#hellsingmanga

It must’ve been glorious in its prime. Those faded, dry-colored bricked walls loomed high enough to block out the early morning sun. Huge. Bigger than anything you’d ever seen as you stared up at it. The fact that you’d be living in it — even if temporarily — was a little mind-boggling. 

The manor had fallen into a state of disrepair over the years. Its previous owner had been… some important person. You weren’t there to hear the conversation. “Last surviving member of the family” or something along those lines. Whatever had happened to leave this place so empty and crumbling slowly to time had to be a sad tale indeed. You’re sure you’d hear the full story again before it was fixed up and re-sold. Your father had a rather expensive hobby of buying “ancient relics” as he said — and fixing them up to be put back on the market. 

"Could you lend me a hand with these boxes, please?" Your name is called. Attention drawn away from the manor, you look towards your mother, who’s already holding two boxes in her arms. The load looks a little heavy. 

“Coming.” You nod and walk over to her, gravel crunching under your shoes. It will be hot today. Even with the manor blocking the sun right now, you could feel the heat of it beaming around it and warming the air. You take the top box from your mother’s arms with a grunt. You were right: it is heavy. Full of silverware and plates from home. Adjusting your hold on it a little, you make your way up the front steps and through the open doors. Your father and two siblings are already inside. You can hear them distantly upstairs. It’s beautiful indoors. A waft of cool air hits your face, eerily refreshing. Thankful that you’d looked at the layout of the place on your way here, you take a left for the kitchen. The carpet beneath your feet is quite worn out. What might’ve once been red is now a murky, dusty, grayish crimson. Each step sends a small cloud billowing around your sneakers. 

The kitchen is less homey than you’d prefer. It’s big — meant to hold a team of cooks — and is a little creepy to be standing in. You note the grime that covers the tiles while setting down the box on the counter and begin to unpack. Grateful for the windows on the far wall that allow some light to enter, you swiftly remove the plates and silverware and then put the empty box back into your arms. Getting one last grimacing look around, you decide that you’d keep a glass of water always full before bed to avoid coming down here… in the dark. 

⛤

By the time night had fallen, you’d set up a makeshift version of your bedroom back home. A small bookshelf set up on the opposite wall, some pictures for some color in this dreary place, a record player, and a stack of vinyls set on the vanity you wouldn't be using. This would be home for the time being, you tell yourself. 

The bedroom is enormous. A little too big for you, in your opinion. The double you have squished into the corner feels terribly out of place in a room designed for a much larger bed and then some. But it’s pretty. The double windows open up to a beautiful view of the forest surrounding the manor. The room is ornate in a very… old way. There’s something dreamy about it. You wonder what kind of person slept in this room… If anyone slept in it at all. 

While fluffing your pillow, you notice a breeze cut through your nightgown. Brow furrowing, you look towards the window and see it’s cracked a little. The sheer curtains that do nothing to block the light of the moon flutter faintly in the wind, and you can hear the soft ‘tap, tap,’ of the unlatched window. Dropping your pillow onto your bed haphazardly, you make your way over to the window and brush the curtains aside. Just as you suspected: the window is unlatched and is opening and closing very gently in the wind. 

“Must’ve forgotten to latch it.” You mutter under your breath as you reach forward to do just that. Sliding the curtains closed, you turn back around only to find your pillow set perfectly in place at the top of the bed. Blinking and standing still, you glance around the candle-lit room quickly. The house’s electricity had to be fixed, so it would be candles or battery-powered lamps for a couple of days. You preferred the former. The room was practically empty… so there was nowhere for some intruder to hide. So how had…? You brush it off. You must’ve forgotten that you’d put it there before you checked the window. After all… a pillow can't just move on its own. 

You’d slept well enough that night. Dreams not scary enough to call nightmares had clutched your mind in sleep. A strange foggy corridor. Musty-smelling and damp. Like a dungeon or a cave or a… basement. There was a door at the end of the corridor. It was really strange, that door. It looked like it was made of metal and bolted shut from the outside. You brushed it off. Weird dreams after sleeping in a new place were common… but the feeling of that dream nagged at you all through the day. Even while you were distracted with something like helping your mother clean the kitchen or assisting your father with carrying more boxes into the house, it still rested there in the back of your mind. You wondered — that evening, as you ate dessert on the front step while admiring the sunset — if you’d seen that door somewhere while looking at the layout of the house. 

