A.N: Again I have chosen the title of a song for my fanfic because I write in direct response to the music I listen to, though this is more based on Placebo's "Without You I'm Nothing."

The male form reclining lazily on the armchair was far too imposing to be ignored, yet the fact that Alucard did not breathe and could stand still for hours, not even a muscle twitching, made his presence, paradoxically, quite invisible. At least he liked to think it did, as he sat frozen, only his eyes moving as his pupils followed the busy girl in her office.

There was a voyeuristic pleasure in seeing his young Master move around the room, trying with utmost effort to take on all she had to do with her slim arms, to have her legs move as fast as her mind commanded them to. She did not return his attention, and whether this was a deliberate move or not mattered little to him; being awake during the last of daylight hours was worth it if only for this glimpse into her daily routine.

He had, in fact, been observing her for a year now, growing more and more fascinated by the day. He remembered his awakening as if it had been the night before—for what is time if not a mere word for an immortal—and yet it was a primordial event, almost atemporal for its ritualistic value in his chaotic mind. All things, his timelines included, seemed to revolve around the small but mighty maelstrom that was Integra Hellsing.

He had quickly updated himself on what had transpired during his sleep, but what better incarnation of this new age than the lady who lived in the chambers only a couple of floors away from his own abode? So he observed with the scrutiny and fascination of someone who has been presented a small, fragile miracle even if he was not one to believe in such things.
And time, unlike on other occasions, had not been unkind to him. Oh, no, she became only more… entrancing each day. She was starting to react to his presence, to recognize in him an Other. Recognition turned to realization, and realization turned into a creeping vulnerability and shyness that she suppressed as much as she could. In fact, nobody else but him, so finely attuned to every vibration of her being, would be capable of noticing the threat of a blush that disappeared before it could manifest, or the smallest faltering in a word when she looked into his eyes. Whether this was the fear of the beast or something else he dare not speculate. Speculating on this matter would have been inherently wrong.

Wrong. He did not think in terms of right and wrong anymore—those had been shed like a second skin centuries before, and what good had his notion of right brought to the world anyway? He was aware of how she grew, a lady now in the prime of her youth, and of how her dreams had progressively turned… interesting. Still, to take this innocence and corrupt it, to defile it… he could not tell whether he was more terrified or enticed by the notion. And he did not need to do much to accomplish that because the darkness that surrounded him, that was him, penetrated even the most recondite corners of anything or anyone who came in contact with him. Not that he would not still play, feline-like, with his newfound interest. Said recipient of his… was it truly curiosity or was it desire? What a dangerous word, that was, for what was it exactly that he desired? It had always been his curse to desire so much that he ultimately consumed everything, including himself. He reminisced on the various times this had proven to be his downfall, yet knew that he would learn nothing from his mistakes. It was with this sentiment that he spoke, voice as deep baritone as he could manage, the words sent as a caress into her turned back.

"You seem preoccupied tonight, my Master."

Her title rolled off his tongue like poisonous honey, and he wondered if the one getting poisoned by such sweetness was himself.

Her reaction was immediate. Ah, there it was, the subtle twitch of her finger, easily confused with irritation. Perhaps it had some of that as well. She continued her task uninterrupted, sifting through the books on her desk until she grabbed that poor attempt at a biography that was partially to blame for his infamy. Partially, yes, because most of it was himself.

"I am only as preoccupied as any other evening."

"Which would still be worrisome to me, being that you have hardly stopped to rest since you took your father's position."

She made a noncommittal noise, her usual response when interrupted, and kept on looking through a series of scattered yellowing pages that explained ancient theories and myths on vampirism, one more nonsensical than the other.

"Is there anything your faithful servant can do to ease your workload?" He slumped forward, his elbows resting on his knees, and fixated his sight on her. She sighed and finally looked at him. The tense expression on her face, far too adult for her real age, lessened momentarily. He could see, and feel, her fatigue from all that had been piled on her shoulders. What would the harm be in some innocuous teasing?

"Nothing, I have all I need here." She carelessly gestured to all the books on top of her desk, to which the Englishman's account of his very own (un)life was only the latest addition.

"Stoker's little piece of fiction? I had thought you had exhausted that resource already."

"It is only one among many that I have at my disposal."

