, he was, nominally, technically, supposed to be here for Alucard.

To fight Alucard, of course. Nothing else.

But he'd already said no when asked and even if far too much of his brain was spinning into giddy panic, Alexander still had his dignity and his position as a Iscariot paladin to protect, and he would not make his probably-obvious flusterment any worse by dithering or appearing uncertain. He'd said no: so now he'd have to mean it.

Somehow.

Alucard intercepted his sidelong glance as though he were waiting for it –damn bloodthirsty abomination, maybe he was– and even his smirk was different; a smug, subtle, pleased curl of his lips rather than the usual fang-bearing grin of heady excitement. He knew that the most likely –that the only reason Alexander would seek him out was for a fight, and he was all too clearly primed and ready for it, waiting with all the coiled ease of a snake.

But that serpentine smirk of anticipation reminded Alexander, inevitably, of Eve and the Fruit and biting and the damnation linked to it, and in his current mental state those were not good thoughts to have.

He made a strangled noise in the back of his throat, and then winced, flicking one bayonet into his sleeve on instinct as he brought his hand up to pull it down his face with a heartfelt groan.

Fucking hell, get it together, Alexander scolded himself, squeezing his eyes shut in a moment of suicidally reckless vulnerability if not for how Sir Hellsing's presence was (apparently) holding Alucard back.

A few deep breaths, and a reminder that these thoughts and carnal attractions could be shoved to the back of his mind and revisited by a later hour if he absolutely had to, followed by a heavy dose of repentance afterwards, and Alexander was enough of a human being to open his eyes and look at the duo again.

"I want you to call off your damn pet monster from this," he said, gesturing curtly with the hand that still held a bayonet at the howling chaos around them. Sir Hellsing's brow inched upwards.

"Really?" she asked, coolly indifferent. He could just see the cigar dangling from her gloved fingers now, the stream blowing from her pursed lips, even when her hands were empty and her mouth was a grim curl of bitter amusement. "And why on earth should I do that? Father Alexander Anderson, of Section XIII and the Vatican, who have so rudely descended upon my city?"

Because then Alucard might start looking like Alucard and I won't have this to deal with, Alexander thought but didn't say as he took another deep, calming breath.

He was the best in Iscariot for a reason, though, and a few moments of scrambled thought let him come up with an excuse that wasn't because your pet vampire looks too goddamn good and- and- and- followed by a stream of increasingly lurid and, quite frankly, embarrassing fantasies.

"Because it's still your damn city, and I doubt this-" He flicked his blade at the howling mass surrounding them again. "-is a precision instrument. How many of your citizens are still in hiding, Hellsing, and how many of them are his familiars pulling down?"

This remark struck her –not noticeably, for that was not her way, but those icy eyes slid sideways, landing on her servant with an expectant look as one brow arched upwards.

Alucard was still staring at him, that small pleased smirk on his lips, and Alexander's face felt hot as he noticed it.

"They kill who and what I command," Alucard said, answering his Master's glance as he finally looked away from Alexander, before dipping his chin to her as he sank into a shallow bow. "They are entirely at your service –as am I, my Countess."

Alexander wondered, once again, what it was like to look down and see Alucard kneeling before him with such devotion as he typically showed Sir Hellsing. He tried not to acknowledge how much he wanted to find out.

"And are you sure they're not also attacking anyone that moves to defend themselves?" he sneered, trying to redirect as much of the everything that he was feeling into the usual, more familiar and safe channels of contempt and dislike.

Alucard looked back at him again at that, and his lips curled back in a smaller grin that nevertheless bared abnormally pointed incisors.

"No need to play coy, my beloved nemesis," he rumbled as a panic that was abruptly far less flustered spiked through Alexander like white-hot lightning. Oh God oh Christ he saw me he knows he's noticed it- "You wish to spare the lives of your fellow Catholics, do you not?"

What-?

…oh. Right.

Yes.

That.

That was what he was concerned with. Not-

N-nothing else.

Alexander swallowed thickly.

Except that reminded him of the howling horde swarming London, and of his fellow soldiers of Iscariot who were still fighting and dying all around them, and of the disturbing fact that he had somehow managed to forget both of these things for a few minutes. His jaw tightened, and he shifted from one foot to another, uneasy with how something so vital had managed to slip his mind.

He cut a needlelike glare towards Alucard out of reflex, wondering if the damn abomination had been messing with his mind, except staring at Alucard made his thoughts start to wander in increasingly worse directions and he had to bite his tongue hard enough to draw blood in order to avoid getting distracted by the vampire's unfairly intriguing features.

It healed almost immediately, of course, but the sharp shock of pain helped clear his mind of cobwebs as his glare sharpened again. He managed to tear his eyes away from the vampire a moment later, reminding himself that Alucard was still a dog on a leash and it was to Sir Hellsing that he should appeal to make this stop and he should really stop thinking about Alucard on a leash oh God oh Christ oh fuck-

"Whatever my motivations might be," he bit off, loathing the parts of his brain that wished he could look back at Alucard and simply admire, "-it doesn't change the facts. Your precious city's turned into Armageddon, Hellsing, and he is not helping fix the root issue."

Her eyebrows rose slightly in a rather aggravating expression of mock surprise.

"Oh, really?" she returned, and then cast a languid, pointed glance at the carnage raging outside this battlefield of broken spears. "I believe he's cleaning up the vermin rather well."

Alexander ground his teeth. Without speaking a word, he gestured upwards, indicating the blimps that hung like dark fruit in the smoke-filled night sky above them.

