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Fine china clattered softly as Walter set an array of teacups down, gently laying down each saucer with gloved precision as Arthur and Sir Irons and Penwood discussed. They spoke in stern, harsh voices, only occasionally broken by Arthur’s awkward, sarcastic laugh.
Feeling awfully invisible, Walter finished the tea set up, lingering idly behind the table, laid with a white, linen tablecloth with an embroidered edge. A knighthood gift from many years ago. Hands clasped behind his back, Walter raised a brow.
“Pardon me, sir,” he began once a divot in the conversation presented itself.
Arthur raised his head, his eyes catching the dull orange glow of the room. “Yes?”
“Your tea, sir. Shall I retrieve anything else for you?” Walter could barely keep his foot from tapping. It was nearly eleven-fifty.
Lighting up, Penwood stood, nervously brushing himself off, the silver chain tied to his pocket watch twinkling nicely. He looked relieved to find an excuse to deviate himself from the triad.
“Walter, you’re a blessing,” Penwood whispered anxiously as Walter methodically lifted the pot to pour him a cup.
“We will help ourselves, Walter. Can you wash up in the morning?” Arthur rose as well, sighing greatly. He tapped the cigar between his fingers into the fireplace. Walter could've scowled as he thought of the poor scullery maid and the ashes that would stain her dress’ hem.
“I can do so tonight, sir, once you have vacated the drawing-room.” Walter lifted the pot to Iron’s poised cup. “Unless you will be late.”
“Ah, later tonight works. You’re dismissed, Walt. We can serve ourselves, for once, can’t we, gentlemen?” Arthur took a glowing stance between his two friends, looking alight like a fire between the earthy Penwood and metallic Irons. Walter smiled fondly, tipping his head respectively.
“If you wish, sir. Ring if you’d like for me to call the cars around once you are ready. Goodnight, sirs.” He stepped out and once the door shut behind him and Walter’s ears were blessed with the silence, void of the crackling fire and chatter, he sighed and descended into the downstairs of the house. The cook and his maid cleaned their surfaces. The six maids remaining were finishing a late name game of cards in the hall. One hall-boy nervously, tediously took leather polish to Arthur’s scuffed shoe in the boot room. It felt archaic.
Walter headed to the other end of the hallway, taking the stairwell that ascended to the other end of the estate, beautifully swirling upwards, and as he stepped from the wall-like door, he paused.
Piano music echoed in the great hallway, cathartic and melodic.
Following the sound, Walter walked, arriving shortly at the lounge, adorned in thick, heavy beige and green curtains with windows overlooking the back gardens, framed by the moon. Lights, embedded in the walls and lamps and the decadent overhead fixture, bathed the room in a wash of dreamy orange cream. A fireplace lay empty and clean. Bookshelves were stuffed with music books and stray papers of sheet music. Couches with fine, embroidered print framed the fireplace, and in the center, half-circled by oak chairs, a gift from a late knight, was the grand piano. It was masterfully crafted and boomed as if it had been made yesterday but the yellowing keys dexterously played, conveyed otherwise.
The five-pointed seal on Alucard’s white, glossy gloves caught the light as he pressed and found keys with astounding elegance and precision. Watching silently, hand holding the door frame, Walter watched with sparking admiration. Alucard’s red trench coat was thrown over the back of one of the chairs, part of his silent audience, and his white sleeves, made of fine linen, were rolled up to his elbows. The top two buttons of his ash-gray vest were undone, glasses tucked on the breast pocket. His leathery boots caught the gleam of the room as he shifted pedals.
His aquiline nose followed his hands, barely acknowledging the sheet music above him.
Alucard was a gentleman, the envy of any man alive.
Smitten.
Slowly, careful to not break his silence, Walter stepped onto the padding carpet of the hardwood room, slinking around to continue watching the immaculate precision in which the vampire’s finger’s, long and refined, glided across the keys, his shoulders hunched due to his stature over the instrument. Without his hat, Walter could see the way Alucard’s hair spiraled from its natural part. Beyond simple vampire allure, Alucard was beautiful.
Approaching from behind, Walter placed his hands lovingly on Alucard’s shoulders. He hesitated on a note.