He furrowed his brows and, as swiftly as his expression changed, he dissolved into the air only to reappear behind her. She was no longer startled by all these displays; he somewhat missed being able to agitate her. He stood up and walked to her, moving about casually, as if his force was not capable of crushing everything in the room in an instant.

"I don't understand why you bother with the secondary sources when you have me right here, willing to answer any and all questions you may have."

"I could not expect you to be completely upfront about your past. Or your present, for that matter."

He chuckled, mostly to himself but still loud enough for her to hear him.

"Do you want to know, little one?" His cold breath on her neck gave her goosebumps that she could not hide. Her jaw clenched in expectant tension. "Do you wish to pry into my mind, find out how much of this cruelty is real?"

"You give yourself too much credit, vampire. For once, I know plenty about your cruelty. That, and you are not nearly as interesting as you deem yourself to be." Oh, that hurt. A sharp, delicious twist of the blade in his undead heart. And because he was a masochist, he pushed further, running his tongue on the edges of his own canines.

"My Master, Stoker got many things wrong, but my love of blood was not one of them." Whatever little sunlight there had been started vanishing with the sunset and the lamp on her desk cast sinuous shadows on his face. "It is the same creature standing in front of you that had no qualms shedding the blood of children to nurture his fledglings, the same who set London aflame with terror."

She gave him a scrutinizing glance, but no sign of fear or consternation. "I am well aware of your nature."

"Then you know that said creature is the one who also kills at your command with no remorse; it was that same bloodthirst that your forefathers saw as an asset."

Her hand twitched and started turning into a fist, but she controlled the impulse halfway and spread her fingers again. He pretended not to notice the display of strain.

"Why do you insist on telling me all this?"

He barely recognized the feeling; the tingling, the delicious fixation… Ah, what a human appetite, one he had not felt for centuries, or one he had satiated through bloodshed before it could even reveal itself as what it was.

"I just wouldn't want you to delude yourself by forgetting that it is a monster who kills for you." His hand, a claw disguised under the silken glove, moved closer to hers but did not touch her. Oh, how he longed for the time when those hands would be those of a woman… yet they were not, but they were still hers.

"I dare say you are jealous of a book."

Checkmate. The way his lip hitched backward and bared his fangs in obvious displeasure was enough for her own lips to curve ever so slightly into a smirk. He recognized the expression all too well; sometimes, the Hellsing heiress was his warped mirror.

"I have no reason to be jealous of fake, dead ink on pages."

"Funny of you to say that, given that you are dead yourself."

Yes, yes, drive the blade further…

"My Master," he could feel it as he spoke, the thrill of walking on the edge of a cliff, of unknown outcomes, of the spark of possibilities as they unraveled before his eyes. "I have never pretended to be alive in the traditional sense, yet it is this dead man to whom your mind keeps wandering at ungodly hours."

The widening of her eyes was enough of a reaction.

"You don't know that."

"There is nothing about my Master that escapes me."

Her look quickly went from startled to defiant; if he had caught her by surprise with that statement, it had been a very short-lived victory.

"You know of me only what I want you to know, Alucard." The way she said his name, like she was saying it reluctantly through gritted teeth, made a shiver run down his spine. He liked to believe he was good at waiting. Patience. He exulted in his own patience. No, lies. The No Life King gloated.

"Is that so? Then enlighten me, my Master, what are these dreams you have of me, are they simply… remembrances of my servitude?"

The shadows pooled at her feet as a very real precipice to fall into if she tripped on his questions. She was going to answer but was cut off by his whispering voice.

"Be true, Sir Hellsing, all sorts of maladies await those who lie." He held no more threat than his empty words, but it held her back.

He had been patient to plan and execute his descent on London, He was patient with waiting for an enemy to break his centuries of idleness, but the Hellsing heiress tested his resolve… A girl. That was the word on which everything rested; she was a girl, only a girl. But, what a formidable one she was.

She tilted her head sideways and exposed her lithe neck to him. Unconscious or not, it was a bold act.

"You must already know. Why else all this teasing?"

He inched closer to her and sighed. "I remind you that it was you who skulks around the house, both fearing and longing for my presence."

"And it is you who follows me, stalks me like a blood-thirsty hound through mirrors with the excuse of protecting me."

He would carry this to the end, yet a small part of him waited for the inevitable push from her. Because she would reject his advances. There could be no other feasible conclusion. He would press and press because the pain was preferable now rather than later and he would savor every drop of it.

Protect me from what I want, my Master.

