Disclaimer: As per usual I don't own Kuroshitsuji, Hellsing, or any of their characters.

A/N: Hello everyone, this is a Kuro/Hellsing AU idea that I've had brewing for a while. For now it will be a one-shot, I just need to see how it will play out when not trapped in the confines of my own head. If I'm feeling it, I'll tack on more chapters ;)

(Yes, I am still working on Evil Nobility, I just wanted to feed this particular writing urge in between updates)

~Happy Reading!~

The room was small and there were no lights. There was but one door and no windows. The door locked from the outside. The room was bare and made of smooth, damp flagstones that were lined with a persistent black grime. In truth, this was no room at all but a cell. No shelves lined its walls for the storing of roots, tubers, and potatoes, but had instead numerous religious symbols, arcane runes, with strange, white paste gumming the otherwise flat stone. This was a cell that served as a prison.

Yellow beams of light flooded the room abruptly as the door was shoved open with a rusty squeal, and a tall, spindly-framed body was flung unceremoniously into the cell's waiting emptiness and searing, holy protections. An almost indiscernible wheeze was heard as the rough landing forced any remaining air from the individual's lungs. A filthy, matted mane of what could be age-whitened hair masked the face from view. Another rusty squeal and the disappearance of light marked the closing of the cell door.

The figure did not move.

In the beginning he had fought. He had fought, raved, snarled, howled, and tried to bite. It availed him nothing. First, he was placed in the cell. His coffin was withheld and no blood was forthcoming. Three nights passed…then Hellsing came for him.

Came for him in his weakened state, dragged him with the help of fellows he did not recognize from the wild chase through Romania, to a different cell. Brightly lit, white, sterile even, until he was cut open.

Then, he knew pain.

Of course, he had known pain in the past. Had been a victim of it, a student of it, and a dealer of it. This was new pain, however, pain he did not understand how to alleviate, let alone escape. At first he thought it was punishment, and was partially correct. A delighted gleam would flare briefly in the ice-blue orbs of the Dutch professor when he screamed in anguish. He was often too agonized to feel humiliated by it. After many times of this being repeated, he understood that information was being sought. In his delirium he attempted to provide it, anything he thought might be useful. The experiments continued.

The starvation continued.

Eventually he became too weak for speech, then too weak for screams. Soon he forgot how to. Sensation was registered, but there was naught to be done about it. Thrashing did not help, resistance did not save. An endless mist of never ending anguish spread before his senses, so he paid them little mind.

He drifted.

Time passed.

Blinding light erupted in his vision. Rough hands seized his bony shoulders and hauled him upright. Voices sounded over his head, gruff and unkind, though he couldn't quite make out the words. It usually wasn't worth the effort when he could. He remained limp.

Pulling, tugging, they were out of the cell. Lights seared his pupils, so fatigue-blackened lids closed over them. A pause, then more shoving and dragging, unkempt talons raking across stone. A solid surface pressed underneath his back. They had laid him down. He sank further into the numbness of his consciousness. The torture would begin soon. That much he still knew.

Fire evaporated his mental fog, and his eyes snapped open unseeing, as his back arched. A choked hiss escaped his gaping mouth. A straining inhale, then a hoarse scream tore out of his long disused throat. His mind floundered in terrified confusion.

NEW! This was new pain! The likes of which he had never felt in his life, and his eyes swiveled about as he fought to comprehend what was causing it. There were figures standing about him, dark from the light shining above them, and his mind distantly registered Hellsing stood among him. Words reached his ears, a low chant of ancient times, more ancient than himself and filled with power, a power that made the chant have knowable meaning regardless of tongue or mental capability.

Words of binding. Words of enslavement.

Even as bonds of fire licked across his flesh, an iced rock of dread and horror weighed in his stomach.

He had already known there would be no escape. Now there would be no chance of death. Hellsing would not expend such effort on a binding seal only to have him exterminated.

He would have sobbed his despair had he not been so busy writhing and howling.

The back of his left hand burned as though a new sun had formed atop it, and he shrieked. He caught a glimpse of a seal being carved into it before his vision went white with agony.

Then the door slammed open.

"DIRECTOR HELLSING….!" The rest of the words dribbled off into meaningless noise in his awareness, as something more worthy dominated the whole of his focus.

One chanter stumbled in his rhythm. The enchantment faltered in response. The flesh carver paused on his way to the unmarked right hand. Two amateur mistakes: both fatal on their own, let alone coupled together.

He moved.

He lurched from where he laid, graceless, but powerful in his hurt and desperation. Hellsing was roaring, moving forward to attack, he couldn't tell what the others were doing. He lashed out at the advancing professor. He thought the strike made contact as Hellsing was no longer blocking his path, he wasn't sure, but the door was open!

He staggered out into the hallway, stumbling for the exit, for a way out of the basement. He managed to force himself into a trot as the voices from the cell grew louder and more urgent.

This was his one chance. He would not have another.

