Dialectic

This is written as a Christmas gift for my favorite AxS shipper, Gish. These days I don\'t write much (any, yikes) het, and I\'ve never written straight-up AxS, so I tender apologies in advance for any shortcomings. Hellsing and all its characters belong to Kohta Hirano and whatever corporate entity has licensed the Hellsing portion of his soul. I\'d like to thank mad_maestra for her beta work on this.
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There were times when Seras was certain that she was just having an extremely protracted, extremely detailed, extremely messed-up dream.

She had to be. What else explained returning from a conference in the Queen\'s presence to a room that belonged as the set of a Bela Lugosi movie? This stone room hardly seemed like it should be her bedroom.

And some bed…

She looked sourly at her coffin; she’d spent quite enough bloody time in the thing on their flights to and from Brazil. It wasn’t as though it was a particularly comfortable wooden box, but she had to admit that it held a strange allure. The longer she spent with it, the more comfortable she became with it.

And wasn’t that one of the problems? Everything became easier with time – the coffin, the blood, the killing – it all got easier with time.

This definitely was not what she had expected of her life when she had finished the police academy and moved on to her first assignment. But really, what point was there in “might have been”?

Not much, but it was hard to let go of.

What do you get out of not letting go?

Seras flinched and spun around, looking for Alucard despite knowing in some indefinable way that he wasn’t there. From the lazy feel of his thoughts, she’d have to guess that he was either about to doze off in his chair, or had retired to his own coffin for the day. Even he did rest. Somehow, it made her feel better to know that even as powerful as he was, Alucard still needed to do prosaic things like sleep.

And when one is as weak as you sometimes choose to be, you need to rest in your coffin more than I do.

Seras frowned and looked around again. Do you really have to do that?

You’re the one who complained that I shouted at you in the hotel. Or have you forgotten telling the mercenary about that? Your words were, “He bloody shouted at me with all those dead bodies around. If he wants me to know things, why doesn’t he teach them to me before I get thrown into a massacre?”

She wouldn’t have considered Alucard’s tone gentle, but it was less harsh or critical than it had been in quite some time. Like… ever.

Why do you care? She rubbed her hands over her arms and decided to keep her robe on while she got in bed – coffin. This conversation was far too much like actually having Alucard in the room for her to feel comfortable wearing only the oversized t-shirt that was her usual sleepwear.

It was a reasonable point.

Seras widened her eyes and stared at the lid of her coffin. Alucard was conceding a point, any point, to her?

I am, after all, a monster capable of reason.

A monster capable of reason. Was that what he had done in Rio – acted with reason? After seeing what Millennium did to its own people, Seras was starting to get a better idea of just what Alucard had been trying to teach her.

We are monsters. The sooner you accept that, the better. If you have to pretend it’s for the good of others, do it.

Seras shook her head in negation. Why are you trying to teach me these things now?

You have to ask? After what you saw both in Rio and during the audience with the Queen?

No. Seras supposed she didn’t. But she really hadn’t thought that Alucard cared. After all, he’d left her to sink or swim after turning her.

Stupid girl. Do you have any idea how often I choose a companion?

Master, can you please stop reading my every thought? I’m sure it would be rude if anyone wrote etiquette for this kind of thing.

Alucard’s chuckle made her smile a little. She could get used to this. He wasn’t yelling at her, and even if he called her “stupid girl,” it sounded strangely like an endearment.

Sometimes he made her angry, and often he scared her more than a little, but Seras would have to admit that he cut a memorable figure in his sweeping scarlet coat and idiosyncratic broad-brimmed hat. She had snuck looks at him more than once while he taught her the few things he had thought worth his time for her to learn.

Why thank you, Police Girl.

I thought I told you to stop doing that! Seras could feel a phantom flush in her cheeks. Don’t go snooping in a girl’s head for those things!

Tell me what you felt in Rio.

Seras frowned, both at the sudden change of subject, and at the pointlessness of Alucard’s request. Hadn’t he just made it completely clear that she could keep no secrets from him?

