Title: Skin on Skin -- Chapter 1

Summary: Alucard and Integra play exchange gifts to the result of some awkwardness, intensity and realization.

POV: Third Person

Comments:

I don't know why I wrote this. I think it's compensation for the serieses i can't update due to my school schedule -- sorry readers!

It think it's pretty decent though, despite word overusage. Note that part one takes place about a year after Integra takes over Hellsing after her Father's death.

Make sure to read part two & Merry Christmas!

Knock knock.

Alucard shifted and muttered. He turned his head on to the other side.

Knock knock. Knock knock.

Alucard's blood red eyes shot open and fixated itself on the close and closed ceiling of his coffin. His gaze pinpointed the exact place the incessant rapping was coming from.

Knock knock.

There was someone knocking on his coffin. There was someone touching his coffin.

Knock knock.

"Alucard! Alucard! Wake up!"

A young girl's voice.

His master.

Strenuously slowly, and with exaggerated creaking, he opened the cover.

Integra Hellsing's face stared down at him. Her face was enshrouded in shadows cast from the single candle in the dark, murky basement. It made her look older than her young age of thirteen years, and rather like someone Alucard knew from before.

His eyes met hers. They were both quiet for a moment.

Then Integra smiled – or rather grimaced – her high cheekbones causing her eyeglasses to mirror the light and hide her eyes in an effect commonly found in mad scientist movies. "You're awake," she said, "good."

The vampire decided to dispel his irritation by being sarcastic. It was a decision he often had to make and the road he usually took. He curled his lips into an agonizingly large smile. "Yes, Master. I am. Hello. How are you?" His pearly fangs did not unclench as he spoke.

She showed no indication of reciprocating annoyance.

"Fine," she said, "thank you." And sat back on a chair that she clearly dragged up from elsewhere in the basement. She continued to smile at him. It was slightly unnerving on his part.

"And you?" she asked.

"You were touching my coffin." He said, rather pointedly.

"And?"

"You were touching it."

"But I'm your master aren't I?"

"You most certainly are."

"Then there we go."

"Oh, well, that's alright then."

There was a certain pause in the air as the daggers of sarcasm twisted themselves into Integra's stomach. The tension was almost visible, glowing red in the darkness.

"Master," said Alucard, "is there some kind of point to this conversation?"

The glasses hid her eyes again. "Sit up." She said "I've got something for you."

He sat up with his arms unmoving from his chest and with an extremely stiff manner – rather like the Draculas from the movies, he thought. He was amused, and he wondered if she noticed.

He turned to face her. "Yes?"

Not taking her eyes off him, she reached into her pocket and held something out. Alucard tore his eyes away from her and swiveled them over to what was on her palm. It was small, shimmery, dark blue, and finished with a white ribbon.

He stopped smiling and snapped his gaze back at her.

"Merry Christmas," she said.

He remained unmoving.

She leaned forward, took his large, gloved hand and dropped the package onto it. Then, firmly for someone with such small hands, she closed his fingers around it.

"Well?" she whispered, "It's not a bomb. Go ahead. Open it."

A moment of invisible hesitation.

Then he did so, but carefully. He tore the wrapping, inch by inch, with two fingers and then threw the blue paper aside. What remained on his hands was a case shaped very much like a figure eight.

He flicked it open, and a pair of small, round, half red, half yellow tinted shades gleamed back at him. He couldn't help the slip of the smallest smirks escape his lips.

She saw it and smiled.

"You like my gift then." she said – a statement, not a question, said in the usual impudence found in young girls her age.

He didn't reply but he did not deny it either. Silently, he tucked it into a fold of his coat.

"It…belonged to father. I found it among his old things. Well, he always was a tad bit eccentric wasn't he? I thought it would suit you."

Again, the tiniest hint of a smile.

"So," she said, "where's mine?"

He froze. He snapped his head back to face her.

"Excuse me?"

"Well … I just gave you a gift. Isn't it only right and respectful that I get one in return?" The devious smile betrayed the innocent lilting tone of her voice.

He looked at her sullenly, his eyes narrowing into slits.

"You don't say?" he said, slowly, cautiously.

Then, with nonchalance and recovery of self, he straightened up. "Well, I'm very sorry but the occasion seems to have slipped my mind, and I've nothing on my personage to give right now."

It was the tone of voice he used on people he didn't intend to kill, but to play with – the tone the cats used to talk rats.

He accompanied it with a Cheshire grin, to a rather cold, unfeeling reception from Integra.

