Chapter Text
Old age brought all kinds of problems a human was never prepared for.
Even those who believed they had heard every lament under the sun, who had gathered every precaution and resource, found life mercilessly draining their strength, with no second thought.
Integra reminisced her late father's words with bittersweet tenderness. noting the small imperfections that once amused her younger, naive self. A joint that creaked, a bone slightly off that gave a comical gait, muscles tightened by the slightest movement, and the countless other subtle betrayals of a body in decline.
Words and ramblings she once brushed off with stoic indifference, imitating the adults around her, now rang true to the marrow of her brittle bones.
Truly, she wasn't that much old to be feeling like a corpse in the parlour nor under the ground. No, she was only..
“Happy 54th Birthday, Lady Integra!”
Seras’ high-pitched voice shattered the silence. She burst into the office with garlands and a banner reading “Happy Birthday Integra” in glittering pink letters. The crimson fog of her vampiric aura filled the room, macabre to outsiders, but to Integra as familiar as air itself.
"Keep it quiet Seras, I am working"
Integra sat at her desk. The same one that hadn’t moved in thirty years. Much in her household remained the same, not timeless but stagnant, gathering dust under her watch. She felt the same, come to think of it.
“But miss, today you shouldn’t be working!” In a blink, Seras appeared at the desk, glaring at the laptop as if it had personally offended her.
Integra leaned her chin against her hand, glasses reflecting the screen. She clicked through reports, sorting the trivial from the dangerous. Thirty years in leadership, and still people mistook toddlers with fake vampire teeth and strawberry jam on their face for the un-dead.
"Well Seras, if you do not take care of the unimportant tasks at hand, then an avalanche of tomfoolery will find you the next day with no time for rest" her hand went for the cigar at the ashtray, blowing a small circle before continuing " And time is precious for my kind"
Seras pursed her lips, her spectral red hands still pinning decorations around the empty room. Her gaze lingered disapprovingly on the cigar.
“Don’t look at me with those Nosferatu eyes, Seras. This is one of the few pleasures I have left.”
“I’m not like Nosferatu!” she protested, squishing her fingers beside her nose. “He was bald with a nose like a crow! Do I look like I have that?”
“No, Seras. You don’t look a day past nineteen" Integra replied.
And maybe that was the problem.
Seras froze, sadness seeping into her tone. “Well, miss, if I may say… you don’t look a day past forty-nine"
Integra arched a brow. Her lips pressed tight.
“Mon cherie, you must work on your encouragement skills" came Pip’s amused voice, echoing from the walls.
“Good evening, Mr. Bernadotte. Here to deliver wishes as well?”
“Oui, petite mademoiselle. Our boss deserves to know the gratitude we carry for her will of steel.” His form materialised in red mist, kneeling at her side with a rose in hand. He kissed her fingers softly. “Happy Birthday, mademoiselle Integra"
Seras clasped her hands in giddy delight. A rare warmth flickered through Integra’s features.
“Merci, monsieur Bernadotte. Your flattery doesn’t go unnoticed” she quipped “Though I imagine Seras drowns in it daily"
“Eh,” Pip shrugged at the pink glitter banner “Red and black would have been more fitting"
“That’s for Master’s birthday!” Seras retorted
"Please tell me you're not planning on decorating his oubliette with glitter and balloons" he laughed but a second thought passed in his mind "Actually no, do it. I want to see that old man's face"
“Enough" Integra’s voice cut through the air, brows furrowing “The best gift you can give me is peace of mind and completed tasks"
Seras lowered her head, chastised. Pip, more quietly, excused himself back to duty. Seras hesitated, lips parting to speak.
"Before I go Sir, I just wanted to say this" she placed her hands on her stomach " I am sure that if you asked him, he would-"
"Get out of this room, Seras" voice ominously quiet " learn to follow your commands thoroughly"
And that's what she did, leaving the garlands and everything else on their place as she closed the door.
Good heavens, these mood swings will be the death of me.
Hot flashes, brittle nerves, skin crawling, the humiliations of age. All that improved with time was the acceptance of death.
Of death… and of him.
She rubbed the bridge of her nose, a tear betraying her composure. She shut her laptop, unable to endure another absurd report.
~~~
No wonder dear Father enjoyed his tea on the balcony
In a true British fashion, Integra was enjoying a cup of earl grey tea with milk. No sugar added, sugar was as forbidden as the forbidden apple for Adam and Eve.
Still, the softness milk brought with the herbal aromas soothed Integra's agitated nature.
Instead of her office attire she chose to wear simpler clothes, white cotton blouse and black trousers.
The wind played softly with her hair. An early autumn breeze carrying the scent of damp earth and fallen leaves, mingled with the fresh breath of moisture and the faint perfumes drifting from the manor’s garden.
She crossed her right leg, eyes closing briefly as she savoured her next sip.
If only all of life could be as tranquil as this evening.
Her mind, ever restless, was tempted to wander back to distant ages. To battles waged and wars endured in the name of humanity’s so-called greater good. Yet this year, her thoughts strayed elsewhere: to quieter recollections, more trivial perhaps, yet curiously human. A strange irony, she mused, given the life she had lived.