I want to hear it from you.

He wanted her to verbalize it was more like it. Seras turned restlessly in her coffin and ended up staring at the wall inches from her nose.

I was scared. And stunned by the violence around her. What she’d seen before she had been able to justify almost as putting down a dangerous animal. What Alucard had done to those policemen… She’d been a cop. She could all too easily put herself in those men’s shoes.

You got past it enough to not only get our coffins to the roof, but to put your Harkonnen to use. What did you feel other than fear?

I was angry at them. For getting themselves killed for something so stupid. For trying to kill us. And that man…

The Dandy, Alucard supplied with a palpable sneer.

Him, she agreed. He was killing everyone. He didn’t care which side they were on. I hated him for that. I wanted to see him dead.

And when he died? You witnessed it. What did you feel then?

Seras paused and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think about that, and he was obviously pushing her to look right at it.

Tell me.

No, she did not want to tell him that, but Alucard’s last words had not been a polite request, but a command.

I was happy he was dead. I was happy you had killed him.

And…?

And what?

What else did you feel? Seras could feel his will pushing at hers to admit what she was resisting.

I was excited. She wanted to crawl under a rock with that admission. I wanted to taste his blood.

And…?

Dammit! Why couldn’t he leave her any pretence of privacy?

And I wanted to be down there with you. She squeezed her eyes shut waiting to hear his laughter at her expense.

What would you have done if you had been down there with me?

Now this was just going too far! I am not going to talk dirty with you!

You admit your thoughts are dirty? Such growth, Police Girl.

Seras gritted her teeth and tried very hard not to think about smacking him for making fun of her like this. She would have kept her thoughts to herself; it wasn’t fair that he’d snoop like that.

It can be quite amusing to have a talk like this – not a single improper act except the candid exchange of thoughts. If you had come down to join me after the Dandy’s death, you could have tasted his blood on my lips.

Seras put her fingers to her lips and imagined leaning up to taste fresh blood in that manner, held in Alucard’s arms with the entire world to watch with television cameras running. The image was more like a practical joke than a romantic moment, but she couldn’t help the desire that tightened her body as her imagination supplied the soft brush of his mouth over hers.

Watching me kill Millennium’s pawn – was it the power that aroused you or the blood?

She had smelled the blood. It had been impossible not to with death all around them. But what Seras remembered was watching Alucard and knowing that he was her Master. Hers. If she had to give up everything that had been familiar in her life, at least she’d given it up for a prince among monsters, instead of the likes of Jan Valentine or the Dandy.

In a strange way, it made her feel like a princess. Or one of Bluebeard’s wives. She wasn’t sure which.

So it was the power. The thought of being chosen by one who could wield that power.

No! Yes. I don’t know. She turned restlessly in her coffin and squeezed her eyes closed. Does it really matter?

What do you want right now?

Seras opened her eyes and blinked in the darkness, surprised by the abruptness of his change of subject as well as the subject itself.

When you think of the fight, and the blood, and about being a princess – what do you want?

I want to go to sleep! Can we be done now?

You aren’t that tired. Alucard’s mental voice was a purr now. Tell me what you want, Seras.

He had called her Seras? She stopped, stuck for a moment on that fact. I don’t know what I want.

Yes, you do.

I –

Go on.

I can’t.

Seras stiffened when she felt a touch in her memories and gasped in shock when one of her treasured fantasies was brought to the surface of her mind.

I like this one, Alucard said as an image of the two of them dancing together in the moonlight passed her mind’s eye. For a moment she watched the two of them in a silent waltz before Alucard bent her in a low dip and kissed her where once he had bitten her.

Get out! Get out of my head! Some things are supposed to be private!

How can it be anything other than a fantasy if it’s kept private? Think about what it could be if we shared it.

A pair of lips brushed over her throat and Seras gasped in combined shock and titillation. Don’t…

Just a candid exchange of thoughts, remember? Nothing improper.

