Poor Anderson. I really love him like I love buttercups and chocolate, but
you can't always tell from my writing.
Anderson and his friendly neighborhood nemesis belong to Kouta Hirano.
~*~
I wait, aware of the seconds going by.
I feel them pass with my heartbeat. Time is flowing around me, moving on. I sit, patient. He's not hunting out there. I don't sense anything prowling London. That means he's watching this apartment. Perhaps he's on a rooftop halfway across the city. Perhaps he's on the street under the window. Perhaps he's outside the door.
There's a phone halfway across the room. I've been watching it since sundown.
I've bathed, brushed my teeth, said my prayers. . . polished my swords and cried out to my God. He is as silent as he's been since just before I first gave in.
My God, my God. . .
The small cell phone in my coat jangles its calling melody. I can't decide if I'm pleased or not that Maxwell finally has something to say. He can't be of any help now. I get up, cross the room. "Yes?" And I can't decide what I'm feeling. . . "Oh."
Of course it's him.
"How did you get this number?" And of course he's even more evasive than usual. "No. No. I'm in my apartment." So he has been hunting after all. . . and I've lost my ability to sense him. I want to hang up. I have done the unforgivable. . .
But what is left?
"Yes." I hang up before I have to invite him. I have to claim victory where I can. I cross the room, open the door to the back porch. Naturally, he knocks at my apartment door. I cross, open it, and step back. I could be surprised; I could have lost my footing; I could be trying to compensate for a visual problem. Not an invitation, oh no. He steps inside. The door closes softly. I hear the chain. I am too busy trying to see the future to notice.
No, he's not here to kill me. . . he isn't smirking, so he's not after my blood. . . and it's not my body, either. Ah. One of those nights where he just comes to mess with my mind. Perhaps I'm hoping he'll injure himself in the wreckage.
"You look tired." I don't respond. Actually, I don't. I look drained, half-dead, but not weary. Just done. I probably look worse than I did where Incognito left me. Oh, I had dreams when I saw them fighting. I would finish off the survivor of their fight-
And I sought him out and attacked in a righteous frenzy and all I could smell was the blood on my sword.
Alucard removes his hat. The gloves stay on, but the hat falls on a chair. His hair is untidy without it. I can't decide if that's an affectation or not. He's watching me with that odd look. It takes me back to the last time I let him touch me. It's what he thinks is love.
I feel a small, miserable smile. He sees it, reads it accurately. The glasses come down, fold, and are placed on the brim of the hat.
"No, I'm not giving in."
He nods. He understands, damn it, he understands in his own skewed way. One gloved hand is on my shoulder. It stirs a faint memory. That gives me a sense of unease; I pry for it, hoping that I have not forgotten a time I failed to fight him. He steps in close, just that smallest bit taller. His clothes smell of polished wood, rain, and oh so slightly of gunsmoke. I stand perfectly still, noticing that I'm not as afraid as usual.
That slight sting on the side of my neck, just under the edge of my jaw. Then he pulls back and looks at me.
"Trade me places," he insists.
"My perspective is getting dull." I put my fingertips in the center of his chest and give a slight push. He sways the tiniest bit to take the pressure and does not move. I know how quickly this is going to accelerate. I reach prematurely for one sword. The memory recedes as I move. I pause, trying to recall it.
He meets my eyes and tips his head back, baring his neck, oblivious to my distraction. "Show me anyway."
It will take more than usual for me to be able to see through his eyes. I tell him that, in what I wish was a challenge: "I'd rather it was you bleeding."
He looks sad, but then I see the shine in his eyes, the look close to victory. I wonder to myself if I'm ever going to leave England alive. I see it already in my mind's eye, measuring the amount of shell casings it will take piled up before I am inert on the floor.
With that image in my mind, I hardly feel it as he snaps open the top three buttons of my shirt, steps in, and cuts a shallow graze down my breastbone with one nail. He's trying to bleed the most possible without getting vampire spit in my bloodstream, and I feel the faintest twinge of appreciation. Skin bumps my chest, and then his mouth opens just beneath the cut. I feel my mind open and I feel him staring in.