“Keep playing.” Walter watched as he did as he was told, continuing to create such elegant music. “Piano sonata number one...in ‘F’ minor.”
“Opening two, number one; four, Prestissimo.” Alucard didn’t miss a beat.
“I didn’t know you played,” Walter commented, admiring the vampire’s slightly sharpened ear stuck from raven, flowing hair. “You play beautifully.” His thumb traced the seam of Alucard’s vest. It was slightly frayed. Standing behind him, Walter watched steadfastly.
Silence.
“I can’t imagine when you learned to play.” Walter let his shoulders relax, stooping closer. Alucard smelled of fresh rain and that of a whiskey cellar. If someone had asked Walter years ago what he thought a vampire smelled like, he would not even consider contemplating fine aromas such as expensive liquor, nature’s kisses, and an undertone of Faberge Brut and finely aged Chardonnay. But then again, Alucard could choose his form, mold it in the ether as though clay in his hands. Alucard could smell of burnt ash and mildew and yet he didn’t. It was his charm.
“I had plenty of free time at one point.” Alucard finished with a flourish, pressing the last key. “Taught myself.”
“Well, you are an expert.” Walter’s body ached.
“Do you play?”
“Somewhat. Sir Irons tried to have me tutored as a boy.” he retreated, walking around the body of the piano, letting a gloved hand slide along the smooth, polished surface. “It never stuck until I went to university.” From where he stood, he got a clearer look at Alucard’s face. His wide, deep-set eyes were sullen and sad. He had the sharpest Cupid’s bow, puckered in a frown. Walter wished he could stare at that face for hours, trace the sinew and tendons beneath his fashionable face, protected by a porcelain wash of skin.
“Come,” Alucard said softly, patting the wooden bench beside him. “Show me what you learned at your university.” The flat of his hand on the wood echoed.
Walter obliged politely, making sure his vest was still snug and straight against his body as he sat, carefully itching his hands over the keys. The yellowed, ivory keys were worn in the middle. Walter remembered standing as a hall-boy, admiring from outside as Arthur played for house parties, wooing women in satin layers and aristocratic adornments, and chastising Penwood into duets. He’d run off before the butler or a maid could call him out.
Sitting there, he imagined what it felt like, briefly, to play for a house party. To be as grand and as loved as Artur Hellsing was amongst his social coterie. Alucard’s touch, smoothing back a fly-away strand that had come loose from its ponytail, drew Walter back to the present. Two servants playing the master’s piano.
“What do you want to play?” Walter said, the chill of Alucard’s gloved fingers making his spine shiver.
“Play what you’d like.”
“You aren’t helpful.” Turning to look at him, Walter was swamped by their proximity. Alucard’s nose was inches from his own. This close, he hadn’t noticed how red Alucard’s eyes were and not in the irises. “How about Clair de lune?”
“That’s awfully predictable.” Alucard tapped a key aimlessly.
“I don’t know much more than that so it will have to do.” He began to play, scrunching his nose in concentration as the rings embedded in his gloves glimmered. Alucard watched in silence, head lulling back as he listened.
Walter felt clumsy and out of practice. He quirked a lip in an attempt to stay focused, fingers struggling to find the right keys. His weaker eye, a nasty reminder, made the left keys blurry despite the lens’ best efforts but he truly tried. Picking a slower tune was a wise choice.
He felt old and he was only thirty-seven.
“We’ve been through a lot; you and I.” Alucard placed a hand upon Walter's, halting him from playing.
“We have.” He looked to the vampire, who remained icily still, hand on his, staring at the ceiling. The curvature of his neck was swanlike. “You and I have seen the best and worst together. It’s always been an honor.”
“You do not truly mean that.”
“Of course I do.” Walter’s hand itched over the keys. “What are you getting at? You’re never the sentimental of us two if there was one, to begin with.” He laughed.
Alucard blinked. “I wouldn’t say you’re not sentimental. Rather simply; you care .”
Sitting there, growing dumbfounded, Walter raised a brow. “I’m not following.”
“No, you’re not. I’ve given you nothing to follow. But it has been great? You and I?”
