Pink Slip

AN: Sorry guys, this was written strictly as a one shot. I had an idea in my head. I exorcised it, and I moved on. Manipulative bastard!Card is interesting to write, but I don't have much motivation to write him most of the time. Still, enjoy this dose of him.
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He woke with a start to realize that he wasn’t alone in his bed. He jerked a sharp elbow into the intruder’s side and heard a bone crack, but no grunt of air forced from lungs, no sound of pain from whomever he’d just struck.

“That is hardly the way to greet me is it, Angel?”

“Dammit, Alucard. What time is it?” Walter pulled away from Alucard to sit up, and without consideration to the vampire in his bed, jerked on the cord that pulled his heavy curtains open and let the midday sun stream into the room.

The vampire’s only reaction was a sneer of distaste at the sudden onslaught. “Day time,” he said and the curtains pulled themselves shut seemingly of their own accord, plunging the room back into murky darkness.

“Well, what do you want?” After letting his eyes readjust, the young man pulled the small clock off his bedside table and grimaced at what the luminous hands told him. “This is the first sleep I’ve had in days. Don’t tell me Arthur needs something. Someone else can babysit him for the day.”

“I can say without doubt that Arthur needs nothing from you now.”

Something about Alucard’s tone made Walter turn slowly toward the monster at his back. There were times when it was so easy to forget that the almost-child was in fact a brutal killer and centuries old. Having spent a few years in Alucard’s company, the youth knew better, but still found himself occasionally lulled.

This was definitely not one of those times.

“What do you mean? He doesn’t have another whore with him, does he? He promised after the last…”

“No,” Alucard interrupted what would likely be another of the butler’s rants about the disease-infested harlots Arthur was so fond of. “No whores.”

“Then what? What are you doing in here? I thought you understood me when I said I’m not going to sleep with a vampire. No offense, I like you, and no one else is as much fun to hunt with, but I’m not going to mix business and my personal life.”

Alucard huffed in annoyance and shifted across the small bed to sit next to Walter, his thigh resting against the youth’s. “You’ve been telling me that since you were twelve.”

“Yes, which just goes to show that you’re a pervert as well as a monster.” Walter spoke without acrimony, even grinning slightly. They both knew Alucard was a monster, it was hardly an insult. “You’d think that after six years of hearing me say no, you’d finally learn.”

“In my youth, you would have been a man at twelve.”

“Well, this isn’t your youth, this isn’t Wallachia, and man or not, I’m not having sex with a vampire.”

“You aren’t having sex with anyone, Angel. I know that.” Alucard leaned against Walter and made a show of sniffing at him. “You could have girls and women laying themselves down for you without an effort.”

He grinned when Walter elbowed him away. “You could have men doing the same.”

“I’ve been too busy for those things. Arthur has enough sex for the rest of us.” Walter sighed in irritation and pushed his hair out of his face, getting out of bed to pad into the bathroom. “You didn’t come here to talk about my sex life, did you?” he called from the other room.

Alucard shifted into the warm spot Walter’s sleeping body had left and laid down, pulling the blankets up and shifting luxuriously to bask in lingering human heat. “And if I did?”

“Then you’re wasting my time and yours,” Walter retorted from the other room.

The sounds of the toilet flushing and sink running preceded his return. Alucard smirked at the tousled young man in his pajamas, still wearing the rings that were the tools of his trade, although at least he didn’t sleep in the gloves.

“You have a perfectly good coffin. Go sleep in it. I’m tired and not in the mood for games.” Walter stood at the edge of the bed and scowled at the small figure that had appropriated his favorite spot.

“If you’re so tired, come to bed.” Alucard leaned up and grabbed one of Walter’s hands, pulling him down onto the bed with an inexorable strength.

Walter resisted enough to be certain that Alucard was serious. Strong though he was, there was no way a human could match a vampire’s unnatural muscle. “I can cut that hand off, you know?” he said while he twisted his wrist trying to break the hold.