You checked the stack of paperwork that had come with the house before bed. They were spread out on the dining table with a battery-powered lamp buzzing dimly beside them while you shuffled through the house’s layout. Brows furrowed, you squinted at a particular page. It looked shorter than the others… like it had been sliced shorter. And faintly — as you brought it closer to your face to squint at the bottom of it — you noticed what you previously marked off as an ink stain… to be that of a cut-off letter. It looked like a ‘D.’ Blotchy cursive like the rest of the labels scratched onto the build plan. What could that mean? Had someone deliberately cut off the bottom of this page? You flipped the page over to check the back again. Nothing. “What are you hiding?” You whisper slowly, expression skeptical. Just as you were going to set the page down and fix them back into a stack, the lamp blares brightly before going out. You blink in the sudden dark, pupils straining to adjust. Pushing the fear down your throat, you pat the table to find the lamp as quickly as possible and push the “on/off” button several times. It's fruitless. Now the fear grips you a bit tighter. You've begun to sweat in the dark and thoughts of bolting to your room and leaving the paperwork here for the morning flash through your mind. You weren't scared of the dark, per se, but being tossed into sudden darkness was scary. Grabbing the lamp by its handle, you hurry while cussing under your breath to where the doorway was. It's just a few steps away from the dining table where you run face-first into something firm. It felt like… fabric. Warm satin and the dull, hollow sound a human chest makes when it's beat against. You let out a quick scream followed by another, louder one as you backed away and cupped your nose, which had gotten hurt when you ran into whatever that was. “Mom!” You shout instinctually in a bout of fear, backing towards the curtained windows. You felt childish calling for your mother. You hadn't done that in years. The last time was when you were eight or nine. Not soon after, your mother appears in the doorway carrying her lamp, looking just as confused and worried as you. 

“What’s wrong?” She breathes a sigh of relief to find you unharmed. 

You blink at the tall back of a chair standing there facing you, pretending to be the culprit. That was not a chair you’d bumped into. “M-my lamp went out. I couldn't see anything.” You take a breath and try to pull yourself back together. Grabbing the chair, you push it back into its place, noting that it had been there, pushed in before your light went out. 

Your mom watches and, noticing the papers, asks, “What were you doing with those?” 

You explain to her that you’d had a weird dream about a basement or something of that matter and wanted to check if you’d seen it anywhere in the layout. You hadn't found anything about a basement and were about to tell her about the shortened paper when something stopped you. You felt so tired suddenly, eyelids heavy with exhaustion and your brain fogging over. “I’ll walk you back to your room.” Your mom gestures for you to follow her after noticing how tired you look. “When I have weird dreams, it's usually because I didn't get very good sleep. You should go to bed a little earlier tonight. You're probably exhausted.” 

You listened to her and went right to bed once you were in your room again. But not before checking the batteries in your lamp. They’d corroded. The bottom of the light was all crusty and with a grimace, you set it down on your nightstand. Could battery corrosion happen that quickly? You scratch the back of your neck as you think. That felt impossible. These were brand new.

You’d have to use candles again, you supposed.

A little lost at first, yes. He's not the best with words of comfort. Certainly physical affection is what he feels he can provide to you the most in this moment. The silent knowledge that he's there for you. He'll listen dutifully if you're calm enough to talk. A hand rubbing circles into your back to help you calm down.

Seras has grown accustomed to having Alucard appear before her with a cryptic question for her to answer before he disappears again. It stopped scaring Seras a while ago. Now, she just laughs to herself once he's gone. It was nice to see Alucard acting so... normal. To see him caring about things that might've once seemed out of his grasp; love, a relationship, a partner.

Alucard doesn't like to waste time with you, nor does he like to draw things out needlessly. If he has an issue he explains it with clean sincerity and works with you on how to solve it. Drawing out his troubles isn't something he finds pleasure in. He doesn't want your pity be he doesn't want to play a guessing game, either.