He did not remember making it up the staircase, he only recalled his blurry run through the house to the outside because the house had less protections against vampires than the basement dungeons, his mind functioned better. Even as he knew the mistakes made in the ritual were of luck, so too did he know that the delay in the announcement of his escape resulting in the failure of Hellsing's men to entrap him in the yard was also of luck.

He made for the trees bordering the yard. The moon hung swollen and gold above him. The shouts coming from the large house behind urged him on. The forest swallowed him. He did not stop.

Hands on his shoulders. Gloved, soft. The scent of cinnamon and linen. Movement.

Cloth on his face, down his neck. Water running down his ribs. Fingers running through his hair, rubbing his scalp. Arm lifted, fingers tracing the back of his left hand.

Fire.

He snarls, twisting his arm away. Air is still and thick. Then a cloth on his back, the smell of soap, and he drifts.

Solid underneath him, cool and dry air around him. Dark, earth-and-stone smell, he is beneath the ground. In a crypt, no coffin, no home soil, but still hallowed and restful.

A white face swims briefly across his view. Cinammon and linen. He feels the dawning sun sweep across the land.

Sleep takes him.

Evening and he wakes. Confusion, this is not his cell, and then rememberance. There had been a ritual of binding fire, he had run, trees on all sides…he been cleaned, placed in this crypt. He remembered a white face and he sat up.

He froze.

White-Face was still there, sitting in the dark, and he had not sensed him. That was frightening.

Movement, an arm swathed in black and ending with a white, gloved hand lifted. There was a bottle in that hand. A bottle filled with sloshing crimson.

He did not remember taking the bottle, barely recalled drinking it, but did feel the heat of life-blood pooling in his deprived stomach, felt it gush through withered veins, felt it set to work on his many wounds and marks.

He needed more. He was given more.

Safe, sated, healing.

He slumped back. He rested through the evening and the next day.

Three more nights passed in this fashion.

On the fifth night he lowered his empty bottle and looked to White-Face. White-Face's mouth moved, words were spoken, but he didn't understand them. White-Face's head tilted, his mouth moved again. The words sounded different, familiar, but still unintelligible. White-Face frowned, but there was no anger, so he relaxed.

White-Face stood and left. He blinked and slumped back, ready to rest more. He was better and the blood helped, but with no home soil and coffin, combined with the extensive abuse of his person for an unknowable amount of time, his healing was significantly slower.

He sat back up. White-Face was back. White-Face was setting a coffin down before him. The lid was removed and White-Face motioned to it.

He staggered to his feet, eyes trained on the coffin. Too quickly, he stumbled. He saw White-Face step forward, hand out, and he snarled, fangs flashing in the gloom.

Immortal fuchsia shone from White-Face's eyes, churning and vile, painful to look at, and White-Face snarled back!

He froze instinctively, lips sliding back over his teeth, snarl choked off. Images and ancient knowledge bombarded his mental landscape, and he regarded White-Face with stark fear and respect. White-Face's eyes still glowed a horrible fuchsia, but the snarl slid away. White-Face gestured again to the coffin, and he moved to it again, slower this time, and with one eye trained on White-Face.

He lowered himself in carefully and was immediately comforted by the satin-cushioned sides of the coffins walls rising around him.

White-Face appeared in his vision again, the coffin lid held firmly in white-gloved hands. White-Face's eyes had stopped glowing. In the absence of the fuchsia, he saw now that White-Face's eyes were normally a cool, brown color. Those brown orbs held a question in them, and he let his eyelids sink low in answer.

White-Face lowered the coffin lid over him. His eyes closed fully as the blackness of the coffin swallowed him. He slept.

His recovery hastened after the procurement of his coffin. It lasted only a few more days after White-Face gave him entire boxes of his home soil. Now, reunited with the earth of his original home and aided by his physical recovery, memory and focus began to ebb back into the flow of his consciousness.

When White-Face spoke to him again in those words that thrummed with familiarity, he understood them.

"Good evening, how do you feel?" Romanian.

White-Face was speaking in Romanian…and he understood him!

Throat working, tongue running across his lips, he tried to answer. A coughing wheeze disturbed the still air of the crypt. White-Face waited patiently.

He looked to White-Face and settled for a nod. White-Face gave a pleased hum.

He stayed awake all night and every night now. White-Face was there almost every night, waiting for him to emerge from his coffin, and the nights White-Face was not able to come, there were still bottles of blood set out for him to partake of. He never attempted to leave, he dared not test White-Face's patience too far, for he immediately understood that the horrors he suffered at the hands of Hellsing would pale in significance to White-Face's wrath. Besides…Hellsing was still out there somewhere.

The evenings White-Face was present were filled with talking, or rather White-Face asking him questions. They were careful questions, basic, pointed, and when he could not remember, or he felt frightened, when memories of pain and terror swamped his waking eyes, White-Face did not pressure him.

White-Face would talk instead. Talked in Romanian, of himself and his going-on's, until he could blot out past agonies and focus on White-Face again. He learned that White-Face worked in a large house. The large house was owned by a powerful master. White-Face was a servant.