It felt positively improper, but… how could it be? This didn’t fall under any sort of human rules. Emily Post was entirely silent on the matter of telepathically sharing fantasies.

If this is an exchange, isn’t it your turn to tell me what you want? She pressed her lips together nervously, not certain she wanted to know, but certain she didn’t want to pass up a rare opportunity.

For a split second, something flashed through her mind, too quick for her to fully apprehend it, but whatever it had been left her with her hand clutching her robe between her breasts. She had caught a fleeting glimpse of a lot of exposed skin, and a sense of being swept up by something well beyond her.

That’s not fair. You get to pick around in my head all you want, and you give me some fast forward from an adult movie?

A chuckle blew through her mind before her mind’s eye showed the two of them sitting on a stone bench together, in a cemetery lit only by the grey-blue of moonlight. She watched Alucard pull her up into his lap and put his arms around her. Under the soft touch of his hand, she tilted her head back to allow him to leave a line of kisses down her throat and over the upper swell of her breasts, which were exposed by the low cut of the gown Alucard had imagined her in.

She could almost feel the fine fabric under her fingers instead of the coarse terrycloth of her robe.

Seras snapped her head up and smacked it with a resounding thump on the coffin lid when she felt cool lips on her skin again. With a small groan at herself, she dropped her head back to her pillow and closed her eyes, not sure if she hoped to feel those lips come back or not .

Nothing improper? If their exchange of thoughts got any more candid, Seras was going to need someone to explain where this fell under the technical definition of virginity.

Your turn, Alucard murmured in her ear, leaving her to open her eyes yet again to reassure herself she was alone.

For a moment her thoughts froze and Seras felt like the proverbial deer caught in an oncoming lorry’s headlights. Then Alucard’s fingers brushed over her nipple and from a distance, she heard herself whimper.

Still sitting on his lap in the graveyard of his imagining, Seras brought Alucard’s hand up to cover her breast. She could feel his approval as he sat up to kiss her, nipping at her lips with small kisses and bloodless bites until she parted them to allow him to slip his tongue between her lips and brush it over hers.

This time she didn’t open her eyes. The illusion was good, and as long as Seras told herself it was only an illusion, she felt okay about it. She tried not to think too hard about the implications of the fact that there was another person on the other side of that illusion sharing it with her at the same time.

Alone in her coffin, Seras put her hand where Alucard’s rested in her mind. How are you doing that?

This? Seras bit her lip and arched her back when Alucard’s palm brushed over her breast, dragging tantalizingly over her erect nipple.

Yes, that. Is that the magic sex beam Pip told me about?

No. I’ll show that to you later. One lesson at a time. What else?

I showed you. It’s your turn to show me something now, Seras countered.

Not the “sex beam.” She could feel him almost chuckle at the term. You must learn this first lesson before you’re ready for the next one. Alucard pulled her body tight against his, almost crushing her against him while he kissed her with greater fervor.

Seras was unaware of her body where it lay in her coffin, unaware of the way it moved as though to press more tightly against an invisible companion. Instead, she wrapped her arms around Alucard’s neck and leaned into his kiss until she was straining to keep from whimpering again.

Now feel this, Seras stiffened as something opened within her mind; she could feel exactly what Alucard was doing to make her feel his arms around her and his mouth against hers. Do you understand?

Seras nodded. She didn’t understand how she understood, but she did.

Then show me, Alucard challenged her.

You haven’t felt a single thing we’ve been doing, have you? Seras asked, frowning at the realization.

Only your side of it, he confirmed.

Seras found that idea disturbing. She didn’t want to be some sort of doll he moved and manipulated while staying detached. That was… she wasn’t sure she had a good way to describe what that was, but she didn’t like it.

Can you feel this? Seras sucked his lower lip between her teeth and nipped it lightly with her fangs. Alucard guided her mind against his until she felt the right connection, rendering an answer unnecessary.

Alucard’s touch carried a new urgency that Seras knew was a direct result of what she was doing. It gave her a heady sense of power that only heightened her excitement. When his hand brushed across her nipple, she put her hand over his and pressed it against her more firmly until she was making small gasping moans against his mouth.