"Cleaning up," he sneered. "Right. While your vampire runs amok, slaughtering soldiers, the commander sits up there all undisturbed. Very helpful."

Sir Hellsing's gaze followed his arm to the Nazi warships, and her implacably smooth expression finally crumpled for a moment, a flash of annoyance showing in those diamond-hard eyes as her lips curled downwards in a displeased frown.

"Yes," she said thoughtfully, and Alexander scowled despite the return to familiarity as she reached into the breast of her coat and pulled out a cigar case. One was duly withdrawn, and the case was replaced within the lining of her long coat as she retrieved a lighter and ignited the tip of her cigar with a clink of its flint.

Sir Hellsing raised the cigar to her lips, still gazing upon those distant blimps.

"That, I think, will have to be dealt with," she murmured with an aura of distinct displeasure.


It was actually probably somewhat useful to have prompted the Hellsing woman to target the Letze Battalion commander, Alexander could admit. While Maxwell's way of doing things was beginning to make him slightly… uneasy, she clearly had no other motivation than to defend her homeland and destroy her enemies, an impetus which Alexander could –begrudgingly– respect. She was here to slaughter her foes and wipe out anyone that even looked at England funny, and despite nominally standing on the other side of that equation, Alexander had to be impressed with her grit.

Not that he'd ever say so, of course.

In any case, the sooner the denizens of Millennium were put to the sword and eradicated, the sooner things would return to something approximating normality, which meant the sooner Iscariot and Hellsing could face off as they were meant to face off.

No one ever could or ever would argue the strength of Alexander's faith, nor his devotion to slaying the undead and unclean, but he was a practical man, and this, right now, was not sustainable. Alucard had disgorged untold legions of familiars, which could easily crush all of the Vatican's forces –but it was by the command of his Master, who controlled the mystic Hellsing seals. She, in turn, had given him permission to loosen the final restriction on his power solely to defend her city.

Thus, if all of the Nazi forces were eliminated and London was no longer under siege, there was a chance that she'd restrain her damned pet and let the Vatican's forces crawl away. Alexander loathed the idea of retreating as much as any soldier of Iscariot, but this was where practicality fought with devotion and –briefly– won.

This was not sustainable. Alucard in his final form was a juggernaut of unstoppable destruction, at least as far as the majority of soldiers were concerned, and thus it was more profitable to withdraw, to wait, to lick their wounds and plan for a better, more concentrated assault. Flinging themselves at his waves of familiars like this was still a normal engagement accomplished nothing but swelling the ranks of undead.

Dying in the name of God to take down a monster was one thing –dying in the name of God to accomplish fuck-all was quite another.

Alexander's soldiers, his students, deserved better than that.

Right. Well. So far, so logical.

What was decidedly much less of a good idea was accompanying Sir Hellsing and her no-longer-grinning monstrosity into the depths of the command ship.

In Alexander's defense, it was a good idea on paper. Personally ensuring that the enemy commander was dead was no bad thing, as was keeping an eye on the person indirectly responsible for decimating Alexander's fellow fighters. He could remind her that while she probably could command Alucard to slaughter the lot of them, the international and political backlash would make it an exceptionally bad idea.

Whatever else she was, even if Alucard was fully capable of taking all comers and laying waste to her enemies, Sir Helsing did not seem like the sort of woman who would be pleased with a wasteland of corpses to lord her superiority over. While she could solve all those pesky political problems by snapping her fingers and sending him out to Search and Destroy, the fact that she hadn't yet done anything even approaching this magnitude indicated that it was a last resort for her.

Pride? A refusal to admit that she needed on the vampire? Alexander refused to accept the idea of religious fervor from a Protestant, but even they were still Christian, and perhaps it galled to place so much reliance on an undead abomination.

Saying that she didn't have the stomach for blood was laughable –she, who had stared into the bloodiest of horrors on this night with a face carved from unflinching stone and eyes that glinted with the enraged strength of a Fury– but perhaps she did not have the stomach for wanton carnage. A ruthlessly practical woman down to her very bones: she would unleash this if she had no choice, but she would only unleash it when she had no other choice.

But thoughts of the Iron Maiden's iron spine once again slipped his mind as his eyes flicked sideways, and Alexander found his throat rolling in another unaccustomed, uncharacteristic swallow.

This was a fucking bad idea.

He didn't know how to handle –he didn't want to be this close to Alucard, not looking like this. Not with overlapping plates of armor that clinked with every step and that tattered velvet cape that flowed back behind him in a breeze that did not exist. Not with that weathered face looking onwards with an expression that inevitably relapsed into grim determination, rather than the vampire's typical lazy, mocking anticipation.

Alexander couldn't stop staring, even though part of him- even though all of him dearly wanted to. He could imagine this vampire –this man standing over rough maps and rasping out orders as his generals swirled and spoke around him, the dark waves of his hair gilded by the feeble flickering light of a few candles or oil lamps in a tent or keep. He could see the well-worn aura of command and control that sat so well on those broad shoulders, the weary doggedness of a leader who had seen enemy after enemy rise to challenge him and saw no new surprises –even anticipated– the next upstart on the horizon.

It was disconcerting. It was inviting. It was Alucard, and yet the battle-hardened veteran and the kindly cleric parts of Alexander alike wanted to put a hand on his shoulder, speak some words, encourage him with a rough smile. And then Alucard would smile back, slowly, a gleam of renewed confidence and bloodlust kindling in his eyes as they both then took steel in hand, ready to lay waste to their shared enemies-

Alexander bit his tongue again, sharply enough that Alucard's head twitched slightly to the side slightly, scenting the blood, before he swallowed it and the wound healed.