“Killing vampires,” Walter reached out and stroked the fabric of Alucard’s tie. It was warm. “Sneaking out after missions to walk the town, late into the night; avoiding Commander Ferguson when we came back. Sleepless evenings in the library. Your visits to Balliol. Our daring escape from Warsaw is my personal favorite.”
“Can you recall all of those things?” Alucard asked with a piqued tone.
“Yes. I’m not senile, yet.” The word stung his heart. “Why are you bringing this up?”
“I suppose it’s comforting to know you’ll remember us fondly.”
Walter laughed. “There are plenty of unpleasant instances between us that, frankly, will be impossible to forget. Even in deteriorating senility.”
“And your favorite of those?” Alucard sounded distant, aloft in his clouds of thought, far away, reaching out but not quite eager.
“Leaving me with a Lycan is a good start.” He could not contain the bitterness in his voice no matter how hard he tried. His hand had come to rest on Alucard’s heart instinctively. “Though tearing my Dicken’s collection was quite unkind as well.” He laughed airily.
Alucard did not.
“Arthur has decided to put me out of commission.”
The words coming out did not feel real. As distant as Alucard felt, the words felt further, beyond sight, beyond touch. Tangibility was lost in consonants and vowels. Walter stared, face dull, at Alucard’s raised chin.
“What?” he breathed after a moment. “He can’t do that…”
“He has. I wanted to be the one to tell you.”
Walter’s stomach formed a pit.
“I don’t think Arthur could put it delicately but I feel...his bluntness is worse than mine.” Alucard finally let his chin drop to his chest. He looked tired and the sorrow in his features was gone, steadily and assuredly replaced by stoicism. Such an empty expression didn’t suit him. His wide mouth was meant to smile. His brow was meant to be lifted.
His eyes burned.
“When was this decided?” he asked, voice strained.
“Last night. At the Convention of Twelve meeting.”
“And when did he tell you?”
“Last night. After the Convention.”
“And he didn’t tell me. He had all day today and he didn’t,” Walter paused, standing up, sucking in an infuriated breath. His knuckles flexed. “He didn’t tell me.”
“You are not entitled to know first.” Alucard slanted his shoulders.
“But you are?” Walter snapped, gesturing to the vampire quickly. “This, this impacts everything. My missions, my work, Hellsing’s work. How can he simply send you away? On a whim?”
“He told me he thought about it carefully. It is the right move for Hellsing’s future.” He stood as well, tucking the bench beneath the piano slowly. When he returned to his full height, Alucard towered over Walter, shadowing the other man as he fumbled on words.
“You can say that? With certainty? Are these Sir Hellsing’s words or your own because you can only appease him?” Raising his hands to simply let them fall, Walter felt juvenile, becoming so upset. He felt like a teenager again.
“Don’t go that far,” Alucard warned gently, his brow furrowing upsettingly. “I’m trying to lessen the blow.”
“I see,” Walter reached over and unhinged the piano’s lid, letting it slam onto the keys with a reverberating thud, the interior of the piano groaning as its chords sounded ruptured.
“Don’t act petulant.”
“Can’t I? For once, can I express how I feel? Candidly. Especially with you, Alucard. I thought I always could.”
“You can but you’ve come beyond throwing and slamming things.” Alucard eyed Walter aimlessly. “Don’t you always pride yourself in your perfected, gentlemanly behavior? You’ve grown since your youth and I know you feel it so act like it. I can only hope it hurts you more than it hurts me for you to regress.”
“Don’t try to analyze me.”
Alucard stayed silent. He watched him with half-lidded eyes, lips pressed together. In the silence, Walter heaved a deep sigh, wringing his hands together. He was right, as Alucard most often was. He felt petulant and small, overshadowed by the greatest vast dark Alucard cast and by the way his feelings constricted his gut. He had just been with Arthur. Serving the man who bore such a congenial smile. Arthur was a surrogate father to him and despite, at times, Walter’s envy or disfavor, he had no reason to ever feel spite towards his sir and employer. But this was different. He could always imagine himself being taken as Arthur’s ward, kept well-trusted, but now he could only conjure that fiery face in the drawing-room. Knowing.