She reminisced of the way a certain creature made her younger self question her royalty to the crown. Youth, she mused, carried its own dangerous charm. Forbidden love, rebellion against those who dared to belittle her, ostentatiously parade her forbidden lover as a trophy for her never-ending ego. The natural aches of a body alive with restless blood wishing to procreate with a commendable force. In truth, she thought with a wry smile, she should have burned those Harlequin novels that once filled her adolescent mind with impossible fantasies.
And yet, what others dismissed as Gothic horror or the stuff of cinema, she had lived as truth. Vampirism was not fantasy for her, it was reality.
She sighed.
Just how much more torment will I receive this day again?
"It depends on how much you are willing to change even one moment before your death" came the low baritone from within her room
"Truly Alucard, I think I have told you not to pry into my thoughts. Let alone enter my bedroom without permission" She did not stir, nor did her voice waver
"Am I not allowed to give my deepest gratitude for my Mistress' birthday?"
Her heart faltered in its rhythm, the echo of it striking her chest. A smirk curved at the corners of her lips, betraying the satisfaction the title carried when spoken by his sinister mind.
“Will you stop using that word?” she countered, her gaze fixed on nothing and on everything at once.
“Why, my mistress” he drawled, stretching the word like silk “what is so dreadful about it?” Soft, mocking laughter spilled unbidden from his lips.
“You are truly insufferable,” she retorted “As if you expected me, of all people, to be the one to teach you its true meaning.”
"Obedience comes out of respect, and the only person I respect is you"
She took a sip of her tea in order to hide her smile and flushed cheeks
"I regret to disappoint you but I've lost the time to learn the whys and hows of this proclivity"
She put her teacup back in its place
"But you can join me for tea if you desire, and give me your wish properly. Like a proper gentleman"
An inhumane laugh was echoed in the room as a reaction to the last word.
Why pretend to be a gentleman since it was the monster she longed for?
But if this was what his mistress commanded, who was to against her orders?
In a heartbeat he materialised besides her, fedora in hand and orange tinted glasses reflecting the evening rays of the sun
Fangs were protruding out of his lips, a joy etched from ear to ear
He knelt by her side and utilised his most serious tone
"Happy Birthday, Integra"
Her cheeks were possessing different hues of pink this evening, a finesse of youthfulness she thought.
"You can sit next to me, no need to lay on the ground like a dog"
"I would gladly accept this fate if it meant you were laying next to me"
Her heart danced in secret delight, this treacherous little thing betraying her secrets with reckless joy. Be stoic. Face the truth of human nature, she told herself.
Alucard offered no remark, settling instead with the measured grace of a king. Legs crossed loosely, he drew from his pocket a blood bag, straw already poised in the shape of a flamingo. Integra’s gaze lingered, curiosity unspoken.
“A gift from our dearest police girl” he replied to the question she had not asked. And just like that, the matter was dismissed, slipping silently into the shadows of their shared understanding.
Moments such as this compelled her to continue seeking the remnants of goodness in humanity, the fragile essence of what it truly meant to live. Not merely to draw breath, but to feel alive. By now, clouds had gathered thick across the sky, veiling most of the sun and draping the manor in a shadow both solemn and strangely welcoming.
Evening crept closer. The first cicadas announced themselves with their unmistakable hymn, soon joined by other winged creatures beginning their nocturnal rites across the dimming landscape.
She turned her face on the left to inspect what kind of activities he was emerging himself with. He appeared fixed on the horizon, even though the sun was hidden.
"It reminds me of you" he said
"What exactly?"
“The sun" he answered. “The last thing I beheld upon that battlefield in London, before I vanished, was the sun” He set his food upon the table beside her cup, the gesture quiet, deliberate. “It has ever been my symbol of hope. No matter how broken I lay, no matter how utterly defeated, time did not falter. The dawn would always return"
His right hand came to rest upon the table, gloved fingers tracing idle taps across the glass surface, as though echoing the steady beat of passing hours. “And with it came warmth, comfort enough to stir even my desolate heart"
Her eyes darkened at the reminder of this
"I called your name" she said hoarse, as though every unspoken sentiment long ago forgotten had lodged in her throat. "I called you back to me and you did not come" Her eyelids quivered, heavy with the reminisce of the event embedded with betrayal and abandonment
Her hand lay upon the table, until a gloved palm enclosed it, claiming her nearness as if to tether her spirit within his grasp.
"Integra” he spoke, his head inclining toward her. “There were forces beyond your command then. Yet I can confess that the moment my chains were broken, I returned to you” He saw the tremor in her eyes, and something within him stirred.
“I never thought of myself as your prisoner” he continued “Your ancestors may have claimed that privilege, but you… never"
She had always believed that old age was the austere tutor of restraint, teaching one to guard their feelings not only from the world, but from themselves as well. During her authoritative years, a conversation such as this would have been dismissed as nothing more than the sentimentality of an archaic apparition, or the idle musings of a woman long past her prime. Yet time is relentless, and as it marches on, the mind’s walls wane. What remains is the unshielded core of the heart, however wounded and starved it may be.