“And then you’ll get vampire blood all over your nice clean sheets,” the vampire replied with a grin as Walter lost the fight and ended up sprawled across him on the bed.

Walter rolled off Alucard’s body and sat up, crossing his legs under himself and reaching for the pack of cigarettes next to the bed.

The cigarettes slid away from his fingers. Alucard smiled innocently at Walter when they slid off the table, onto the floor, and under the bed.

“What’s this about?” Walter asked with unconcealed irritation. “First you come uninvited to my bed, get pushy about sleeping arrangements, and now you won’t let me have a fag? Stop playing around and get to the point.”

“Lie down,” Alucard said peremptorily. With a sick feeling in his stomach, Walter found himself obeying against his will.

“That’s better.”

The small vampire straddled Walter’s supine form and looked down at him with an expression that left the young man’s heart racing in fear, despite his efforts to remain calm. Alucard wouldn’t hurt him, couldn’t hurt him. Could he?

He swallowed the sudden fear and forced his breathing to remain slow and calm. “Alright. I’m lying down. Are you going to tell me why you’re here now?”

Alucard cocked his head, his sleek black hair falling over his shoulder. The glowing red of his eyes was the brightest light in the room, and was growing in intensity. In Walter’s experience, that was not a good sign. Usually that hellish glow was turned on others, too, not on him.

“Arthur will no longer be requiring your services.”

What? Walter’s eyes widened while he tried to make sense of what he’d just been told. Arthur needed him. He couldn’t run Hellsing on his own; he was too irresponsible. Was it the whores? Was he tired of Walter’s nagging about the budget, disease, and Hellsing’s reputation?

“I’m fired?”

Alucard leaned down and kissed Walter, catching the other man by surprise while he was too distracted by his shock at the idea of being fired. It took a moment before Walter stiffened and turned his face away.

“What’s the matter, Angel? It’s not business anymore if you don’t serve Hellsing.” He nuzzled at the neck bared by Walter’s action and nipped at the delicate skin. “You have nowhere to turn, do you?”

“Stop it!” Walter twisted under Alucard and glared at the vampire. “This isn’t the time. Now let me up. I need to go talk to Arthur and see whether he’s lost his mind.”

“Oh he has,” Alucard shifted to better hold Walter down and grinned with great good humor. “All over the wall behind his desk, in fact.”

“What?” Walter went still and frowned up at Alucard. “That isn’t funny.”

“Yes it is,” Alucard said, eyes brightening still more. “It is the funniest thing to happen since 1897 at least.” He leaned down and whispered in Walter’s ear, “Arthur’s dead, Richard shot him, and the guards killed Richard when he turned the gun on them. It’s all so perfect.

“And now I’m free.”

“You’re lying.” Walter licked his lips and thought quickly. “If that had happened, there would be people trying to wake me. I would be called to help with the cleanup. It’s quiet out there; nobody’s banging on my door. It’s a bad joke, Alucard. Now get off of me. I still need to get some sleep.”

“No.” The room brightened slightly as unnatural shadows retreated from the walls and door allowing the sounds of rushing feet, raised voices, and a fist pounding on Walter’s door to penetrate the previously silent sanctum. “We aren’t finished.”

He gave Walter time to listen to the shouting and pounding before the shadows rushed back and the room was once more very dark and very quiet. “Do you believe me now?”

Unwillingly, and with a growing sense of horror, Walter nodded and Alucard smiled at him. “Good.”

He leaned down and nipped harder at the pale flesh of Walter’s neck, this time drawing droplets of blood to the surface and licking them away. “It took years to push Richard to the fever pitch of jealousy and hate needed for him to kill his brother.

“Arthur thought I looked like this to try to seduce you; you thought I looked like this because Arthur liked it.” Alucard nipped again and licked at the red beads while Walter shivered under him and wondered if he’d be able to kill himself before he became a ghoul.

“But it was Richard who had the fever for little girls. It was Richard I had by the… well, you can guess, even if you are a virgin, can’t you?”