She pushed his coat off of his shoulders and loosened his tie and collar to better leave her own trail of nips and kisses on the pale skin there. Even in a shared fantasy, she was hesitant to draw his blood, but the sensation of his skin under her fangs was enough to leave Seras almost shuddering with restrained desire.

She thought he looked disappointed in her when she drew away with a small shake of her head, but he said nothing. Instead, he picked her up off his lap to stand in front of him. She turned around at his small twirling gesture and almost jumped in surprise when she felt his fingers on the laces on the back of her dress. For one thing, she hadn’t known the dress had laces, and this wasn’t real, so why was he even bothering with them at all?

Your experience shows, she said with a smile that faded slightly as Alucard easily opened her dress and started to slip it off her shoulders. Wait. She shook her head and held the bodice up before it could slide down to expose her breasts.

You’re not just doing this to make me look stupid somehow, are you? His record hadn’t been entirely perfect when it came to how they related and she didn’t want to be so open with him just to have it be some sort of bad joke.

Don’t be insulting, he turned her around and gently moved her hands until her dress dropped enough to show the smooth skin of her breasts peaked with the pale pink of her nipples. Alucard gripped the fabric of her dress before it slid off her arms, drawing her wrists together still caught inside the sleeves.

Seras wiggled, trying to pull her arms free of the constraining fabric, pulling even harder when Alucard used his grip to draw her to him. With him seated on the bench and her standing between his open thighs, her breasts were on a perfect level for him to lean forward slightly and draw first one nipple, and then the other, between his teeth with a painfully pleasurable drag. Her struggles against her handcuffing dress only made his otherwise gentle nips more harsh.

Please stop!

Alucard looked up at her with a smirk before returning to his delicious torment of her breasts. You don’t want me to stop. Do you want to know how I know?

Seras didn’t answer, but her struggles subsided slightly when his fangs drew beads of blood on her nipple. She watched in fascination while he licked them away with lavish sweeps of his tongue.

If you wanted me to stop, you wouldn’t still be letting me feel this. And you wouldn’t be so aroused that you can hardly stand without shaking.

Seras realized she couldn’t actually argue against his point. She didn’t really want him to stop, but she did want her hands back. At least let my hands go?

Of course.

Seras regretted her request more quickly than she would have thought possible; Alucard pulled her dress not only down and off of her hands and arms, but also down and off her waist, leaving it puddled around her feet on the ground.

She stood nude in front of her sire, both shocked, and excited. She reminded herself that nothing about this was real. Except we’ll both remember it as though it is, her unhelpful mind whispered to her.

Just as you asked. Now you have both hands free once more.

Alucard put his arms around her waist and drew her down onto his lap until she straddled him, the rough cloth of his trousers between her legs where she rested against him. It took her a moment to realize that the firm line she was pressed against was his erection. His hands on her hips kept her from pulling away and turned her abbreviated attempt to do so into a gasp-provoking stroke over the fabric separating them.

There is no problem…

Seras’ struggles stopped immediately, her embarrassment dissipating in a sudden warmth that suffused her body and made every motion seem to take place in slow motion.

There is…

She stopped fighting.

…no…

Why had she been fighting?

…problem.

She smiled dreamily at Alucard and leaned forward to kiss him, moaning quietly when his lips parted to allow her to kiss him more deeply.

That is what the mercenary called the “magic sex beam,” Alucard told her and allowed the glamour to drop even as he pulled her mouth against his, turning the kiss fierce. Her struggles started weak and became quickly weaker until she was moaning even without his influence.

When his hand slid down the cleft of her buttocks and up between her legs to stroke her, Seras gasped and stiffened; she was unsure whether she was afraid that he would stop or that he would continue. As he slowly slid a finger inside her, she was certain she didn’t want him to stop – the sensation left her clinging to his neck and moaning.