Looking up, Walter met Alucard’s unchanging gaze. It had never been easy with them but Alucard’s presence had become so normal, the thickening of the air with his supernatural miasma had become his lung’s favorite, that of beyond nicotine.
Alucard held a love that surpassed that of women.
“I don’t know what else to say other than to ask ‘why,” Walter mumbled after a pause, drawing himself back down to placidity. “And that is a question for Arthur.”
“It is.” Taking the step between them, Alucard reached out, tender fingers sweeping back more flyaways, loose and falling over Walter’s knitted brow. “I’m as sorry as I hope you think I am.”
“Are you?”
“I think it's a joke, really. I can’t read Arthur’s mind, it is beyond my capability,” he paused to eye his gloves. “But, I would dare to say he is the most neutral party in it all. I am simply abiding by my master’s wishes and if he wishes to see me thrown away with the key swallowed or melted, so be it.”
“I’d hate to be you.” Walter let his head come to lean into Alucard’s palm. His thumb brushed the apple of his cheek. His fingers caressed the other side of Alucard’s hand. The embroidery, detailed and thin, was smooth.
“I’m sure you would. That’s what you’ve refused me all these years, isn’t it? You hate the idea of the loss of your freedom. Your humanity.”
“If that’s how you want to see it.” Walter raised a brow nervously. “Don’t read too much into it, Alucard. You’ll never decipher me.”
“I’m about to have a lot of time to simply...decipher you.” His words, though ginger, felt implicative. “What will you do? Without me?”
“Dust shelves, turn beds, serve coffee, my usual, just with fewer distractions.” Walter swallowed hard, closing his eyes as Alucard’s thumb came to rest beneath his eye, admiring the way the scar had faded over time.
“Sounds terribly boring.”
“But probably better than what you will be doing, instead.”
“Most certainly,” Alucard whispered. He had gotten so close.
Alucard’s mouth produced no breath upon his cheek and where he kissed, along the curve of the lower side of Walter’s orbital bone, the skin chilled and crawled. He shuddered head to toe.
“Distance...makes the heart grow fonder,” Alucard murmured against his skin. Walter clutched the vampire’s hand, latching on.
“I might die before you return. If ever.”
“Then I hope we can dismiss our quarrel. I hate fighting with you.” The wispiness of Alucard’s hair tickled Walter’s face as he moved in to hug the vampire, burying his face to the pressed and folded collar of Alucard’s shirt. Alucard’s collar pins were cold on Walter’s neck.
Wrapping his arms around Walter, Alucard sighed, airless, against the shorter man’s shoulder. “If we part as anything, I hope it is as amorists rather than opponents.”
Walter’s heart hurt. He blinked away newly sprung tears.
“I’d prefer that.” He said once he caught his breath.
“Arthur wants to enact the process as soon as possible.”
“I’d imagine so.” He could feel his heart thudding violently inside his chest, beating his sternum so hard he was certain Alucard could feel it. The King of Vampires had that effect on him.
“Do you know piano sonata...number fourteen, opening twenty-seven?” Alucard asked softly.
“Moonlight Sonata? Barely.”
“Let me teach it to you. My parting gift.”
❝❞
Walter stood ready.
Arthur slit his wrists and watched with a grim face, ashen with contemplation, as he bled onto a Delftware dish. Sir Irons held the dish diligently. It was a private affair.
Walter stood alone in the back.
Wires hung and draped the space like an ill-fitting decoration.
Pressing cloth to his wound, Arthur spoke his command as he painted on the seal, expertly inscribing all of the fine details his ancestry had imposed upon it.
Walter felt eyes on him and meeting Penwood’s curiously downtrodden gaze only made the simmering his heart be turned to a boil. He looked away respectfully and watched. Arthur had grown very pale. When all was said and done, he was as white as a sheet and ascended the basement stairs with the lords and knights at his side and Walter trailed behind, holding the dirty dishes, the sodden rags, the knife having been gifted to Arthur in his knighthood by the late Harker. It was an honor to see it this close.
He stopped on the mid-way point, shoe half on the stair, as he turned to look down the dismal hallway. It smelled of copper and burnt incense.
Alucard had a love that surpassed that of women.