He narrowed his eyes at the vampire, and after a moment of shared eye contact Alucard shrugged at him almost imperceptibly before looking away again, turning his eyes towards the hallway ahead. Alexander could feel his fingertips quivering; he wanted to turn the vampire's head back, make him look at him-

If he'd been alone in the hallway, he would have slapped himself.

As it was, Alexander exhaled sharply, tightening his grip on the handle of his weapons and wishing for an enemy that he could rend apart, if only to get rid of this twitchy feeling humming at the edges of his body.

Luckily, since they were on the enemy airship, it was not long at all before that wish was fulfilled, and Alexander plunged himself headlong into the familiar, comfortable, safe rhythms of slaughter and mayhem with an air of relief.

Painting the bulkhead walls with the gritty unhallowed blood of monsters was a great deal more enjoyable than letting those damn half-concocted fantasies keep filling up his brain, no matter how he tried to push them out. Letting himself sink into the long-memorized dance of slashing and dodging, healing and pushing forward… it distracted his mind and gave his body something to focus on –which was something Alexander desperately needed.

Less helpful, however, was the fact that both Alucard and his Master were there cutting their way through the Nazis with him.

She, of course, kept well back –not out of cowardice, for her sword sang sharp and true in her hands, the few times an enemy slipped past the two men– but rather out of her trademark practicality. Sir Integra Hellsing was a fearsome woman in many ways: but she was, at bottom, still no more and no less than a mere human, and one unagumented by regenerative technology at that. She would risk much and gain nothing by pushing past her servant to fight –and on Alexander's end, he doubted she would feel safe showing him her back.

But he would also have to add self-deception to a sudden and rather alarmingly growing addition to his list of sins if he said that it wasn't Alucard who disoriented –who distracted– him the most.

Fighting with guns, even the custom-crafted ones of the Hellsing Organization, required a certain amount of precision and a certain amount of calculation. Both of these things were trivially easy for the undead to master, which was why it was more practical for them to pick up artillery rather than study the blade. There came a certain point where a slash or a strike could not be enhanced any further –when no blade could hold up to the force exerted on it, no matter the metal or forging methods– and vampires were always quick to reach that point, thus rendering bladework something of a moot skill for them.

Alucard was breaking those rules again.

Oh, he was not striking with anything close to his full strength –if he did, his broadsword would have shattered after a few blows– but the vampire was absolutely hypnotizing in his skill, each precise strike flowing into the next in a whirlwind of nonstop movement backed by decades, centuries, of absolute mastery. If Alucard truly was the Impaler King who had defended Wallachia, then guns as a whole would have been the second weapon he had learned, and he showed his years of practice in butchery with each blood-drenched, conquering step down the halls of the airship.

He never faltered. He never even took a step back, each booted stride moving firmly onward, into the depths of the zeppelin. Bullets, he ignored, and rather than dodge any attacks that came his way, he merely cut them down with a swift flick of his sword, letting the blood spatter him without a care as his enemy fell to ash at his feet.

It was breathtaking. It was awe-inspiring. It was absolutely bloody not fair and Alexander could feel a familiar heat pumping through his veins, peeling his lips back from his teeth in a grin of challenge. As much as he would like to deny it, part of his very soul fed on the competition that hung between them, and there was no way in hell that Alexander would let Hellsing's gunslinger vampire show him up in the matter of blades. He flicked more bayonets into his hands and tore into what little foes remained, letting the clean, familiar bloodlust take him in a surge of staticky heat.

Or maybe… it was not so clean as it usually was.

Alexander found himself slicing through the ranks of Nazi vampires a tad more… exuberantly than was his wont, especially in front of an enemy leader. He stopped thinking about how Hellsing would see and know and report on his techniques, use them against him as they had used their minimal knowledge of the regenerative process to craft that damn Jackal. He stopped thinking about how now this new trick he'd been practicing wouldn't catch Alucard by surprise, as had been originally intended, because now he was deliberately pulling it off in full view of the vampire, demonstrating his might and his talent, showing off how skilled he had become…

Oh God fucking Christ on a cracker, he was showing off.

For Alucard.

Alexander felt heat flood his face just as the last of their enemies fell in a wet slap of blood and entrails, and he pulled one hand down his flushed face, furiously trying to contain his scream as the realization hit him. He was bloody showing off, like some lovelorn adolescent –except his method of impressing the target was less stupid stunts and stuttering poetry, and more knife tricks and cleaving human torsos down to the waist.

He was never, ever going to live this down. Even if he never mentioned it to anyone, the memory of this day, this moment, was still going to haunt him for years to come.

Despite the presence of more enemies on the airship, Alexander dearly wished, for an instant, that he trusted Hellsing's sense of mercy enough to simply walk off the edge of the blimp and let the ground take him.

Surely she would be reasonable enough to spare however many agents of the Vatican still survived. Surely there still were some soldiers of Iscariot left.

Surely he could do anything but just keep trailing after her like this and letting her damned pet vampire unravel his mind into its component parts just by merely existing in proximity to him. Like a compass in proximity to a magnet, all of Alexander's thoughts persistently kept leading back to Alucard, no matter how he tried to distract himself or what he tried to distract himself with.

As the bridge doors opened before them, Alexander was beginning to wonder uncomfortably if this… attraction, no, obsession with Alucard's changed form was something that he could dig out of his psyche with enough prayer and ritual cleansing.

He was becoming increasingly concerned that it was not.