This mindset can, unfortunately, clash with someone who's a little more emotional- a little more human. We all have our faults and when you decide to keep an issue to yourself rather than simply explain it to him... he doesn't get it. He doesn't know what makes you hide this issue from him. Has he done something that has made you trust him less? Are you not comfortable with him? Perhaps it's past encounters with other people, childhood, or parental-related things that have caused you to act this way in the long run. But he'll get irritated when he asks you and you respond with a statement that is blatantly brushing his concern off. He knows there's something wrong. He's even asking you to share it. If you weren't comfortable, then tell him! But you don't tell him that you're uncomfortable talking about it. You simply give him the 'nothing's wrong' or the 'im okay.' Well somethings wrong. You're acting different. Alucard will stew over it for a while, pondering how to go about this. Voicing his irritation might not be the best idea. He doesn't want to push you further into the hole he's managed to wrangle you halfway out of when you admit that yes, something is wrong. But he also doesn't want you to continue this into the future. He's practically on his knees when you finally tell him. Honestly, Alucard doesn't know how you manage to reduce him to something so pathetic. But maybe that's what you wanted. Humans were quite odd. Maybe you wanted him desperate to hear your troubles. Whatever the issue is, if you explain it loud and clear and to-the-point, he'll do everything in his power to fix it. You feel like he's not giving you enough attention? He'll ask you how he can improve. What would you like to see from him more? He can do anything. Anything. In cases like these, his pride is almost helpful.

Anything, and he'll try his damndest to make it better. There's no point in being stubborn with things that can only help. No point in refusing to change his behaviors for the better. If he refused, wouldn't that make him a bad partner? He doesn't want to be a bad partner. Communication issues? He'll study hard. Miscommunications? He'll explain it clean and precise. And vice versa with you. Alucard isn't shy to tell you his troubles. He isn't shy to tell you that he'd like you to be clear and blunt with him. It won't hurt his feelings. He likes to know how you feel. He likes to hear your opinion and any criticisms you might have on his behaviors within the relationship. He will listen with genuine interest. He sugar coats his words with you. Not intensely, but enough to get his point across while avoiding hurting your feelings. He knows his bluntness can sometimes be mistaken for rudeness. You're on the more sensitive side out of the two of you.

You’d said you were engaged. Engaged?? Ridiculous. To whom?? 

He stays in the shadows after that, constantly lurking and watching from the darkness. It fills your everyday life with a sense of dread and paranoia that actually worked in his favor. Because of this, you’d become much more skittish but much more clingy to anyone who offered you help. 

He decided to make his appearance once more after a week of this, gently taking your side while you were on an outing in town by yourself. You seem fearful at first, but after a moment you realize that with him by your side you no longer feel like you're being watched. It sends a wave of relief through you and you subconsciously begin to associate feeling safe by being with him. You accept him this time and agree to meet with him tomorrow for dinner. 

The dinner itself was gorgeous. He’d chosen a restaurant you’d never been able to afford to go to and you spend most of your time admiring the decor. He never ate, you realized when he declined the waiter. His plate remained empty and his eyes remained on you. Such an odd color they were, a strange shade of brown and they almost appeared red in this lighting. 

He’d spent most of his time infatuated. Obsessed with how your clothes fitted your body, how your expressions changed, your lips, your eyes, your voice. Half of him though… mulled over the idea that you were engaged. In all the time he’d watched you he’d never seen you with another person. Your home was decorated with only stuff that you like, and your bed remained empty and devoid of a second body. Had you lied to him? A lie like this he wouldn't mind. 

You had. You tell him once the dinner is over and tack a soft apology onto it. You’d lied. It makes him smile, actually. You were scared he'd have been angry… but you'd never seen this prince from afar angry. Always so patient. Why were you scared of him in the first place…? Falling under the lulling spell of a vampire’s eyes, you’ve forgotten that originally… he had made you feel hunted. 

