Work Text:
The raindrops gather on the window, the smaller ones moving together to form larger and larger droplets until the water begins to run, racing faster and faster as it picks up more droplets. From her position on the library floor, Seras watches two different large droplets move with steadily increasing speed towards the bottom of the pane, her hands momentarily forgotten. The droplets are neck and neck, running parallel to each other and nearly at the bottom of the pane when the door to the library creaks open.
In the silence the noise is deafening and it startles Seras. She jolts, barely, but she does, and the minor movement is enough to disturb her hands and their delicate work, causing the house of cards in front of her to fall.
“Shite!” Seras scrambles, picking the cards back up and looking over her shoulder to see who’s come into the library this rainy afternoon.
In the doorway stands Walter, holding a tray with a teapot and two cups, and watching Seras with one eyebrow raised. “Miss Seras.”
“Oh, ‘ello, Walter. Am I in your way?”
The old butler’s face softens, and he shakes his head. “Not at all. I am merely setting up a spot of tea for Sir Integra. She’s agreed to take a short break from her work.”
“Are you sure? I can clear out if you need.”
“I’m sure. In fact, it may be that your company makes the time spent more pleasant.”
Half an hour later Alucard—woken up out of his coffin by strong emotions running down the tether between him and his fledgling—wanders into the library to the sight of Walter, Seras, and Integra locked in a battle of wills. Each of them has a pile of cards in front of them, the cards themselves stacked in such a way that they look like miniature buildings, and each pile is distinct from the others.
Seras’ cards have been turned on their side short-ways, making her building tall and unstable. Alucard watches as, with her tongue caught between her teeth, she places two cards in a triangular shape. As she’s pulling her hand back, her wrist bumps into the horizontal card she’d just placed the next two cards on. The cards Seras just placed fall over, and she watches them fall with an exaggerated frown.
Across from Seras at the same table is Walter, whose own card house is further along than Seras’s. He’s got a sizeable structure in front of him and, as he leans two cards against each other on the second layer, Alucard realizes he’s making Buckingham Palace and has to hold back a laugh. How predictable of the old Englishman.
Integra sits at the head of the table, and her card house is the most structurally sound-looking. Standing three stories tall, Integra has stacked her cards on their sides, positioning them so that they form a grid pattern at the base. On one end the cards have been oriented vertically so that the grid pattern is taller, and those columns have been arranged into a half-circle, creating what looks like an apse on one side of the building.
Alucard steps into the room and approaches Walter first, leaning over his shoulder and inspecting his work. “Ah, I see. The organization has run out of money, and we need to turn to new revenues. I’m not sure practicing architecture for ants would have been my first choice, but to each their own.”
“Piss off, Alucard,” Integra says, not looking up from her structure, “go bother someone else.”
Instead, the vampire pulls out a chair at the far end of the six-person table, sits down, and drags an unopened deck of cards from the small mountain in the middle. “I think I’ll stay, thank you. No one else is as entertaining as you lot. What are the stakes?”
“There aren’t any, we’re just havin’ fun,” Seras says, finally getting the next layer of cards on her building to stand.
“Bor~ing,” Alucard sing-songs. He crosses his legs underneath the table, knocking into one of the table legs as he does so. This causes the table to rock, and although her building doesn’t fall, Seras throws him an outraged look.
“You did that on purpose!”
Alucard ignores her, instead looking to Integra. “I propose we do a wager. Thoughts, master?”
“Fine,” Integra huffs, finally looking up from her creation. “If you’re going to stay you have to behave yourself. As for a wager, whoever’s building lasts the longest gets one week free of Alucard’s bullshit.” Alucard starts to protest, but Integra cuts him off. “If Alucard wins, he gets one, small, small, favor, within reason.” The look on Alucard’s face must betray him because Integra immediately adds “However, I’m giving Walter veto power.”
“It’s a bet!”
Alucard grins, and Integra gets that sinking feeling that she always gets when the vampire gets too happy. The room seems to get a few degrees colder, but outside the rain keeps falling, and the world keeps spinning, so she must not have fucked up too badly.
It’s nearly time for supper but no one in the room particularly feels like abandoning the task at hand.
Seras has built her card house up carefully, each pair of cards precariously positioned in somewhat sloppy rows that reach around four stories now. To one side of the house is a detached garage, and out front she’s set up little card pyramids that look like trees. There’s even a group of three cards that have been folded to look like people. What the others have yet to notice is the odd reflective sheen to small, rectangular sections of certain cards and, subsequently, the roll of tape tucked under Seras’s thigh.
Across the table, the front, and sides of Walter’s Buckingham Palace are done entirely in addition to a rendition of the palace gardens. He’s now found a pair of scissors and is cutting out a troupe of guards to march around the grounds, each guard in a slightly different pose than the last.