"However…"

He leaned closer to her, leaning his body out of the coffin and steepling his fingers on the edge, more for effect than support.

"…I do promise to make it up for you in the near future." He purred, "So tell me – what is it exactly you would like, Master?"

He leaned even closer. She didn't flinch.

"Some kind of trinket? Or the corpses of a thousand fiends strewn at your feet? Do you want me to kill someone, perhaps? Or…"

He was threateningly close now, her calm, even breaths cooling the cold skin on his face and the chill in her eyes stirring the fire in his. He reached and brushed a lock of hair away from her face.

He smiled like a predator. So did she, refusing to be prey.

"Tempting," she said, "but I already have something in mind."

Alucard was sickened to find that he was actually and honestly curious as to what it was. He drew his body away from her and bowed his head, in submission and question.

She went on, obliging. "So I want you to keep your distance from me and give me your right hand."

He turned to her and did so, slowly and ceremoniously.

She took it in both of her hands and, before Alucard could argue, unbuttoned the glove and removed it.

He read the surprise in her face as she gazed at the paleness of the skin, the way the bones showed through – although he couldn't place exactly why she was so taken aback.

Integra stared at the hand for an unspeakably long time. And then, very slowly and cautiously, she began to trace her hands around his palm, turning it this way and that at the same time.

But Alucard was staring at her face. Admittedly, the newfound heat of blood covered only by her dark skin on his bare hands was very disorienting, but he still kept his gaze locked onto her visage – the questioning eyes, and the slightly furrowed eyebrows.

She looked like her father, he thought.

Hand on hand. Skin on skin.

She was so warm

He barely noticed when Integra reached into the pocket of her sky blue dress and brought out a silver-handled letter opener.

She looked up to find that he was still staring at her face, observing every little movement and every slight change in expression crossing her aspect.

If she was intimidated by this fact, she did not show it.

Instead, she cautiously shifted, holding Alucard's right hand by his wrist. In one smooth movement, she cut his wrist.

He was still looking at her.

Blood started to cascade off the wound, as red against his skin as rubies in the snow. It lapped off in ridiculous amounts, spilling onto Integra's skirt and onto the floor, gathering in little thick pools.

She stared intensely at the wound.

He was staring at her face.

Eventually, questionable in impulse and purpose, the blood from everywhere seemingly danced back into the air and into the wound in quick and silent murky arches. When all of it had gone back to it's origin, the skin closed over the wound, leaving not a trace of any damage or blemish on his skin.

He was staring at her face, as she frowned.

She then looked at him looking at her. She picked his glove off her lap and lay it on the edge of the coffin where he could easily pick it up.

She sighed, and then said, "Oh well. Thank you."

He was still looking at her as he spoke: "Master – do you mind me asking then?"

"Go ahead, Alucard."

"What in the world was that for?"

Integra looked up at him looking down at her. Unexpectedly, she smiled – tenderly, despite the bothered expression.

"It was nothing really," she said, "just reminding myself of what you are."

A moment's thought, and then a bit louder. "…Reminding you of what you are. And reminding you of what you are to me."

She looked at him then, the somber upturn of her lips still present but the blue metallia of her eyes at full force, bearing into him like judgment on man.

"Servant." She said. she emphasized the last letter, like she was tasting it.

She closed her face into an unreadable expression.

"Monster."

He didn't reply.

She stood up then, the chair squeaking on the stone floor.

She patted the side of the coffin as people often did with surrounding objects in situations concerning rather a lot of awkwardness. Then, in less than a second, she reverted back to her usual dour expression – the one she had worn since the death of her father. The one Alucard was familiar with.

"I'll have Walter come for the chair later then." She said, and turned heel. She walked away, back to the door, and then, opening it, froze.

Alucard counted ten seconds before she turned around to face him again.

"Merry Christmas," she whispered quietly, "Good night Alucard."

And the door was closed.

The nosferatu sat there, silently and lost in thought for some time after. He recalled every part of his master's visit – her smile, her breath, her touch, the knife, the blood.

He sat there, lost in thoughts that would never be privy to any other.

Eventually, Alucard reached over and began to put on his glove. He buttoned it and then stared at the sigil at the back, as if seeing it for the first time.

The he reached into his coat and took out the shades.

Carefully, he slid them onto his face onto a comfortable part of his nose bridge. It fit perfectly.

The shimmery blue wrapping lay somewhere near the chair, forgotten.

He began to laugh.