A little alarmingly, the command center of the zeppelin was empty save for the Major, a repellent man coated in white and sitting comfortably in the huge padded chair that was apparently placed there for his benefit.

"Ah, willkommen-" he had time to begin, before the sound of Sir Hellsing's Sig Sauer shattered the air. A series of snowflakes burst into the air a few meters in front of the complacently-smiling man, who waited until her clip ran dry before speaking again.

"You should learn to control your temper, Fräulein," he chided among the sound of bullet casings tinkling to the floor, and Alexander eyed the apparent wall of glass that stood between him and them warily. Sir Hellsing's bullets had only pockmarked one side of it, which did not bode well for its thickness: a thinner sheet would have gotten a few hairline fractures at the very least.

Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and he snatched more bayonets into his hands and flung them with all his strength at the barrier.

Alexander was capable of putting quite credible amounts of speed into his blades –indeed, he could throw some of them fast enough to break the sound barrier– but even though he struck true, even though they flew at a speed that would shake some bullets, the bayonets snapped and broke, deflected off the obdurate surface.

"My, my. Such violent guests," the Major continued, shaking his head. His jovial grin did not slacken or cease, a jester's mask that had been firmly screwed into place on his doughy features. "Some of whom I neither invited nor expected, but! Still! Such variety is bound to happen in warfare, I suppose."

His smile broadened as he gave a little chuckle, as though inviting them to all share in the same joke. Alexander neither understood it nor found it funny.

The members of Hellsing seemed to agree, as there was a moment of silence broken only by Sir Hellsing reloading her gun with a sharp, pointed snap as she ground her teeth.

"While amassing a vampire army is impressive enough, you couldn't possibly have believed something of that nature could stop me for long," Alucard said after a moment as he cocked his head to one side, thoughtfully. He slowly put one hand on his sword, though he did not move without his Master's command.

"Ah yes… of course." The Major's eyes seemed to narrow a trifle, although at this distance and behind the sheen of his thick lenses, it was difficult to tell. "The mighty Alucard, the invincible No-Life King. Of course, naturally, there is no way that a mere massing of arms could defeat one such as you."

Alexander snorted through his nose before he could stop himself.

"And of course, our blood-hungry paladin thinks different!" the Major laughed, folding his hands before his ample stomach and leaning back in the chair with a creak of plush leather as he smirked down at them. "To wade your way through innumerable foes and take the king's head is your life's ambition, is it not? To stand undefeated on that carnage-soaked battlefield and be hailed as the mightiest of Templar Knights! To hold the severed beast's head in your hand as little more than a trophy!"

He fell into indulgent chuckling again as Alexander grimaced. This smug madman being even a particle right made him feel… unclean, like he'd brushed up against something slimy. He wanted to deny, to say that he was not like that, but it would be a lie and everyone in the room would know it. He enjoyed killing things like Alucard. Because of sinful pride, he liked being the best combatant any of his enemies would ever face.

But he also neither liked nor enjoyed these things being told to him by an insane little Nazi with a penchant for macabre grins.

"So if you think your army can't handle him, what was your plan instead? Talk him to death?" Alxander replied with a sneer, hoping to ruffle the Major's feathers in turn. Fascists of any stripe placed an inordinate amount of importance on the appearance of strength and personal prowess, citing that their type of person –whatever that was– was better, mightier, and altogether superior to any other type of person. Jabbing at their overinflated egos was a good way to rouse their temper.

"Ah, no; I am not the sort of magician who could accomplish that with mere words," the Major replied, not even a ripple showing in the oily surface of his smile. Alexander's hackles began to rise.

Not because the man's complacent smugness was insufferable –because it was– nor because Alexander's jibe hadn't hit home –because he was fairly sure it had– but because obdurate glass barrier or not, the Major was faced with three very skilled and very tense opponents, all of whom would be more than happy to rip his head from his shoulders, and he had yet to stop smiling or even bother to rise from his chair. And he hadn't said a word about how, exactly, he planned to sidestep defeating Alucard through brute force.

There was trickery afoot.

Sir Hellsing seemed to notice it too –or perhaps she was just growing impatient– for her gaze was sharper and her scowl a tad more unguarded than her usual wont as she gestured at the barrier with her free hand.

"Alucard," she said crisply. "Remove that impediment."

Alucard's eyes slid sideways towards her.

"You wish for me to kill him, my Master?" he asked, his tone carefully neutral.

"I wish for you to break the bloody glass," Sir Hellsing replied, her own voice sharpening further. She demonstratively tapped the side of the Sig Sauer that she still held against one thigh. "So I can put a bullet in his head."

"Ah." Alucard's small, self-assured smile returned, and he drew his broadsword in a single smooth movement, stepping towards the barrier. "As you command, Sir Integra."

Alexander doubted that sword was actually real –at least in the sense of being an actual sword stored with those strange bloody shadows. Much in the same way that Alucard's clothes seemed to grow over him when he regenerated in battle (oh God oh Christ don't think about that now) this weapon, too, seemed to be drawn and constructed from the malleable nothing that constituted the vampire's powers.

It was certainly real enough to be physical, though… and yet still the Major did nothing, even as it slid free with a slithery scrape of metal, even as the vampire approached the glass that was the only thing stopping him from being torn to shreds. From nagging to screaming, everything about Alexander's instincts were telling him that something was wrong here, that there was a trick, a trap that they weren't seeing, and a warning shout tickled in the back of his throat as that feeling built and built, even when he didn't know what he would be warning of.