“Why tell me this? Why are you even here?” Walter’s thoughts raced, trying to understand the snowballing implications of Arthur and Richard’s deaths. “Are you here to kill me because I’m a threat to you?”

“Kill you?” Alucard leaned up and looked at the young man with false shock. “Why would I want to kill you when I’ve waited years to do much more interesting things with you?

“But first...” Walter’s eyes widened as Alucard’s face changed and the weight of the person sitting on top of him increased. When the change was complete, instead of the child-like androgyne who had been holding him down, Walter was pinned by a dangerously beautiful man who looked at him hungrily with Alucard’s familiar crimson eyes.

“Much better. There are benefits to looking like a child,” he grinned, baring viciously sharp teeth, and ground his groin against Walter’s. “But there are many things a man’s body will do so much better.”

He watched the youth grit his teeth and heard his pulse speed up. “Do you know what your weakness is, Angel?” He leaned down and nipped Walter’s jaw when the young man didn’t respond.

“Your weakness is that you live for the rush – of anger, of fear, of power – you’re addicted to intensity.” He nibbled along the man’s jaw and murmured in his ear, “That’s why having my teeth on your skin is making you hard.”

Walter stiffened under the other man and twitched his head as though shooing an insect away from his ear. “Do what you came for and be done with it.” If his body was reacting to the vampire’s presence, it was just a physical reaction – a natural thing – not because he was actually aroused.

“Not true.” Shadows slithered up over the edge of the bed and took Walter’s wrists, pulling them down and under the small of his back despite his efforts to resist them. “Your arousal is unnatural. I’ve killed many men in my long life and their physical reactions are usually the exact opposite of yours.”

He shrugged and grinned down at the furious young man. “But you have always run toward what frightens you.” He shifted to rub himself over Walter’s groin again, feeling the youth’s erection through the thin fabric of his pajamas. His grin broadened into something inhumanly sharp and predatory when Walter gasped and his hips jerked upward of their own accord.

“You make my point for me.” More shadows slid onto the bed and grasped Walter’s ankles while others pulled his pajama bottoms down and off.

Walter struggled furiously again and growled up at Alucard. “Of all the things I thought I knew about you, I didn’t think you were a rapist.”

“Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘you can’t rape the willing?’” Alucard slid down Walter’s body, deliberately dragging the rough cloth of his trousers over Walter’s cock on the way down. “But I’m not here to fuck you. Not right now, at least.”

Walter didn’t think he believed Alucard, especially not when the vampire brushed his lips gently over the engorged head of his cock. He hissed a breath through his lips at the sensation and had to restrain a groan when Alucard continued on to nuzzle at the skin of his thigh where it met his groin.

What in hell was he thinking? This was hardly the time to be getting involved in sexual hi-jinks with the newly freed family vampire.

“This is exactly the time for hi-jinks. We’re having a V-Day party and you are both the guest and the refreshments.”

Refreshments? “No!”

Walter’s body jerked when Alucard’s teeth tore through the skin over his femoral artery. For a moment the pain was blinding, but was quickly obscured by an unnatural pleasure that was very sensual and sexual in nature. Every beat of his heart pumped more of his blood into Alucard’s mouth and he moaned even as he tried to fight the lassitude that spread from the wound and through his body.

When Alucard’s hand closed over his erection and began to stroke, Walter gasped and shuddered, unable to do anything but lie bound in the vampire’s hands. He clung to the pleasure like a lifeline – if he was feeling, he was alive.

Soon, the world narrowed down to two things for Walter, the sensation of Alucard’s mouth drawing his life away from him and the vampire’s hand drawing gasps from him until he shuddered and spilled the last warmth of his life into Alucard’s mouth and onto his own abdomen.

He woke with a start to realize that he wasn’t alone in his bed. He jerked a sharp elbow into the intruder’s side and heard bones break, but no grunt of air forced from lungs, no sound of pain from whomever he’d just struck.

“That is hardly the way to greet your master, is it Angel?” came the amused response instead.