Deathlessness and Old Age (part 2)

[splinteredstar]

Title: Deathlessness and Old Age

Fandom: Hellsing

Pairing: None

Summary: Walter and Alucard have known each other for sixty years, through wars and bloodshed. They have been partners, fellow monsters, and something almost like friends. Three flclets spanning from WW2 to the current time, about the relationship between them.

Rating: PG-13 for violence. But it is Hellsing.

Note: Christmas Gift for the wonderful los_christabel That I'm just now posting. Yes.

 

Walter is alive.

He didn't expect to live past the war - at the time, it was hard to comprehend that any life other than battle was possible for him. He lives, however, and the war is over, and though it sometimes feels like it was merely a month ago, every time he looks at a calendar or walks past a mirror to see his own slowly graying hair he's reminded that it's been nearly twenty years.

Time carries on against all's will, and Alucard notwithstanding, youth is not eternal.

The perpetual dust of the dungeons used to sting Walter's eyes, but not anymore. He's walking down the steps to the lost dungeon, the labs that aren't supposed to exist. His master, Sir Hellsing, has summoned him down to assist with an 'experiment', but Walter knows what's truly going on. Sir Hellsing is a good man, loyal to the principles of Hellsing, and determined to wipe out all vampires, by any means necessary. If that means using one vampire to kill other ones, so be it. If it means using unholy methods, both magical and technological, to turn that vampire into a monstrous wonder of regeneration and power, then so be it.

Alucard doesn't seem to mind, thankfully. No one would survive if he did. He's mostly amused by it, weakened and restrained he may be, and Walter supposes he shouldn't be surprised. Alucard is amused by human efforts in most cases, especially the ones that focus on him. Walter's never asked why, and doubts he ever will.

The dungeons are always colder than the rest of the grounds, but whether it's from the sheer size of them or from the dark magic used there Walter isn't sure. It could be either, but it doesn't matter. Being an assassin and being a butler are two vastly different jobs, but one thing is the same: if it doesn't apply to the job, then don't ask. It only takes a moment to reach the last room, even though Walter can't see over the boxes he's carrying. He knows the path by heart now.

Walter can hear shouting through the door, and he doubts that it'll be heard, but he knocks anyway. It's the polite thing to do. Walter's only barely used to being deferent, because he spent long enough on the battlefield following only the order to kill them all for independence and arrogance to be natural to him, even after all these years. Still, he knows his place regardless of the situation. There's a pause in the shouting, and then slowly the door creeps open. It doesn't squeak, and Walter pauses to be pleased with his work. He spent hours oiling those hinges. Then he bows as best he can without dropping the boxes and says,

"Forgive my intrusion, sir. I brought the boxes you requested." Walter doesn't know what is in them, and he doesn't ask. He glances up, and notices in an instant that it's not Sir Hellsing that opened the door, but the man's oldest son, George. The boy is normally strong and proud, eager and ready to lead, but in the barely-lit depths of the dungeons there are shadows in his eyes that have nothing to do with the flickering bulbs. Walter doesn't ask and he doesn't need to. He knows that before today, the boy barely sixteen had no idea there was a monster that slept in the basement. Walter imagines that it's a bit of shock, except that he can hardly remember a time when he didn't know of Alucard. There must have been a time, once.

It doesn't matter either way, and the boy would have to find out someday, through his father's will or Alucard's. Better to have him learn now. Sir Hellsing waves the boy out absently, his focus never truly wavering from a huge table in the center of the room. Walter waits in the back, still holding the boxes but looking around them at the table. He's seen this before, but the image still catches and holds his attention

Alucard, the bloody monster tied down to a table, straps covering almost every inch of his body below his head. The straps strain and the bolts creak as he fights them, but Walter knows full well it's simply for show. Even as weakened and drained of blood as Alucard is, power still reverberates through his body and no human restraints can hold him. If he wanted to break free, he would. Sir Hellsing knows this too, of course. The runes carved into the door and the floors aren't for show.

If Walter hadn't watched the process, he almost wouldn't recognize Alucard now, with all the color seeped from him and turning him into a wash of different shades of white. He should look old, worn out and elderly but somehow he still looks as alive as he always has. Walter's almost jealous for a moment, old longings and the memory of power that stole his breath distracting him, but then he shakes his head to clear it. He's grown up since he was a young man desperate for eternal life, and he thinks he might be starting to understand why Alucard always refused. There is a certain beauty to impermanence, Walter has found, a nobility to the changes in life. It's a philosophy that makes him feel older than he is, but it works, on late nights when he tries to sleep and he remembers what it felt like to be that close to a creature so painfully and intensely alive that death itself didn't slow him.

That creature is in front of him, his toothy grin still speaking of secrets and knowledge that shouldn't be known. Sir Hellsing finally turns to Walter, looking exhausted but determined to do what he sees necessary. Walter sets the boxes down at a gesture from Sir Hellsing, and opens them. Lying on the top of one is a single pair of pure white gloves, quickly snatched up by Sir Hellsing. An ornamental knife from another box joins them, and Sir Hellsing walks over to the table with a bleeding hand and a determined step.