His eyes flicked around the room, looking for the stray –something, for whatever was the catalyst to trigger this doom, and yet there was nothing; no guards, no strange panels, no arcane tingle across his mental senses; nothing. Perhaps the complete absence of any protection for the Major was suspicious, for they couldn't have torn through every Nazi on this ship already, and yet, what did that tell him, beyond the fact that the Major felt no need for a bodyguard?

Was there some deadman's switch designed to catch his foe in that last moment of victory? Was he willing to sacrifice himself to ensure Alucard was dead? Or the other way, did his secret plan –whatever the hell it was– leave him so confident that he was willing to overlook the possibility of harm coming to him entirely?

Alexander needed more context clues to figure this situation out, but he wasn't finding any, and the time to actually act was slipping away rapidly. Given the Major's focus on Hellsing, Alexander had no doubt that this trap would focus on Alucard, and he had no intention –none whatsoever– of letting this… odiously smug little madman overtake him in the matter of defeating Alucard.

He wouldn't have it.

He wouldn't bloody have that.

Alexander would be hard-pressed to find a single person on the face of the planet who he'd be less willing to give that accolade to. Sir Hellsing was at least a worthy foe and she did, at some level, deserve a great deal from Alucard as his erstwhile Master.

While it would grind Alexander, a little, to know that she had disposed of her servant for one reason or another, it was technically within the Hellsing family's full right to do so. Alucard was her property, to do with as she willed: the sigils marked onto his hands were proof enough of that, and proof Alexander would not deny.

Losing Alucard to her would be unpleasant, but, begrudgingly, eventually, acceptable.

Losing Alucard to this insufferable cunt was another thing entirely and absolutely bloody fucking not happening.

His eyes slid over Sir Hellsing, standing stern and tall as a statue as she faced the glass –but then instincts honed over a lifetime caught a flicker of movement in the faint images reflected on the blank surface and Alexander glanced back just in time to see a youth with a grin far too sharp and far too wide for a thin human face standing behind her, an inscribed dagger swiping for her neck.

Sir Hellsing likewise sensed the change in presence beside her, or perhaps the whisper of a blade hissing through the air, and was already turning and stepping back to dodge the oncoming strike, but the boy had- appeared, manifested, whichever, too close and too swiftly for her to avoid it.

Alexander's blades split the air with a viper's hiss, a bayonet sinking nearly to the hilt in the youth's throat, eye, and heart –were those furry black ears, laid back along that straw-like blond hair?– as the boy's mouth gaped wider in something almost a giggle, lips curling up to reveal catlike fangs. He gurgled, dropped, and- was gone as suddenly as he had come.

No dust, no ashes, no clothes, not even any bloodstains on the bayonets that clattered to the ground.

Gone.

Alexander's mind barely had time to construct what the fuck before the boy was there again, though, whole and undamaged without a speck of blood on him as he stood in front of Sir Hellsing, twirling the knife in his hand with an even wider grin –less full of malice now, almost playful.

"Guten-" he had time to get out before she blew his brains out. Startled though she obviously was, hasty as the shot may be, at this range it was almost impossible to miss her target as a bullet tore through one mischievous rosy-red eye, ribbons of blood streaking through the air as they arched out behind him and the youth fell to the ground, dead.

And then not there anymore, no more was the blood.

"You know, I don't think ze Fräulien Hellsing ist a cat person, Father," came a conspiratorial whisper just under his elbow, and Alexander whipped around to see those rosy eyes and that feline grin at close quarters as the knife hit him in the stomach. The youth's grin widened as he hissed through his teeth, adding as Alexander grabbed the bloody knife and stepped back "Though with her Hund, it's no surprise she's fonder of dogs, ja?"

And now the familiar, quite-honestly-expected tearing roar as Alucard finally understood the threat to his Master and filled the room with darkness and shadows and blood, an upswelling of undead power that sent an icy parade of prickling ants down every inch of Alexander's nerves. Nonetheless, both sensations barely distracted Alexander from the way the youth in front of him just –casually winked out of existence again, like a spliced-out shot on a reel of old-fashioned film.

He pulled the knife out and risked a glance at it as his stomach knit back together and the spreading flow of blood stopped, but the inscription was no spell, just a Nazi slogan. Alexander frowned at that, lifting his head and casting his eyes around the room again –or at least, as much of it as he could see.

Alucard had taken the attack on his Master with no good grace and everything, from wall to ceiling to even the floor beneath their feet, was covered in seething, writhing, licking shapes that defied all good sense and categorization. Alexander smelled the gory iron tang of blood, but those undulating flames flowed beneath his feet like shadows, intangible and untouchable; and yet they climbed and crawled and slithered in places, like living creatures.

When he stepped towards where he had last seen Sir Hellsing, there was a brittle crunch beneath his feet, like some carapaced insect, and when he looked down, he saw with a grimace that there were… centipedes, or something much like them, writhing their way through the shadows like sentient, crawling blood clots and veins. And there were eyes, red and lidless and blank, popping open and shut in far too many places around him.

But Alexander was the best, and the best of the best, and he wrested down the tarry nausea climbing up his gut and forced his revulsion to still and settle, made himself think even as he heard the shattering crack of the glass wall giving way.

The Major had said –or at least implied– that he didn't think force capable of beating Alucard, had acted suspiciously calm and in control of this situation, and then… what? That feline boy –Schrödinger, hadn't Maxwell's report of the Round Table Conference mentioned a youth with some kind of spatial ability that the Major had called Warrant Office Schrödinger– had appeared and immediately attacked the most vulnerable member of their group.