Please…she stopped and buried her face against his shoulder as he slid a second finger inside her and slowly stroked her. Her hips rocked of their own volition to match his slow rhythm of advance and retreat.

What do you want?

I want… her thought broke off as slid his now wet fingers across her clitoris, squeezing the tender bundle of nerves gently between them before dipping down to stroke inside her once more.

“Tell me what you want, Seras.” Just hearing him speak her name sent shudders through her she would never have expected. Her name had a power when he used it, partly because he did it so rarely.

“I want you,” she whispered, letting the breath that carried her words tickle the fine hairs in his ear.

“You had only to ask,” he said with a smile. He held her as he rose from the stone bench and carried her to a nearby mausoleum. The door swung open at his approach, revealing a stone room lit by the warm glow of countless candles on every surface except that of the gleaming coffin that stood open on a pedestal in the middle of the room.

“Some of those vampire movies have interesting ideas,” he said with a laugh as he deposited her in the lush satin interior of the coffin.

Seras looked around and realized that she had seen exactly this setting in some Hammer House of Horror movie she had watched as a kid. Her laugh died before it left her lips as she watched Alucard slide his trousers off his narrow hips to stand fully exposed in front of her.

So this was what the mystery was all about? Her gaze slowly traveled back up his body, lingering on the muscles in his abdomen and chest before stopping at his smirk of satisfaction.

She bit her lip and considered the situation. This wasn’t real, but really, it was. Both of them were seeing and feeling the same things – didn’t that make it real in a way?

“Follow that thought,” Alucard encouraged as he stepped up to the side of the coffin. “One of our greater powers comes not from physical strength, but from command of what another perceives as reality.”

“How real is this? If you killed me here – now…?”

“You would die,” Alucard said and climbed into the coffin to kneel in front of Seras where she sat with her knees drawn up to her chest. He held a hand out to her and watched her slowly uncurl from her instinctive defensive posture to take his hand and allow him to draw her forward into his arms and onto his lap again.

This time there was no fig leaf of clothing between the two of them. The sensation of his firm flesh sliding against her more tender skin left Seras clinging to Alucard torn between her continued reservations and her own internal devil’s advocate, who urged her to take everything that was being offered.

She didn’t much like that urging voice – it was the one that told her that she should learn to make peace with her bloodlust, the one that told her that killing was justified sometimes. This time it whispered seductively, timing its insinuations with Alucard’s hands stroking her back and hair.

When Alucard pulled her upward with his hands on her hips, Seras knew it was her last chance to decide this was too real for her. As she felt the head of his erection nudging at her, she closed her eyes and lowered herself, hissing in surprised pleasure. Wasn’t this supposed to hurt?

You forgot where you are. She choked on a moan when Alucard rocked his hips and thrust suddenly up into her. Why would I bother with pain?

Although she thought she could think of reasons why Alucard might bother with pain, she had forgotten where she was. The complete lack of discomfort was a blessing because it reminded Seras that what they were doing wasn’t real, allowing her to relax.

Alucard’s strong hands raised her and brought her back down against him again while he raised his hips to ensure maximum contact between their bodies. Seras’ startled moan told him when he found the proper angle and he used her unintentional guidance to wring more sounds from her until she was shaking and digging her fingers into his shoulders with a strength no human could match.

Taking his time, Alucard slipped his hand between their bodies to rub Seras where they joined, stroking his fingers gently over her soft skin until they drifted over her clitoris and stopped to rub in gentle circles that matched the rhythm of his slow strokes.

Every so often Seras would find herself wondering what on earth she was doing, but it was gone almost before it registered, borne away under the ministrations of a vampire with more than five hundred years of experience. Her thoughts were most often of the feel of him filling her, his fingers as they coaxed still more pleasure from her, and his mouth as he lavished nipping attention on her exposed skin.

Her orgasm took her almost by surprise. It had built subtly until only Alucard’s arm around her waist kept her close to him as she rode the swell of sensation that swept up through her body.

