Hunting the Hunter

“I forgive you.”

“You do?”

“Now kiss me.”

•••

Walter gazed dispassionately down at the corpse. Under the glaring lights that Hellsing had brought in to illuminate the crime scene. The body looked unreal - like something that had never had animation, had never laughed, cried, loved....

“He did look like you.” Arthur’s voice cut through Walter’s thoughts. “The hair, the build....”

Arthur leaned over the gurney and almost casually lifted one of the corpse’s closed eyelids. “This looks near enough to your eye color.”

He straightened and cast a critical eye down the gurney’s length. “He wasn’t as tall as you, but not many people are.”

Walter frowned and shook his head. “Doru said he looked just like me, but I don’t see it.”

“It’s more than near enough.” Arthur matched Walter’s frown and held up his hand, one finger pointing up. “This vampire gave weeks to torturing a man who looked like you.” He raised another finger. “Somehow he used Wallace to try to trap you here.” Another finger. “He captured and... damaged the vampire who helped you against him.” Another finger. “He tortured and killed that vampire’s human companion.”

He opened his hand fully. “This isn’t the last time you’ll see him. He’s obviously targeted you and is willing and able to cause you harm from unexpected directions. You must be more vigilant than ever.

“What else did Doru tell you? How was he taken? I want to know everything he heard.”

“He was in no condition for an interrogation, Sir,” Walter responded stiffly. “I took him to safety, called the alert in to Hellsing, and came directly back here to assist with the search and cleanup.” Which had included the caretaker’s cottage with the lifeless body of the caretaker.

Arthur stuck a cigar between his teeth and let Walter light it for him, then blew out a cloud of smoke to cover his sigh. Walter was going to assist in the cleanup? He was too close to all of this to clean anything up. He had bloody well asked Arthur’s permission to have a relationship with Wallace and then killed him that same night.

This was a mess that only Arthur could clean up, and he didn’t even know where to begin.

There were too many questions raised by this debacle. Many of them might have been answered if Walter had been more restrained in how he had handled Christian Wallace. It was easy to second guess Walter’s choice, but Arthur would rather have Walter here and alive and Wallace dead than the other way around. Arthur had no qualms about valuing his servant’s life more highly than his brother’s assistant’s.

How was he supposed to clean this up with Richard? And what if, unthinkably, Richard had been aware of Wallace’s duplicity? Could it be possible that Richard was actually so bitter about Hellsing, despite his own choice to leave the family organization?

The mere thought made him want a drink, but instead Arthur pushed on with the business at hand. “Will Doru come to us for a debriefing?”

“No, Sir.” Walter shook his head decisively. “He has always been clear about wanting nothing to do with Hellsing.”

“But not you,” Arthur noted. “And you know where he is.”

“Yes, Sir, I know where he is.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow at the stiffness of Walter’s response and his unwillingness to simply offer the vampire’s location. The young man had yet to take the time to fully appreciate the fact that he had killed the man that he had contemplated a relationship with. In Arthur’s opinion, there was no need to rush to that appreciation; it was better to keep him working, for now.

“He’s committed no crime. I never thought I’d say this of a vampire, but rather than committing a crime, he’s been the victim of one, and he may have valuable information. Do you think he will tell you what happened?”

Walter considered the question and remembered Doru as he had looked when Walter had left him in his home - wounded and barely able to move on his own. Even hurt as badly as he had been, Doru had made no move to try to take blood from Walter - even though it would have eased his pain.

I would rather die.

“I think he would, sir. Philip,” he indicated the other gurney and its burden, “was someone he cared about. But he was badly wounded and I don’t think it would be wise for me to go back tonight. He was going to ring Mihaela to help him.”

“Get blood from the medics,” Arthur ordered after a moment’s thought. “Take it to the vampire, feed him until he has control of himself, and then get his full story. I want a complete report before the sun goes down tomorrow.”


•••

Walter hauled a box up to Doru’s front door and balanced it on his leg to free a hand to knock. The door swung open before his knuckles touched the wood.

Right. Showoff.

He slipped through the open door and pushed it closed with his foot. Doru was where Walter had left him, lying on the couch covered with a blanket, the telephone sitting on his lap.

“Did Mihaela come?” He knew the answer before Doru answered, though he shouldn’t have been showing off with the automatic door trick if she hadn’t brought him blood.

“She hasn’t answered her phone,” Doru said tiredly. “And you should not be here until she does. I am not infinitely restrained.”

“But you’re trying,” Walter set the box down next to the couch and removed the lid, revealing neatly packed bottles of blood on ice.

“It’s cold,” he apologized, pulling a bottle out and slicing through its metal cap with a wire between his fingers. “But it’s blood.”

He held the bottle out to the vampire, expecting him to take it. Doru looked down and away instead, but not before Walter caught a flash of something on his face. Shame?

He realized that he had never seen Doru drink blood the way he had with Mihaela.