Why? Whether Schrödinger killed her or no, targeting his Master in such a way would have only drawn Alucard's attention and roused his rage. That Schrödinger had switched targets so easily despite –with his power– being fully capable of pressing his attack meant that her death wasn't the goal. They wanted Alucard's attention, Alucard's ire.

Despite the overwhelming, knee-buckling presence that flooded the room and climbed the walls to engulf the ceiling, demanding the submission, death, and blood of any who cared to stare too long into that seething abyss, Alexander had the unsettling feeling that they had just fallen headfirst into the exact same trap the Major had been planning to catch them in.

"Alucard!" he shouted into the disorienting flickers of shadow and blood, hearing the distant and rather odd sound of snapping metal as he glimpsed several plunging into the Major's white-coated front. "You damn idiot-"

The rest of his words were lost in a gasping, gritty spray of ice-cold air and hot blood pouring down his throat, and it took a few moments to realize that someone –no prizes for guessing who– had cut his neck so smooth and clean that his only knowledge of it came when he clutched at the sudden pain and felt his flesh shift loosely beneath his fingers, split through from side to side and taking arteries, windpipe, and trachea all in one razored slice.

Fuck.

Such clean injuries healed quickly, but that meant nothing to a creature that could apparently treat the placement of things in reality as a mere suggestion, since a glance downwards proved he no longer held the knife that had stabbed him in the stomach.

Fuck.

"ALUC-" he tried again, only to stagger as a first of burning agony planted itself in his chest and he looked down to see Schrödinger –just for a split second, a mere snapshot– with arm buried up to the elbow in the priest's chest. An eyeblink later, he was gone, and so were Alexander's lungs as he coughed and fell to his knees, black swarming in on his vision as his air became nonexistent for those few painful moments of regeneration.

A few seconds later, it was over, and a high, spiraling cry rose over the crackle of shadows as they began to slowly still, then recede. Like a spill of oil in reverse, they sucked back inwards towards a central point, quickly funneling inwards under Alucard's feet.

He stood in the center of the room, or nearabouts, and every one of his sharklike teeth were buried in the thin, pale neck of Schrödinger. The boy's head lolled backwards, and his upside-down gape of dismay looked, to Alexander, like nothing so much as a grin of triumph as he dangled from the vampire's grasp, having his life rapidly sucked out of him.

The rather unaccustomed urge to save Alucard –accompanied by the myriad of new thoughts he'd rather not admit to having– knit together in the surging moment of blind panic that followed, and Alexander found himself shouting the first warning that came to mind, pushed into the forefront of his mind from decades of childcare.

"Spit…" he wheezed, the wall of his chest briefly shuddering and fluttering as his diaphragm heaved, trying to work newly-grown lungs. "Spit him out! Now!"

Alucard glanced up and –loosened his teeth, unhinged his jaw, whatever he had to do to relinquish that literal death-grip as the corpse of Schrödinger…

Alexander didn't know how to describe what happened next, only that it made his eyes hurt to try and understand as the youth's corpse… melted. Into the air, into the bloody shadows, into Alucard, into nothing –the very essence of Schrödinger's corpse seemed to blur and fuzz and slough away in a few blood-drenched instants.

FUCK.

"You impulsive-!" Alexander hissed, before training overcame rage. "You idiot, Alucard, this was exactly what he wanted!"

He waved one hand at the definitely-deceased Major, whose corpse was still propped up on his podium.

"There's something in that boy, something he wanted to get into you, and you just tore right into him anyway because why should a bloody tyrant think for a second on who's challenging him and why-"

He cut himself off as Sir Hellsing let out a sharp gasp, and Alucard followed their gaze, looking down to see himself starting to melt and slough away as most of his left side collapsed into shadow, like a chalk drawing left out in the rain.

"Ah," he said, and Alexander hastily climbed to his feet as Sir Hellsing started forward.

"Alucard!" she cried, a note of genuine emotion in her voice. Alexander would have filed that away for later reference, if not how disorienting his own emotions were at the moment. He wanted Alucard dead, wanted to see the foundation of Hellsing destroyed, but-

Not like this.

Not like this.

Alucard lifted his remaining hand, looking at it with a distantly penetrating, curious expression, as more and more of his form was eaten away.

"It feels –strange," he rumbled, and Alexander ground his teeth.

"It'll feel more than strange when I get my hands on you, if you don't start trying to fix it!" he snapped. "Focus! If you think I'll let you end things like this, vampire-"

Alucard's gaze flicked up and just –held him for a moment, and Alexander had never really understood the meaning of that phrase until now, this moment when he stared into eyes like a rusty sunset and felt them engulf all his world, until he was but a cloud floating within that endless horizon; held, held, held.

It felt like an eternity, for how deeply that sensation ran through him, but it was only a half-second at best before Alucard blinked and glanced away.

"Ah, indeed," he murmured, as a small smile curled those lips. Somehow, Alexander felt that smile caress him, even when the vampire's mouth had never touched him, even from ten paces away, even when Alucard was not even looking in his direction. His face grew warm.

More of Alucard's being sloughed away, though, jolting Alexander out of that strange moment of quiet intimacy and straight into the alarm of watching Alucard withering, fading into nonexistence before his eyes.

Think. Why was this happening? Because of Schrödinger? The experiment, the quantum mechanics, Schrödinger's Cat –they had to deal with reality, of observations changing the nature of reality…

Alexander's mind raced, frantically trying to untangle this puzzle before Alucard reached the final stage of his –disappearance. Of whatever was happening. Was there a clue, there?

"The paladin is right," Sir Hellsing said, and he did not need to be a vampire to hear the slight tremble beneath her ordinarily-stern tones. "You will not disappear, Alucard. You will not leave me. That is an order."