That bit was unexpected, but understandable. Immortals such as White-Face, for the telling, vile eyes marked White-Face as precisely that, often entered into contracts with other beings. Such contracts typically involved the immortal performing tasks or favors for their masters.

White-Face had another supervisor and four fellow servants. He learned that White-Face didn't like any of them much, though White-Face did not speak any such words aloud. The tone used was enough to communicate his distaste.

He learned that White-Face was not referred to as such, but that his name was Sebastian.

Sebastian Michaelis, the Phantomhive Butler.

The "Phantomhive Butler" bit was meaningless to him, and he focused instead on the name: Sebastian Michaelis. He committed those two words to memory, and superimposed them over churning, fuchsia eyes.

Sebastian began to thread different sounding words into his speech, and it was a few nights before he discerned that Sebastian was speaking English. Yes…that's right, Romanian was his mother tongue, he had taught himself English in the past because, because, because…

He couldn't recall. He supposed it was no longer important. What was important was that it pleased Sebastian, and that Sebastian immediately switched over to English for all conversations he held with him.

The next night Sebastian appeared with a set of clothes tucked neatly beneath his arm.

"You've been cooped up in here for some time. Fancy a walk about the grounds?" He nodded eagerly, and Sebastian gave a low chuckle before holding out the set of clothing.

"These are for you. We wouldn't want anyone mistaking you for a ghost, now would we?" He glanced down at himself in startlement, noticing for the first time what he was dressed in.

Ebony coils of his hair rested on the snowy shoulders of his evening dressing gown. His skin, what little could be seen of it, blended almost perfectly with the bleached fabric. He probably would look like some sort of wraith gliding about on the lawn.

He took the clothes from Sebastian and examined them for a moment. Sebastian had given him a plain, black pair of trousers, dark gray socks, black boots, a white shirt, and a long, black, overcoat. He hummed in approval and Sebastian smirked.

"I'm glad it pleases you. I'll give you a moment. If you'll join me outside when you're finished, then we'll set off." He nodded in understanding and Sebastian made his exit.

It took a moment to remember how to take off his sleeping gown, another moment to remember how to pull the different articles of clothing onto himself, and yet another moment to remember how to tie and fasten all strings and buttons adorning his clothes.

He managed, however, and quickly made his way to the top of the crypt stairs and out the open crypt door. The moon arrested his vision for a moment; it hung swollen and gold. He stayed there for a long moment, until the sound of a throat clearing brought his attention back down to the earth.

Sebastian was stood waiting for him. He ran a critical eye over him.

"Very good. Shall we?"

They quietly made their way through the small graveyard, just a few mere yards from the official manor grounds. He gaped at the size of the manor house, Hellsing's house certainly hadn't been that large! Sebastian let him stare for a moment then lead him about, keeping a running commentary of the different sites. When Sebastian was finished they simply walked around the grounds along the forest line.

It was good, he felt good.

Two more nights passed and he managed to say "yes" and "no" to a few of Sebastian's questions.

Sebastian came to him another night later and told him it was time.

A single cerulean eye bore into his from behind the solid desk. Sebastian was stood behind his master's throne-like study chair, gazing languidly at him as well.

He understood what this was. The immortal had done all it could for him, as much as its contract would allow. That the creature's master was a boy mattered not, with Sebastian to carry out his wishes the boy may as well be a titan in comparison to himself. Now it was up to him.

"Sebastian tells me you're a vampire."

"Y-yes," his voice was more unsteady than he wished it to be, and still very coarse.

"He also said he found you near a final death collapsed near the property lines of my estate. Would you care to explain how this came to be?" He swallowed thickly.

"I was t-trapped…was hurt…so ran," his unmarked right hand lifted to point to Sebastian, "He f-found me,"

"Do you remember who or what trapped you?"

"Hell…sing," the young master hummed in thought.

"I've never heard such a name, it sounds foreign," the boy mused.

He waited in silence.

"Sebastian has explained a few things about vampires to me…Yes, I know what I shall do with you," the young master murmured.

The child's voice raised as he addressed him, "Vampire, I am hiring you on to the Phantomhive Staff. You will be the caretaker of the graveyard and a partnered groundskeeper to the gardener, Finnian."

It was more than he had dared to hope for and a quick glance in Sebastian's direction revealed the butler to be sporting a small, expectant smile. Oh, right!

"T-thank you, young m-master," the boy smirked in response.

"Well? Does my new cryptkeeper have a name?" He paused.

He had a name from before, from the wilds of Romania, titles won from bloodied fields of old wars. He couldn't recall most of them, and those he could no longer applied to him and his new station. There was a name Hellsing had briefly referred to him by, and while he loathed the use of anything originating from that man, it was rather fitting and still bore a connection to times of old. When he spoke again there was no tremor in his voice.

"Alucard. My name is Alucard,"

A/N: There you have it. I've already got at least two other chapters for this brewing in my head, but let me know what you all think of this one! Thank you for reading and PLEASE REVIEW!