“I’ll hold it for you,” he said, moving to perch on the edge of the couch. “Until you are strong enough not to spill.”

Doru looked up, showing that his eyes’ rich brown had bled to a hungry red. “You choose to see me?”

“I see you, Doru.” He held the bottle to the vampire’s lips. “Drink.”

Doru did not look away when he drank. Walter was true to his word and let himself see every aspect of his feeding. He watched the vampire’s throat move with every swallow, and fascinated, observed a bloodless wound on his shoulder knit itself closed. He opened another bottle without comment when Doru finished the first and held it to his lips. He watched the skin stretched over the knife edges of Doru’s cheekbones fill out, restoring the illusion of humanity an ounce at a time until he no longer looked like an animated corpse, but rather a man who had perhaps been ill too long.

By the third bottle, Doru took the initiative to hold it himself, and Walter took it as a sign that he was feeling better when he grimaced at the cold, viscous blood.

“I could try warming one of them, if you like.” He put aside the oddity of the situation and of the offer. This had been Arthur’s idea, after all, and hadn’t he practically fed someone to Mihaela? This was at least blood that had been collected without harm to the donors.

“No.” Doru sat up straighter, pulling the blanket up around his chest when it slipped down to show that the wounds there were healing as well. “Thank you, Angel. You could start a fire instead, if you need something to do.”

Walter stood immediately. He couldn’t even admit to himself that he was grateful for the opportunity to move away from Doru. As the vampire healed, he moved away from overt monstrosity, and Walter grew more aware of the fact that he was still nude under the blanket.

“Drink as much as you want,” he said, turning his back on Doru while he poked around, setting kindling in the fireplace and arranging logs over the kindling. “I don’t have to take any of it back to Hellsing.”

He took his time, not looking over his shoulder until the fire had caught and spread to the dry logs. Doru had used the time to finish two more bottles and start a third. His eyes no longer glinted red and his skin, where it was not covered by the blanket, was unmarked.

Walter considered his own scars and brushed aside a twinge of envy. The things he could do if he could heal like that....

With the only price being whatever humanity he had left. It wasn’t even worthy of consideration.

“You look better.” He drew a chair closer to the couch and sat down. “Can you answer some questions now?”

Doru set the bottle aside. He looked better, but tired. Walter wondered if the vampire was yearning for his coffin.

“Must it be now?”

“Sir Arthur wants a full report by sundown tomorrow.” Strangely, he felt almost ashamed to be pushing Doru for details. The vampire-- no, his friend had seen someone he had been fond of tortured and killed in the past night.

Doru cut into Walter’s thoughts before he could more than skim the idea that he had killed someone he had wanted to be fond of. “Then later, Angel, please.” He rose from the couch, wrapping the blanket around himself to offer Walter no more than a flash of bare leg up to his hip.

“I wish to wash the stink of the night away and rest. You may either stay here, or return to ask your questions later.”

Looking up at him, Walter remembered the fleeting brush of Doru’s lips. He had meant to kiss Christian, but had been ironically saved from that mistake by a vampire. Instead, he had kissed Doru. Would he do it again?

We already live beyond the pale, my boy; I don’t think that I can, in good conscience, demand that you live a more conventional private life than your professional life.

Could there be anything more unconventional than a vampire hunter entertaining thoughts of involvement with a vampire? And that was what he was doing. He had to admit to himself that the thoughts of Doru, and the dreaming of him, and the pang he felt looking up at the vampire were all symptoms of his attraction.

Christian may have been the impetus to accept that an attraction to men did not have to mean a loss of self or self-respect, but given a choice between seeing Christian standing in front of him or Doru, Walter did not doubt whom he would choose again. One of the two had proven himself trustworthy even in extreme situations; the other one was dead.

“I’ll stay.”

For the first time since Walter had found him, Doru smiled, albeit sadly. “At least I know that you can fend for yourself if anything happens.”

•••

Walter listened to the sound of water running in another part of the house. Doru had been gone at least an hour, and every so often the water would stop for five or ten minutes and then start again - the sound of someone freshening their bath with hot water as the water cooled.

This was the first quiet time he had had since everything had happened and he was left alone to brood over it all. He had found an ashtray and settled cross-legged on the rug in front of the fireplace to stare into the flames while he smoked.

Christian was dead.

Walter had killed him without compunction.

He had chosen Christian because, yes, he was a man, but at least he was human, right? Walter snorted quietly to himself. Clearly that hadn’t stood up to any real test. And he should be honest with himself - he had chosen Christian because he was there.

On the other hand, Doru had exposed himself to danger for Walter and had ultimately suffered physically and emotionally because of what he had done for Walter in the deep shelter. And even then, the vampire had been more trustworthy than the human who had been researched and vetted by Hellsing and government alike.