Alucard cradled her backward when she arched her back and cried out, repeating “please” over and over. She had no idea what she was begging for – for the pleasure to stop before it drowned her, for it never to stop and wash her under, for Alucard to move harder, for him to move more gently – everything he did was what she begged for.

And when he bore her backward until she lay under him in the satin comfort of the coffin, it was exactly what she wanted before she had known she wanted it. She wrapped her arms and legs around Alucard while she rocked her pelvis up to meet his thrusts.

Alucard’s quiet noises of pleasure grew louder until he was practically growling in her ear, a low rumble that would have terrified her if she’d been human, but which spoke to some deeper nature of hers, arousing her on a new and primal level. She felt her teeth lengthening and twisted her face away from Alucard, not wanting to give in to the urge to bite him and drink deeply.

Alucard’s put his palm on her cheek and turned her face back to him. “Indulge yourself. It is no more or less natural than what we’re already doing.”

Seras shook her head. “No. Not now.” Maybe another time, but she’d reached her uppermost limit for new experiences, choosing to enjoy what they were already doing. She pulled Alucard’s face down to hers and kissed him hard, doing her best to distract him from the matter of blood.

Another time, then. Alucard’s thrusts came faster and harder and his growls lost any sense of humanity to them, making Seras thrill with lust spiced with just a bit of fear. When he stiffened and arched away from her, it took her a moment to realize that she was witnessing his orgasm. Bad romance novels had always made out that you could feel a man’s orgasm, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

Who knew, she wondered. Maybe in real life you could, but in fantasy you couldn’t.

She looked shyly at Alucard when his attention focused on her again and slowly leaned up to kiss him when he bent to her. With the rush of desire slowly fading, Seras was more conscious of their situation. She was starting to think that this was too real – far too real.

She pulled away from Alucard and scooted upward in the coffin, separating their bodies. She needed to prove to herself that this was illusory.

“I want out of here now. Let me out.” She wasn’t sure what she was feeling. Buyer’s remorse? Finding herself back in her coffin without Alucard’s taste in her mouth or touch on her body would help. She was sure of it.

Alucard shook his head. “No. Get yourself out.” He leaned forward to nuzzle at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. “It’s not real if you don’t permit it to be. Show me you’re strong enough to find your reality.”

Seras’ eyes slid closed as his hand moved up her torso and over her breast, fingers playing lightly over her nipple. She could tell this was a test, and after what she’d just learned with Alucard, she didn’t want to fail him.

When his fingers passed over her lips, she could taste herself on his skin, smell his blood, and feel the faint ridges of the whorls on his fingerpads pass over the sensitive skin of her lips. It was so real. It was realer than many things she’d experienced since becoming a vampire.

No, it isn’t, Police Girl. She winced at the return of the familiar disapproving tone and demeaning nickname. Find your reality, now.

“Then stop doing that!” Seras pushed his hand away from her face and scooted out from under him enough to sit up. “I can’t concentrate when you’re doing that.”

Will your enemy give you peace to concentrate? Alucard’s fingers teased across her nipple again, wringing a small hiss from her. Your third eye is for more than aiming a gun, he hinted even as his teasing touch moved lower, over her ribs and ticklishly across her abdomen.

“My third eye…?” Seras twitched and tried to suppress a giggle. No matter how gentle or teasing Alucard was being, his reversion to calling her Police Girl told her that he was serious about the lesson.

She focused, trying to block out his touch the same way she blocked out distractions when shooting. His fingers drifted down, stirring her soft pubic hair and Seras knew if she didn’t succeed before he got any farther, she wasn’t going to.

Opening her third eye, the target she sought to track was the wood of her coffin lid. It was a race between her mind and his fingers. Her body stiffened and she gasped in triumph when the mausoleum and its candles broke apart to reveal the familiar whorls and grain of her coffin.

I will give you passing marks for tonight’s lesson.

As Seras drew her robe tighter around herself, she wondered if she wouldn’t have minded failing that last test for a chance to do some make-up work.

Another night, Seras. And other lessons.