"And I am bound to your orders, my Master, but…" Alucard's mustachioed lips quirked in a brief smile that soon fell away. "I fear that this is one I cannot obey."

Orders. Obey. Disappearance.

The seals.

Sir Hellsing could command Alucard at a metaphysical level, but not enough to stop this, not even to reverse the mechanics of whatever was eating him out of reality. How did the Major know this would work? Schrödinger –nothing had been shared between him and Alexander, but the boy had interacted with him on a physical level, slicing his throat and then sticking his hand in Alexander's chest to pull out his lungs. Nothing had happened to Alexander.

And Schrödinger had not dissolved him, as he was clearly doing to Alucard, and if he'd wanted to stop Alexander from warning the vampire, that would've been the best way to do it. Why hadn't he? Was it not a power of his, but rather a side-effect? A side-effect of what?

Being consumed…?

But being consumed by a vampire meant quite a different thing than merely tearing flesh and gulping down blood, and Alexander's eyes widened.

Reality. Mixing consciousnesses. Different perspectives. Observation changing the nature of reality.

That was how the Major had been so insufferably sure that he could beat Alucard –either Alexander and his fellow soldiers of Iscariot would have cleaved through the endless ranks of undead and taken the vampire king's head, or… or they wouldn't, and the ranks of familiars would only ensure Alucard's doom as a creature laden with glitching and overlapping and impossible realities mixed with those thousands of souls and had his consciousness dissolved within them, creating one long category error that culminated in and of the vampire Alucard.

"It's your familiars," Alexander gasped, and Sir Hellsing shot him a bemused look. "It's fucking –jumping perceptions and breaking code, I don't know, but that boy's a self-observation losing that ability to observe in all the mess of souls he's consumed, so- so- so fucking get rid of them!"

He gestured wildly at Alucard, who at least seemed to get the point as his eyebrows arched up –but he did, critically, also look like he was beginning to believe he had a way out.

The vampire tilted his head back and closed his eyes as Sir Hellsing's breath caught, and for a moment there was silence as Alucard's very form continued to slough away into despondent shadows filled with sleepily-closing eyes. Those very shadows themselves seemed to falter and fade within moments, vanishing into open air as Alucard continued to steadily melt away, not too fast, but certainly not slow enough for comfort.

Alexander did not at all blame Sir Hellsing for her vice-grip as she caught his elbow in one hand while they watched, tense and breathless, wondering if Alucard would be able to shed those parts of himself before he lost all of himself. If not for the fact that his own grip would likely break her bones, he might have returned the gesture in some way.

They waited.

They waited.

And then- and then Alucard's form shuddered, peeled apart, and came back together again, solid, and Alexander was moving before he could think about it, clasping both of the vampire's arms to hold him up against him as Alucard sagged, just a little. The shadows lapped at Alucard's lower edges, languid, reluctant, like the vampire had just risen from the unholy waters of a black baptism, slowly dripping and tapering away.

He was still wearing that new-old form, and Alexander relished the metal edges digging into him, the shape of the gauntlets obdurate against his hands, because that meant that Alucard was real and solid and going absolutely nowhere.

Alucard bent his heart, and for one heart-stopping moment Alexander thought they were going to kiss, and then for an equally heart-stopping moment thought that the vampire was going to try to bite him, and then Alucard's lips were at his ear.

"It seems that you get what you want after all, Judas Priest," Alucard purred, and the low buzz of that voice crackled along every one of Alexander's nerves as heat flooded his body, sweeping from his chest down to his feet in one radiant flush of warmth.

He swallowed, thickly.

"O-oh?"

"My familiars." Alucard's voice was more or less grave, as was his expression, but a wicked spark of amusement danced in those deep red eyes as he pulled back, no longer resting even a portion of his weight against Alexander's grip on his arms. "With them cast out from my being to wither and vanish alongside Millennium's last ploy, they will no longer be attacking your comrades in Iscariot."

Oh.

Oh.

That was… wonderful. Yes.

Alexander felt a genuine smile breaking through, but then he realized he was still holding Alucard and let go of his arms like the cool metal had burned him. Alucard laughed, deep and rich, and more heat curled through Alexander at the delight in the vampire's tone as he took a step back.

"Alucard," Sir Hellsing breathed, relief and approval burying the joy, the genuine emotion that even now she strained to hide from Alexander, and he coughed, stepping back further to let the monster and his Master have their moment. After all this- well. He could give them that.

Alexander could also use this time he spent studiously ignoring the murmuring duo to try and wrestle down his feelings and quash all of the everything he felt in regard to Alucard and most particularly that bloody form he wore right now. He stepped closer to the edges of the room, investigating the broken panels of yellowed glass and black map outlines painted onto them, glaring at the corpse of the Major slumped near his chair.

Approaching it yielded some curiosity, as the man seemed to be something of a mechanical monstrosity, with mangled, blood-drenched gears and pistons and the Lord knew what else sticking out from the rents in his flesh. The Vatican scientists may be interested in this technology, and given the favor he'd more or less inadvertently done for Hellsing, negotiations to have it released to them or to participate in the Major's dissection did not seem too unreasonable.

Speaking of which…

"There's more enemies on the ship, Hellsing," he said out loud, interrupting the other two as they glanced up from their conversation. "Might want to start taking care of that now, if your vampire is de-powered."

"I am still formidable, I assure you," Alucard replied slowly, with a smile that showed teeth.