Integra’s building is somewhat unbelievable, and if it was displayed on its own it would certainly be worthy of some sort of award. What had started out looking like some sort of simple basilica is now nearly reaching above her head. There’s a dome on one half of the building, and a series of arches make up the majority of the third layer. The walls have a layer of cards on them, making the entire construction look polished, and she’s used the coloring on the back of the cards to add an intricate pattern of details to the outer walls. On top of that, the way she’s positioned the cards makes the structure incredibly strong.
However, all of that pales in comparison to the impossibility that is Alucard’s card house. He’s elected to build a castle of his own, and the entire thing is just incredibly on-brand. So tall that parts of it reach higher than a grown man standing on the table, the structure is so crooked that it’s a miracle it’s still upright at all. There are parapets and balconies, a series of ramparts crisscrossing the building, and, impossibly, a fucking moat. No one knows how or when that happened, but there is a moat.
Walter, with a decisive snip of the scissors, dryly remarks “I didn’t realize the No-Life King was such a fan of…arts and crafts.”
“This isn’t ‘crafting,’ Walter, this is architectural brilliance. Quite possibly my Magnum Opus!” Alucard raises his nose at the butler as he places a card folded into the shape of a cross on top of one of the parapets.
Walter raises a brow. “It’s a deck of cards.”
Opposite Walter, Seras leans two cards against each other to make another tree in the yard of her card house. “Well, at least I’m not compensatin’ for anythin’.”
“Police Girl,” Alucard responds, “you’re disqualified for disrespect.”
“Hey—!”
“Annnnd done!” Alucard secures the cross on the final peak, then leaps back to admire his handy work.
“It truly is incredible,” Integra remarks, “especially in the way that it completely and utterly appears to defy physics.”
“Hush now, I won’t have the words of non-believers poison this moment of triumph.”
“You haven’t won anything yet, you fool.”
“Yes, I have! Look at my creation and tell me that it does not dominate over your puny hovels.”
“Sir Integra’s wager was about whose building could last the longest,” Walter chimes in, “Not…whatever you built.”
“Walter, is that a hint of jealousy I hear in your voice?”
Having turned to deliver his truly cutting jab at Walter, Alucard misses the way Integra leans in, pulling her cigar from her mouth. She blows a puff of smoke towards the base of the card castle. The paper cards, already under tremendous pressure, buckle almost immediately. Alucard turns back just in time to see his masterpiece crumble into a heap of playing cards.
“Nooooo!” Alucard drops to his knees, dramatically clutching at the edge of the table. “My beautiful creation! Gone! Snuffed out before its time!”
“You always knew this would happen,” Integra mutters, exhaling another lazy plume of smoke.
Alucard gazes mournfully at the ruins of his card castle, then turns his crimson gaze on Integra. “I dared to dream, and you snuffed it out like… like a—”
“A responsible adult?” Integra cuts in smoothly.
“Like a tyrant!” Alucard accuses, jabbing a finger at her. “I will remember this injustice, Master.”
Seras, trying to hide a snicker, leans back in her chair. “It wasn’t going to last anyway. I mean, look at it—it was all crooked and—”
“Police Girl.” Alucard’s voice drops to a low, dangerous rumble as he turns to her. “Do you truly wish to test the depths of my wrath today?”
Seras holds up her hands in mock surrender, but as she does, the roll of tape she’s been hiding slips out from under her thigh and clatters to the floor. Everyone freezes.
Walter’s lips twitch in the beginning of a smile. “Well, that explains a few things.”
“Oi! I didn’t use it that much!” Seras protests, quickly grabbing for the tape.
Integra smirks, stubbing out her cigar. “And here I thought Alucard was the one who’d cheat.”
Alucard, clearly affronted, crosses his arms. “I don’t need to cheat, my brilliance speaks for itself.” He gestures at the pile of cards still littering the table. “And yet my creation was laid low by sabotage.” He turns pointedly back to Integra. “From a cigar.”
Integra meets his gaze, unimpressed. “Excuses are unbecoming of someone of your age.”
Walter places his last card soldier down with precision and calmly observes, “Perhaps we should add a clause to Sir Integra’s wager: the loser has to clean up.”
Integra leans back in her chair, smirking. “Yes. That seems fair.”
Alucard freezes, his eyes narrowing. “You planned this.”
“You’re welcome to try and prove that,” Integra says coolly.
Alucard sighs dramatically, then looks around at the fallen cards. With a grand sweep of his coat, the vampire kneels to begin cleaning up the mess, muttering under his breath.
“You’re lucky I’m immortal,” he grumbles. “If I had a mortal lifespan, I wouldn’t waste it on nonsense like this.”
“Yet here you are,” Integra deadpans.
The rain continues to fall outside, the cards are cleaned, and Alucard spends the next week lamenting his lost "magnum opus" to anyone who will listen—or won’t.