Seconds tick by. I'm starting to drift, and it is bliss. I lift my hand, feel hair, pull his head up. I bite, careful not to catch more than the thinnest fold of skin. I feel the faintest cold as he opens a new cut, the old one away from his reach. I taste the slightest amount of blood, tease more from the cut with a slight chewing motion.
And suddenly I am not Anderson. I am old, I am unbound by the Church and by the laws that someone else held so dear. I am powerful. I taste blood, human, thick, and rich; there is a pulse under my fingers. I am being so careful with my grip to keep from hurting him. And with me is another being, a creature that is sunk as deeply into the relief of bloodlust as I am. We are drifting, relaxed. He is beyond death and I am far beyond life. The only thing better would be action, we both know, but we are too closely bound to fight each other. Peace is costing us both. And it's perfect. I'm so strong!
"Now. No, no-let go."
I whimper. I don't want to go back yet. This was too short. I don't want to be rejected by my faith-I don't want to remember thinking I am beloved of God-I'm remembering too much just thinking of it and oh it hurts.
"Anderson. Father!"
My teeth jerk apart, and I spit reflexively. Cold fluid mixed with saliva spatters down Alucard's sleeve. I close my eyes against it, starting to lean away. Alucard's hand stays on my shoulder in heavy sympathy for a moment. I feel the stinging ease as the scrape down my chest closes. He ducks his head again, cleaning away a smear of blood from the place the cut was positioned.
He must have found me after I challenged that freakish white thing. (Eli, eli. . .) He must have given me the barest amount of his blood to keep me from dying. And I will never stop needing more until I have died. Damn him. I thought it was a miracle when I awoke, thought that the foreign vampire had not recognised me and had left me barely alive. Thought that God had laid his hand over me.
Alucard's white glove on my shoulder tightens slightly to retrieve my attention. He puts his other hand on my other shoulder, a commonplace gesture that couldn't hurt more. I open my mouth to tell him to kill me. He's sensed my mood. He draws breath to speak, lets it out, breathes again and it almost gives the illusion that I'm with someone alive. I bury my head in my hands before he ruins it.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
"Anderson." He doesn't deepen the embrace like he did once. "Alexander. Look at me."
I cannot feel grace. I will not see death and red eyes. I am still.
"Alexander." He bumps his forehead against mine, not about to let me rest. I know I have to face him eventually, so I drop my hands.
There is no mockery on his face to trigger the old pattern: my sword through his face. The sense of victory has faded from his eyes. There is the look of a father watching his child struggle. I bow my head, sparing myself from having to watch it, choking in sudden mourning for what I lost.
And the thing I had been trying to remember comes to me. My mind takes me to when I was assisting a missionary. I remember a lion's pride had killed a zebra colt. I remember driving out and watching the lions tear its corpse apart. And when I drove back, I saw a young male lying in the grass. Even for a lion he looked absorbed. He was grooming something with care and consideration. It was furry, I saw as I drove, and I looked over to see if there was a cub between his paws.
He was holding the zebra's disembodied head, carefully putting its fur flat.
There is that same gentleness in Alucard's touch as he slowly takes the tears from my face.
"You can have my blood. But you have to understand--"
"I know the cost. My blood." I feel the faintest hint of shame that I am speaking so roughly to his solicitude. Damn him, damn him. Oh, damn me while I'm at it.
But he's doing that already. If he leaves me without his blood I will have nowhere to go at all.
"Just tell me." He moves his hands to cup my face. His eyes close, and he holds his head against mine. I could believe he is sympathetic, I could believe he loves me, and oh how I want to.
My God, my God. . . I turn my face towards his a little more to help kill whatever sound might come from my throat. His skin is perfect, but chill against mine. I try to pull what comfort I can from him without replying, because my voice is getting far too close to a sob. And I can't block his insistence. The question wraps my mind and settles into my heart, sinking into the pit of my stomach.