As he looks between Sir Hellsing drawing on the gloves with his own blood and Alucard's sparkling eyes and grin, Walter just watches and doesn't ask what or why. He already has his answer, just from the cackling power in the air and the thick smell of blood magic that binds the oldest monster to the will of a man.

~

It's some unholy hour of the morning - still dark, still His time - when Alucard strides into Walter's rooms with the same bloody grin that still, to this day, doesn't frighten Walter. It should, but it doesn't.

Walter, of course, already has the tea ready. It's a tradition between them by now, meeting up late at night for tea whenever they want to talk. Alucard may be the most powerful being on the planet and far older than anyone around, but Walter supposes that even ancient monsters need to chat sometimes, and Integra would never stand for being woken up at such an hour. Walter doesn't doubt that Alucard tries anyway, however, just to rile her. He does have quite a bit of fun with her.

It's been years too-many since the bloody days of the war. Walter still lives, though his joints creak and his aim isn't what it used to be. He lives, and though he still watches the deathless Alucard with awe and envy, living is enough.

He still wants the power that drips from Alucard's presence, but he's gotten better at dealing with it, not letting it show. Sometimes he doesn't know why he bothers, because Alucard knows whatever he tries to hide, but if Alucard is polite - of all the words to call the Impaler! - enough to not mention it, even in mocking, then Walter certainly won't.

They both settle down, Walter pouring himself some good tea and giving Alucard a cup. Alucard doesn't drink tea, and never has according to him. Instead the vampire pulls out a bag and pours himself a cup of blood, the smell of copper stinging at Walter's nose and triggering old memories like it always does. He still remembers, still thinks of the screams of the dying and the blood-red smile glinting in a blood-red sunset and the power that made his heart race.

That power is still there, still lingering under the surface, and Alucard is still completely, unquestionably alive, but it's subtler now, less ostentatious. If Walter tries, he can ignore it, and he's grateful for that. Being Hellsing's second in command is a busy job, and Alucard causes enough frustration without adding old, obsolete longings to the list of distractions.

"So, John Bull," Alucard begins, grinning and setting his feet up on the table, "What do you think of the police girl?"

Walter pauses, wondering if this is a real question or something else, because one can never been certain with someone like Alucard. Honestly, Walter doesn't care much about the girl - she's simply there, another tool in his master's arsenal, not brilliant or violent or alive enough to catch Walter's attention. He supposes he should feel some pity for her, thrust into a life she doesn't understand and left to flounder, but he's seen too many who never had the second chance that she did. She'll founder, but she'll swim.

He wonders sometimes why Alucard turned her, why her and not him, but it's not out of jealousy like it would have been once. Power is power and immortality is immortality, but Walter's not as foolish as he used to be, and he's known Alucard long enough to know that deathlessness holds its own curse.

No, now he's just curious. Trying to understand Alucard's motives is a fool's effort, but an interesting one. But he won't ask, not yet, let the child - she's still a child, still young for all the little age matters to her now - grow a bit, and maybe Walter will see what Alucard did. He can be patient.

So Walter shrugs, smiling, and just says, "My opinions, as always, match my master Integra's. She finds the girl useful, so I will think as well." It's not an answer, they both know it, and Alucard's grin softens into an amused smile at the deflection. They've been playing this game for years, spinning half-truths and politics around each other, a private joke of subterfuge and mock-deception. It amuses them both sometimes, how much the others don't notice it.

Alucard chuckles, drinking more of his blood, but he doesn't press the subject. They could do this all night, talking circles around each other and weaving words into knots, but not tonight. Walter's not quite in the mood. He finishes his tea and sets the cup down, almost having to stifle a yawn. His body isn't as agreeable to late-night chats as it once was, but he doesn't mind. He's slowly - slowly, slowly, over long nights awake and watching his body decay - realized that not everyone can be immortal. As Alucard says, there's nothing eternal in this world, and Walter knows full well that if anyone is an expert on eternity it is Alucard.

Alucard watches him with a smile, far more friendly and relaxed than anyone else would ever see from him. Walter finally does yawn, damn these nights, and Alucard smirks.

"You're getting old, Angel."

It's almost an insult, almost but not quite, because Walter knows that for all his mocking Alucard is fascinated by human age and human death, these things he sees and causes everyday but haven't had any real meaning to him since a bloody night a dozen lifetimes ago. Walter knows Alucard far too well to be offended, so instead he smiles in return and says,

"It happens to most things, I'm afraid - present company excluded, of course."

Alucard chuckles again, and then the two of them settle into a relaxed silence, two compatriots from a war long over, two monsters - Walter knows it, always will, because he laughed as loudly as Alucard when his enemies died - who are somehow still men. It's comfortable and familiar, and for a while everything is all right. Walter wouldn't mind dying this way, comfortable and content.

Of course, he'd rather not die at all, but not everyone can live forever.