"Father Anderson does have a point, however," Sir Hellsing said, with a slight warning glance in his direction. "This mess will not fix itself. Come."

Stepping forward, she cast off her coat and moved past Alexander with brisk, unfaltering strides, baring the sword on one hip and the gun on another. She moved fearlessly into the depths of the ship, caring not at all that she presented both of them her back, and Alexander could not help but follow.

Alucard caught up to him in the hallway, and Alexander could not help but tense –for multiple reasons– at the breath of cold power shuddering down his spine as the vampire drew close.

"It seems that I owe you a favor, my beloved nemesis," Alucard said, the strangely-accented words still flowing in a deep purr over his teeth. Alexander felt himself leaning towards Alucard slightly, and whether it was out of an instinctive desire to accommodate the shorter man –and how strange it was, for Alucard to be noticeably shorter than him– or merely him succumbing to his desire to be closer to the vampire, he could not tell.

"A favor?" Alexander asked, trying to ignore the electric jolt in his heart.

"But of course. Neither of us would tolerate seeing the other fall to such scum-" Here Alucard's mustache gave an irritated twitch as he curled his lip. "-but you have still helped me greatly, nonetheless."

"Ah." Alexander found down the urge to smile bashfully, his throat working several times as he swallowed rapidly. "Well. It was –reflex."

"Hmm."

Alucard's thoughtful, not-entirely-believing hum shuddered down through every one of Alexander's bones and licked hotly at his nerves as the vampire shot him an amused, somewhat teasing look.

"Reflex," he drawled. "Of course."

Alexander was blushing and he knew he was blushing, but so much had happened by this point that he mentally threw his hands up and swore, fuck it.

"It was reflex if you want your head to stay attached to any other part of you," he warned in a low, venomous hiss that wouldn't reach Sir Hellsing's ears from where she strode up ahead.

Alucard looked at him for a moment –a long moment, made all the longer by the small, almost soft smile on his face.

"Very well," he said at last. "In any case, since I must thank your reflexes for my continued ability to stay and serve at my Master Integra's side, perhaps we might arrange some small meeting after tonight is over."

"Meeting?" Alexander scoffed. "What's that supposed to mean? If you think her and Maxwell would be able to negotiate without screaming at each other after this-"

"A meeting alone, my beloved," Alucard said, amused, leaving off the typical nemesis part of that appellation and thus knocking Alexander breathless. "To discuss how your favor –or my favor– might be… extended."

The innuendo was subtle, but pointed, and Alexander was pretty sure it was not his infatuated-dazed brain creating something out of nothing.

"You're joking," he hissed, his face reddening further until his skin felt almost molten with it.

"I don't joke. Not about such things."

That opened up a minefield of other thoughts, most of which Alexander could not express without risking getting defrocked. Chief among them was the thought that Alucard wouldn't lie about something of this magnitude, and didn't typically lie about smaller things anyway, probably because he considered it a waste of time.

Less concrete a thought, but still prominent, was the urge to take Alucard up on it and find out just what exactly he thought he was offering.

Being a member of Section XIII, of the Iscariot agency, meant that you blackened your heart and knew you were blackening your heart, purely for the salvation of others. The sins of murder and bloodlust were already heavy on his soul, and he had taken them gladly –eagerly, even– because if he destroyed himself in the protection of his flock, it meant that none of them would have to dirty their hands. In the face of destroying himself –of knowingly pushing himself further from Heaven and deeper into Limbo with each mission he spent slaughtering others in the service of God– what, exactly, did he have left to lose?

What was one more sin…?

Alexander cut Alucard a sidelong glance, and then took a deep breath, looking ahead.

"The night is still young, vampire," he answered. "We'll see how it ends before I start negotiating."


Me, channeling my raised-Catholic-repression energy at Anderson like the Kamehameha as I write this fic: Ooohhhhh you're gonna have a sexuality crisis so baaaaad ooohhhhhh

It's funny because my own (a)sexual awakening was literally just me running across the term, looking it up, and then me and everyone around me going "Yeah, that tracks" before moving on with our lives. Like, I cannot even begin to stress how ridiculously simplistic my discovery of my orientation was. If repressing one's sexuality was measured on a meter, my needle wouldn't even twitch.

Also, on the "sex is meant to be a tool for procreation," yes, it is actually a point in conservative Catholicism that sex is only "good"/permissible/not-a-sin if you're doing it to reproduce with your lawfully wedded spouse. No, seriously. That's why oral and anal sex were/are both still considered deviant even when it's between a man and woman –because oral and anal, obviously, can't accomplish pregnancy, and therefore they are Wrong And Bad because you're Doing Sex To Have Fun and that is a Sin, Actually.

One of the reasons for this batshit mindset is the even more batshit general theology that because humans were cast out of Heaven for eating the Fruit of Knowledge, our lives on Earth are supposed to be a pitiful wretched sinful existence of punishment, and therefore if you do anything to deliberately increase your enjoyment of said life, you're doing it WRONG.

You may recognize this mindset from certain historical hermits, Puritan-esque cults, and offbranches of Christianity who did things such as insist on wearing abrasively uncomfortable, unattractive clothes; eat nothing but bread and water or other simplistic meals; regard leisure activities as a spiritual endangerment at best; etc. Once again, their not-actually-fully-practiced-philosophy (because humans are hardwired to express themselves and they will find ways to do it within or around the context of their religion) is that if you ever do anything to knowingly enjoy life on earth, you're technically acting against God's will.

In less utterly batshit terms, they see it as like being sentenced to time-out and then pulling out your phone. You're kinda defeating the purpose of being punished in the first place.