"What do you choose?"
Anderson and his friendly neighborhood nemesis belong to Kouta Hirano.
~*~
I wait, aware of the seconds going by.
I feel them pass with my heartbeat. Time is flowing around me, moving on. I sit, patient. He's not hunting out there. I don't sense anything prowling London. That means he's watching this apartment. Perhaps he's on a rooftop halfway across the city. Perhaps he's on the street under the window. Perhaps he's outside the door.
There's a phone halfway across the room. I've been watching it since sundown.
I've bathed, brushed my teeth, said my prayers. . . polished my swords and cried out to my God. He is as silent as he's been since just before I first gave in.
My God, my God. . .
The small cell phone in my coat jangles its calling melody. I can't decide if I'm pleased or not that Maxwell finally has something to say. He can't be of any help now. I get up, cross the room. "Yes?" And I can't decide what I'm feeling. . . "Oh."
Of course it's him.
"How did you get this number?" And of course he's even more evasive than usual. "No. No. I'm in my apartment." So he has been hunting after all. . . and I've lost my ability to sense him. I want to hang up. I have done the unforgivable. . .
But what is left?
"Yes." I hang up before I have to invite him. I have to claim victory where I can. I cross the room, open the door to the back porch. Naturally, he knocks at my apartment door. I cross, open it, and step back. I could be surprised; I could have lost my footing; I could be trying to compensate for a visual problem. Not an invitation, oh no. He steps inside. The door closes softly. I hear the chain. I am too busy trying to see the future to notice.
No, he's not here to kill me. . . he isn't smirking, so he's not after my blood. . . and it's not my body, either. Ah. One of those nights where he just comes to mess with my mind. Perhaps I'm hoping he'll injure himself in the wreckage.
"You look tired." I don't respond. Actually, I don't. I look drained, half-dead, but not weary. Just done. I probably look worse than I did where Incognito left me. Oh, I had dreams when I saw them fighting. I would finish off the survivor of their fight-
And I sought him out and attacked in a righteous frenzy and all I could smell was the blood on my sword.
Alucard removes his hat. The gloves stay on, but the hat falls on a chair. His hair is untidy without it. I can't decide if that's an affectation or not. He's watching me with that odd look. It takes me back to the last time I let him touch me. It's what he thinks is love.
I feel a small, miserable smile. He sees it, reads it accurately. The glasses come down, fold, and are placed on the brim of the hat.
"No, I'm not giving in."
He nods. He understands, damn it, he understands in his own skewed way. One gloved hand is on my shoulder. It stirs a faint memory. That gives me a sense of unease; I pry for it, hoping that I have not forgotten a time I failed to fight him. He steps in close, just that smallest bit taller. His clothes smell of polished wood, rain, and oh so slightly of gunsmoke. I stand perfectly still, noticing that I'm not as afraid as usual.
That slight sting on the side of my neck, just under the edge of my jaw. Then he pulls back and looks at me.
"Trade me places," he insists.
"My perspective is getting dull." I put my fingertips in the center of his chest and give a slight push. He sways the tiniest bit to take the pressure and does not move. I know how quickly this is going to accelerate. I reach prematurely for one sword. The memory recedes as I move. I pause, trying to recall it.
He meets my eyes and tips his head back, baring his neck, oblivious to my distraction. "Show me anyway."
It will take more than usual for me to be able to see through his eyes. I tell him that, in what I wish was a challenge: "I'd rather it was you bleeding."
He looks sad, but then I see the shine in his eyes, the look close to victory. I wonder to myself if I'm ever going to leave England alive. I see it already in my mind's eye, measuring the amount of shell casings it will take piled up before I am inert on the floor.
With that image in my mind, I hardly feel it as he snaps open the top three buttons of my shirt, steps in, and cuts a shallow graze down my breastbone with one nail. He's trying to bleed the most possible without getting vampire spit in my bloodstream, and I feel the faintest twinge of appreciation. Skin bumps my chest, and then his mouth opens just beneath the cut. I feel my mind open and I feel him staring in.