Outings with him begin to start earlier and earlier in the day and stretch farther and farther in the night. He always likes to be inside buildings and never outside for too long. He’d told you he has a sensitive complexion, that he burns easily. You’d bring a parasol for him after that. He loves it. 

The almost friendly affair between you and Alucard begins to scrape along the verge of seductively romantic. You’d tried to fight the feeling originally, but it felt as if you were trying to trudge through sweet molasses. It almost panicked you for some reason you could not recall why… but you found that letting yourself sink beneath the syrup was much more comforting and mindless. 

Let it happen, you’d often hear a voice whispering in your mind. It wasn't yours. This voice in your head was deep and throaty and brought with it a deep attraction. You found yourself listening to it more and more, sinking in deeper for him. More and more- you wanted his eyes to remain on your longer, his hands to linger on your skin firmer, and his lips to come closer. 

The tension that was building in your subconscious and winding its thorny vines into every aspect of your life eventually caught fire one night. He’d walked you home just like he always did and took up your hand gently in his larger one to press his lips to your knuckles… just like he always did. It drew a sudden sigh from you, one you’d always held in until now. His eyes met yours immediately from under dark lashes as he stood slowly, still holding your hand. You found yourself stepping closer, gripping his lapels and desperately asking for a kiss. 

“On the lips, please.” You whispered, rising onto tippy-toes desperately. You’d genuinely shocked him. His charm had not been laid on so thickly to make you act in such desperation- this was all you, your actions on your own accord. It was not unwelcome. 

Smoothly, he leans down, gloved fingers sliding through your hair to cup the back of your head and neck to kiss you. It’s one you hold with him, your arms winding around his neck to keep him there. Alucard melts against you, pulling you tighter, closer against him when your hands grab at his hair. It’s soft in your fingers. In fact, you’d had many fantasies of braiding it. Those inky black locks spill halfway down his back in gorgeous shiny waves.

After that, he does not relent. Your relationship becomes one you will never find your way out of. 

And then he slips up. Kissing you spurs his bloodlust. He'd always always pull away before his fangs could breach his glamor and poke your lips… but this time he couldn't. You hadn't let him. If he wasn't terrified of you finding out about how monstrous he is he'd have found it more amusing. Your soft and desperate pleads for more, more kisses. This time, he hadn't pulled away fast enough, hadn't unwound your arms from him quick enough. 

You blinked your eyes open, tensing when you'd felt two distinct pricks on your bottom lip. 

“Ouch…” you mumbled and pulled away from him, saliva still connecting the two of you. Before you’d parted, he’d gotten a taste of your blood. A swipe of the tongue had him digging his fingers into your hips painfully with the strain of holding back that carnal lust for blood.

“Alu…” your voice trails off when you see them. Those two elongated canines between his parted lips. 

“It's you?!” Your expression darkens in disgust for yourself. 

He’s been the vampire?! The mysterious vampire said to be killing person after person and leaving them sucked dry? 

“My love-” he tries, but you shove his chest and back up against your door to try and open it. 

“Get away from me.” You seeth. You can't describe how you feel. Your longing for him has not dissipated in the slightest, but it's met with equal amounts of shame. Shame for how you'd constantly longed for more. Longed for his teeth on your skin long before knowing what he was. 

Tears come when you cannot get the door open- not because you're scared- but because even now, even when you know him as the monster behind the man your desire does not dissipate and you find yourself sinking below the sweet syrup of him once again.

You let him embrace you, let him coo into your ear about how he’d never hurt you. About how he’d done it all for your sake. How he’d drank the blood of others to keep himself off of you. You're melting. You hate how you cling to him even now as he presses his nose to your temple and kisses down your face. He shushes you softly as you cry against him, punching at his chest weakly. Alucard doesn't budge, only cards a slender hand through your hair and promises you that; “You’re safe with me, always and forever.” 

You let him into your home that night

Alucard is an incredibly tender lover. He does not rush you and he’s endlessly patient with you. He takes you slowly, relishing in every sound, every motion, every feeling. He logs all your expressions into his memories and he keeps you fitted tight against him with firm hands and strong arms.

You're his beloved, after all. His darling, his wife. He would never think of putting a harsh hand upon you.