A Legacy Of Sky And Sea

~*~Chapter Five~*~

Anderson: 

The vampire washed up his mess and instantly passed out, the slight little snarl on his breath made me chuckle a bit. A beastie even in slumber. He reminded me of a dragon with how he slept, with how he acted, then I remembered who he really was, and that the comparison was a fair one. I notice there was only one bed, and so I curl up next to him, letting my back be the thing to separate us. I think on my dad, on how he wanted to go back to get me, how he felt like he had made a mistake...I know he's a bit dodgy and a touch wacko, but I can tell he's a decent man, at least, he seems like it to me. I let myself sleep, but it was fitful apparently, because I'm woken up by alucard what felt like minutes later with a worried look on his face. 

" Hey, it's ok, it's just a nightmare...Are you ok? I had to shake you awake to snap you out of it."  

" I was having a nightmare...I can't remember." 

" You were talking in your sleep, and in Latin no less. Who is Mother Helen and why are you so damn scared of her?"

I sit up and let out a shaky breath. " Mother Helen was my orphanages Mother Superior. She was a mean and cruel woman, with a iron backhand and a sharp ruler. If you made a mistake, you knew it from the rings she would wear, and if you messed up enough times, she'd lock you in a room with a prayer altar and a flogger, saying if in an hour it wasn't red, she'd make it red. It's why I have so many scars on my back. I got tossed in it a lot, given my smart mouth. One day, I was finally bigger then her, and I was a deacon at that point. She raised her hand to me, and I grabbed it, breaking it, and in a fit of rage, snapped her neck. The guilt from it never left me, and for weeks, I locked myself in that damn room for hours to make penance. It got so bad, I was locked up in a asylum for it." 

   " I see." The vampire pause to consider his next words very carefully. "Tell me this, Anderson, do you think yourself a monster and that it was only you she targeted?"

"No, the bloody wench beat any child who so much looked at her the wrong way."

"Did she stop the abuse once you left?" He asked moving slowly towards me.

"I reported her when I became and deacon and she didn't get better, she got cleverer." I replied my hands berried in my face the guilt filling me, it was like I was drowning in the ocean around us. "There was a death of a small girl, in fact. Died of hypothermia after 'accidently being locked in the walk-in freezer' for the night. I had no concrete proof mind you, but I swear the bitch did it as some twisted form of punishment. We couldn't trace to her. Poor lass was only 7."

   Alucard reached over to me and gingerly pulled up my t-shirt. I froze, not really knowing what to say or do. 

" May I touch them?"

" S-s-sure, I-I guess."   

He then begun to delicately touch my scars, almost caressing them, tracing each little line as if he were reading a story in a language he didn't fully know, but found beauty in. "Then you know what I see? Not a monster, but rather an angel, an angel who protected children from a tyrant so they did not suffer such a fate. You see yourself in those Littler Sisters, don't you?"

I didn't respond to that comment, in fact what I did next was so out of character, so embracing that I can't believe I did it. I burst into tears, visceral tears of years of pain and regret. The dam had broken and the flood was stifling. I balled like a child, my whole body shaking with each scream of pain and anger. When I finally stopped, I was hugging Alucard like he was a stuffed bear, looking down at me with a sorrowful glare, the same kind reserved for folks much closer to each other then we had any right to be.

"You ever tell anyone about this, and I'll make the monsters you fight in your nightmares seem like babies throwing a tantrum."

"That, my darling papist, is the first genuinely honest thing you have said to me since we met. My lips are sealed. I am after all a void, so consider this one as silent as my kin."

He still held me, not that I minded. It was...nice. It was strangely comforting to have something like him hold me like this.

" If it makes you feel better, I too suffer from a similar nightmare, or rather, I live with similar guilt." 

" Oh? How so?" 

" History puts it as me and my brother Radu were rivals to our core, when it couldn't be further from the truth. I loved him with all my heart, and did my damnedest to keep all the heat and hate off of him and on me. One day, after another session of assault from the Sultan, he forced me to either do some...unsavory things, or to watch him do them to my brother. I found out later, Radu had been forced to watch those unsavory acts, as a means of keeping him loyal to the Turks. Years later, when I became a vampire, I visited him and told him he could join me, be with me and escape it all, but he scolded me, told me how much he hated me for leaving him, for letting time steal me from my fate, for being a monster. He told me that his death would be blood on my hands. Little did he know he was right, because when he died, it was because I was too late to stop it. I wept for my brother, and weep still I do. My first fledgling was a farm boy of the same name. He later died of the transformation, because he wasn't as innocent as I had believed, and I slaughtered his family for it. The boy was 19, but had been abused since he was 5." 

" Alucard that is...horrible...I never knew you went through such trials." I mumbled, not really sure what to say.

"Da. History is written by the victors after all, and they love to slander their enemy as much as they can when they have the ability." He replied coldly, almost as if his words were as unforgiving as the ocean outside. 

"Given your past, how do you stand being a..." I stopped with my sentence knowing that if those words left my mouth it wouldn't end well.

"You can say it, the truth is rarely pleasant. I'm a slave to the Hellsing's, and in reality, were it not for the Cromwell, I'd have ripped them apart centuries ago, down to the last bloody one of them."

"Even the wife?" 

" No, I'd turn her and let the last thing Arthur see is me sleeping with her as one last fuck you to the bloodline before I kill her." 

" Do you...have you ever loved a woman enough to turn her?" 

" No. Most of my turned are men, given my...preferences." 

" You're a flamer?" 

" Of a sort. I don't care what the body is, so long as its warm, willing, consenting, and got a hole."

" Have you...ever thought of...me like that?" 

" Honestly, until tonight, no. Since we've started this mission here in Rapture, I can't help but feel possessive and protective, like I am with my Mates. It's like watching something important slip away without me, and that idea terrifies me. I won't say I love you, but I do care about your wellbeing." 

" I'm flattered to know you hold me in such a regard, you old dragon. Well then, if I am to be your hoard, then let's be clear. What happens here, stays here, and should we leave Rapture alive, only then do we go beyond this platonic friendship, yes?" 

" I can't promise that. I don't make promises I can't keep." 

He holds my jaw where the scar was, and gently traces his thumb over it, his face going soft and gentle, as if he were holding his whole world in his hands. 

" Then let's keep it on a day by day. Every dawn, we will have these little heart to hearts, right before we go to sleep. If by the time we go to sleep we don't have the same feelings, we keep going until we do, or until we agree that it's just best we stay platonic, ok?" 

" That, that I can agree to."

" Good. Now let's get up, and get going. The night isn't getting any younger and neither are we."