His lips twisted into a grimace that might have been meant to be a smile. Here he was dwelling on his brutal failure at a romantic life when there was so much else to think about - the potential problems between the Hellsing sons when Richard received the news, the Round Table’s reaction when they found out about this fiasco, the identity of his so-called lookalike, and what had happened in the hours between when Walter had seen Doru and Philip at the gallery and the next evening when he encountered them again under radically different circumstances?

He stirred the coals with a poker before adding another log to the fire.

And where was that white-haired vampire now? What was he plotting? Who was he harming?

Things were so bad that maybe it was just that it was easier to think about his love life than the other problems.

“Should I offer a penny for your thoughts, Angel?”

Walter jerked in surprise. Of course the vampire moved silently. Doru stood in the open doorway between the parlor and the hall wearing a heavy robe with a fur collar. His damp hair lay flat against his head, giving the illusion that it was much shorter than it actually was.

“I don’t think so.”

But having had the thoughts, and having moved Doru out of the mental realm of “vampire equals someone to never trust” into the entirely different territory of “friend I have kissed and would kiss again,” Walter thought that Doru might just be willing to pay more than a penny for some of them.

“I was thinking about what happened.”

“Ah.” Doru left the doorway and retrieved another bottle of blood from the box. Walter realized that Doru had brought a glass with him and watched him fill it with blood from the bottle. Having fed and bathed, he was apparently ready to care about civilized niceties such as not drinking directly from the bottle.

“I was also thinking about what happened, though I would rather not.” He took a sip of blood and settled in a chair behind Walter. “I know what happened to me, but not what brought you to my rescue.”

Walter crushed his cigarette into the ashtray and turned to face Doru where he sat within arm’s reach. “I don’t even know the whole story of what brought me to your rescue.”

He recounted the story of the late addition to their house hunting itinerary, the detail of the caretaker who would supposedly lock up later, the cry that had caught his attention, though not the attempt at a kiss that the cry had interrupted.

“That was me,” Doru murmured, barely above a whisper. “He was using silver knives....”

“We found them,” Walter said, equally quietly. The silver explained how Doru had been hurt so severely when vampires could shrug off most wounds without a care.

He continued, detailing Christian’s betrayal dispassionately, sparing as few words for it as he could and dwelling more on the white-haired vampire’s bizarre behavior.

“I don’t understand why he would do all this and then just let us go without an actual fight.”

“Are you suffering, Angel?” Doru set the glass aside and leaned forward. “I am, and that is what he wants. What he craves. Think about the first time you encountered him and what he did to that girl in the shelter.”

Walter preferred not to think of that scene, but he could see the logic of what Doru was saying. The rape in the shelter, his double’s torture, Philip’s death, and Doru’s agonies....

“If he had killed us, we wouldn’t be hurting,” he said reluctantly. “He wants us to live and hurt more.”

Doru nodded slowly.

“I saw how you watched him at the gallery,” he said, not needing to name Christian. “Betrayal causes more suffering than a physical pain; it strikes more deeply.”

“No.” Walter’s response was a flat negation of allowing his enemy to have that power over him. “No. I am not going to suffer for him. He has given me a gift. I am sorry for what he did to Philip and that he did it to cause you pain on top of the physical harm he did you, but he showed me who I could trust.”

Walter rose to his knees and reached out for Doru’s hand, finding it still warm from the bath. “I trust you, Doru. I trust you not to harm me or use me.” He smiled ruefully. “I think I trust Mihaela, too, but I don’t want to kiss her.”

Doru’s fingers tightened slightly on Walter’s when he said that and for a moment, Walter thought he had said something he would regret. Then Doru brought his face down to Walter’s level and their lips touched.

Like his hand, Doru’s lips were warm. Walter felt his pulse speed and his breath quicken from the moment they kissed. There were so many thoughts racing through his head, His lips are soft and I can taste the blood he was just drinking and I’m kissing a vampire, am I mad? But they were all banished as Doru slid down off the chair and onto his knees, releasing Walter’s hand to slide his arms around him and draw their bodies together.

They fit. That was the best description for it - they fit together, and Walter’s scattered thoughts calmed, though his body did not. When Doru parted his lips to deepen the kiss, Walter followed his lead without hesitation. Doru’s mouth did taste of blood, but there was so much else to think on - the scent of him, the feel of his tongue as it touched his lips, the firm muscle he could feel under Doru’s robe when he returned the embrace, and eventually the growing lightheadedness as he realized that he hadn’t quite gotten the knack of kissing and breathing yet.

It was Walter who broke away at last, pressing a last, light kiss to Doru’s lips before resting his forehead against Doru’s while he caught his breath.

“Ah, Angel...” Doru’s voice was thick with something - emotion, lust, bloodlust - Walter didn’t know. “... if this were any other night....”

“I know.” If this were any other night, Walter wasn’t sure where he would have drawn the line and said enough.

“I know,” Doru echoed and kissed his forehead. “But I owe you my part of the story.”