"All that you just described is merely in my nature. To stalk, to hunt, to yearn… Some monstrous humans may even indulge in these habits, but what possible answer can you have for me when you finally come face to face with what I am? Will those dreams persist?"

"I told you already; I know very well what you are. I understand your proclivities as a monster as well as a man."

His eyebrows lifted at her words. His shadows kept surrounding her, their darkness intensifying, but he dared not touch her, and he was not sure whether it was to protect her or to keep himself from burning.

"And what could you answer to a man, my young Master?"

She breathed in. The rush of her blood was deafening to both of them; the confusion of desire and apprehension, dizzying.

"I am not a child," she finally whispered, almost startling him in her perception of the matter that hung between them. Only one out of so many. He sighed and bared his fangs, then leaned forward to take in her warm smell, sniffing the skin of her neck, the blonde tresses of her hair. She smelled of chamomile over her very own scent, and of fear and anticipation spiking it all.

"I am afraid you are." The words came out slowly from his watering mouth. In one swift movement, he kneeled in front of her and leaned in close enough to her neck to make her shiver and make himself suffer the most delicious of tortures as he exercised his best restraint. Could he really place the blame on his lady for this or was it him who masochistically prostrated himself under the crack of her whip?

The lines of her face remained tense as she forced herself to hold his unblinking gaze.
She was blushing, but her expression was far from embarrassed. Even if she felt it, he would have been a fool to expect her to be puzzled by the yearnings of her own body.

"I know what comes after this." Her words echoed loudly among the old walls.

"And what would that be, my Master?"

She narrowed the inches separating them until her sharp chuckle made her breath tickle his face.

"Whatever I desire."

He knew he ought not to expect anything, did not deserve anything, and yet he felt disappointment sink in when his lips remained cold and untouched. She slowly retreated, and he almost saw himself extend his shadows to grab her. He would pull her to him, never mind his thorn-like grip, his claws sinking into her flesh and…

But he remained still, the out-of-body experience making his head spin. Crawl, he wanted then to crawl to her, beg for her to bestow upon him her voice, her touch, her warmth…

Like a prayer that had been answered, she cupped his cheek in her hand, but the touch far from satiated him. Even before her skin touched him she had scalded him, a current of sensation than ran to every edge of his body.

Her bare finger traced his lips and he shuddered.

Nobody could call it an obscene gesture, but what brought forward in him was sinful, to say the least. He wished to think that she was fully aware of what she was doing, a woman still in the body of a teenager, but was that not what all dirty men told themselves when committing these acts?

But when her pink tongue darted out from her mouth to lick at her own lips he made a strangled sound, too much of a moan, and parted his. Integra was fast to thrust her finger into his cold mouth. He coiled his cold tongue around it, a promise of those same possibilities he feared.

She moved her hand back and cleaned it against her skirt as her chest rose and fell. He keened in desire and frustration, and she herself drew in a breath at the sound. Taut as a bowstring, he was, and he would have been glad to break under her pull.

Tic toc.

The clock on the wall beside them marked the merciless passing of time. Time, which was all he had, and all that she had not. Was it merely the reddening sky that reflected in her eyes or was it a mirroring of his own burning? They stalled, two parties unwilling to yield. Unwilling or simply not knowing how to.

He was the first to close his eyes. He smiled and spoke so that the words would hang only between them, unheard even to the walls of the mansion. "Very well, then, my Master."

She could not reply before his shadows engulfed him. She stared at the unraveling darkness, but she had to move her gaze, from where his eyes had previously been, up to right in front of her own eyes. He now looked just her age, a boy barely reaching adolescence. The beautifully chiseled features remained, softened by youth, but his blood-red eyes shone from under slightly wavy hair like those of a hellish creature.

His Master chuckled and shook her head.

"What a poor excuse this is, Alucard."

He smiled, halfway apologetically and halfway wantonly, an expression that was entirely out of place in his young face. "Do you need an excuse?"

Her eyes sharpened, the cunning smile returning as she took his hand and let him pull her to him. "Never."

A.N. 2: This idea had been in my head for about two years during which a lot of things made it impossible to finish it, one of them being my own procrastination. I will admit it reads a bit different from my "usual" stuff (I have been writing for this fandom for over a decade now so there is not much homogeneity) but wanted it to be out there already :)
Thank you for taking time out of your busy lives to read, as always!