Seconds tick by. I'm starting to drift, and it is bliss. I lift my hand, feel hair, pull his head up. I bite, careful not to catch more than the thinnest fold of skin. I feel the faintest cold as he opens a new cut, the old one away from his reach. I taste the slightest amount of blood, tease more from the cut with a slight chewing motion.
And suddenly I am not Anderson. I am old, I am unbound by the Church and by the laws that someone else held so dear. I am powerful. I taste blood, human, thick, and rich; there is a pulse under my fingers. I am being so careful with my grip to keep from hurting him. And with me is another being, a creature that is sunk as deeply into the relief of bloodlust as I am. We are drifting, relaxed. He is beyond death and I am far beyond life. The only thing better would be action, we both know, but we are too closely bound to fight each other. Peace is costing us both. And it's perfect. I'm so strong!
"Now. No, no-let go."
I whimper. I don't want to go back yet. This was too short. I don't want to be rejected by my faith-I don't want to remember thinking I am beloved of God-I'm remembering too much just thinking of it and oh it hurts.
"Anderson. Father!"
My teeth jerk apart, and I spit reflexively. Cold fluid mixed with saliva spatters down Alucard's sleeve. I close my eyes against it, starting to lean away. Alucard's hand stays on my shoulder in heavy sympathy for a moment. I feel the stinging ease as the scrape down my chest closes. He ducks his head again, cleaning away a smear of blood from the place the cut was positioned.
He must have found me after I challenged that freakish white thing. (Eli, eli. . .) He must have given me the barest amount of his blood to keep me from dying. And I will never stop needing more until I have died. Damn him. I thought it was a miracle when I awoke, thought that the foreign vampire had not recognised me and had left me barely alive. Thought that God had laid his hand over me.
Alucard's white glove on my shoulder tightens slightly to retrieve my attention. He puts his other hand on my other shoulder, a commonplace gesture that couldn't hurt more. I open my mouth to tell him to kill me. He's sensed my mood. He draws breath to speak, lets it out, breathes again and it almost gives the illusion that I'm with someone alive. I bury my head in my hands before he ruins it.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
"Anderson." He doesn't deepen the embrace like he did once. "Alexander. Look at me."
I cannot feel grace. I will not see death and red eyes. I am still.
"Alexander." He bumps his forehead against mine, not about to let me rest. I know I have to face him eventually, so I drop my hands.
There is no mockery on his face to trigger the old pattern: my sword through his face. The sense of victory has faded from his eyes. There is the look of a father watching his child struggle. I bow my head, sparing myself from having to watch it, choking in sudden mourning for what I lost.
And the thing I had been trying to remember comes to me. My mind takes me to when I was assisting a missionary. I remember a lion's pride had killed a zebra colt. I remember driving out and watching the lions tear its corpse apart. And when I drove back, I saw a young male lying in the grass. Even for a lion he looked absorbed. He was grooming something with care and consideration. It was furry, I saw as I drove, and I looked over to see if there was a cub between his paws.
He was holding the zebra's disembodied head, carefully putting its fur flat.
There is that same gentleness in Alucard's touch as he slowly takes the tears from my face.
"You can have my blood. But you have to understand--"
"I know the cost. My blood." I feel the faintest hint of shame that I am speaking so roughly to his solicitude. Damn him, damn him. Oh, damn me while I'm at it.
But he's doing that already. If he leaves me without his blood I will have nowhere to go at all.
"Just tell me." He moves his hands to cup my face. His eyes close, and he holds his head against mine. I could believe he is sympathetic, I could believe he loves me, and oh how I want to.
My God, my God. . . I turn my face towards his a little more to help kill whatever sound might come from my throat. His skin is perfect, but chill against mine. I try to pull what comfort I can from him without replying, because my voice is getting far too close to a sob. And I can't block his insistence. The question wraps my mind and settles into my heart, sinking into the pit of my stomach.
"What do you choose?"