“I felt alone"
She turned her face from him, shame burning across her features. Never had she imagined that he, of all souls, would be the one before whom she felt so diminished. He had always found reasons to believe in her when all hope had vanished. Yet she had shrunk away, a coward before her own reflection. She dared not lift her gaze to the darkened glasses, to the eyes beyond them, lest she be forced to confront the contempt she carried for herself.
“When you were gone, it was the first time in my youth that I understood what it meant to truly be alone. The wind against my face was no longer the same. It hit colder, harsher, and it never dried my tears fully. I felt the earth vanish beneath me, and I kept falling, endlessly falling. I looked upon the ruin war had wrought upon my home, and I became nothing more than a speck.. an invisible, meaningless speck, powerless to fix the world around me. People lost their vividness in my eyes. None seemed as vivid and alive as…” She broke off, coughing, her voice faltering. “I retreated into myself, like a soldier throwing his shield.. like a coward”
She spat the last word with venom, and at once she felt Alucard’s aura thicken, darken, as though the air recoiled at such blasphemy.
“Of course, the show went on” she continued, her voice sharpened by defiance "I managed the organisation with remarkable success. I had Seras at my side, your Draculina” A brittle laugh escaped her “But she has stood as the cruel reminder of the fatal difference between my kind and yours"
"You can change that" he broke in, unable to control his demeanour anymore. Voice becoming rougher and unstable with the torrent of emotions raising to the surface “Integra you can always seize the reins of your life, claim what is rightfully yours” He rose abruptly, the chair groaning against the floor, both gloved hands pressing hard against the table as he leaned forward. His gaze bore down upon her, not with command but with something perilously close to pleading " You only need to ask"
She raised her hand to cup his face, to stroke the marble-white skin of his face, unmarked by decay. How cold, and yet how warm he was, a living contradiction, a bloody oxymoron, she mused with care.
At her touch, he recoiled instinctively, like a starved wild beast meeting civility for the first time. But almost immediately, he regained his composure, leaning into her warmth, closing his eyes as if to savour the rare blessing of her hand. A purr of contentment escaped him, a sign of pleasure at this smallest of intimacies offered by his dearest mistress.
So lost was he in this quiet joy that he did not notice when she lifted his glasses, holding them briefly in her hand before placing them beside his meal. When he finally opened his eyes, their timber glint mirrored the deepening hues of the evening sky.
“Alucard…” she said, her tone gentle yet firm, the same voice a mother might use to correct a misbehaving child "There are some things in life one simply cannot surrender. As much as the years tear at me, I cannot forsake all I have ever known to follow you into the darkness of the unknown"
“Are you afraid of losing your mistress privileges if you become my fledgling?” he asked with a teasing tone, trying to lighten the air
Her eyes reddened, her heart heavy, yet her cheeks ached from the smirk the question had brought
“You are an insufferable old apparition"
He smiled, genuinely. “I am at your command, Integra” he said, regard softening his gaze. She returned the warmth with a matching smile
“But you still have not answered my question, my mistress"
“Sit down before I blow your brains out, Alucard” she warned
"Very well, as you command"
He knelt before her, and her eyes lifted in curiosity. A mischievous smile lingered on his lips, fangs glinting against his succulent lips. Sharp and pristine white, he was a marvellous creature to gaze from afar. Not from a close distance or from between your legs like he did at this moment. But the warmth that travelled across her body, the sweet ache those smirks brought to her face and the beatings of her joyful heart could not be ignored. He held the power to make her feel young once more, to revive the intoxicating rush of adrenaline their forbidden games had once brought her, long ago.
As if on cue with her thoughts, Alucard placed his chin on the resting knees of Integra
"Do I sense a change of thoughts within your mind, Integra?" He teased
"You're acting like a dog in heat" he cheeks were pink
"Hmmm, why do I remember this old dog had a companion not so long ago?"
"That companion should have kicked you outside of their room and locked you in the basement for indecent behaviour"
"I remember my companion was equally indecent with their vocal skills"
She looked away in annoyance, why did he always had to go this way
"I was too lenient on your alternative ways of entertainment"
The way he almost choked on his own laugh surprised her. He placed his hands under his chin, since this conversation was starting to get towards where he wanted
"The way you phrase our adventures Integra always brings a smile to my face. I especially enjoyed that time in the bathroom where-"
"Enough" she spoke it with feigned austere tone
"But to reveal my equally mischievous motives behind my visit, I came to offer you my idea of a birthday present"
the snake had presented his deal
"And what could this idea be about that it is so mischievous, Alucard?"
The woman approached it with curiosity
"You wish to feel young once again without changing your reality and I wish to reminisce our alternative ways of fun, so to speak. I believe there is a place where we can find some common ground, Integra"
The deal was a low hanging fruit
"I'm listening"
The woman stretched her hand to grab it
"What have you truly heard about the kiss of a vampire?"
The snake was patiently lurking near
"That it carries hallucinatory properties, as if the person is under strong anaesthesia, so the vampire can draw the blood uninterrupted"
The woman was examining the fruit
"Were you also aware that the vampire is the main provider of the kind of the hallucinations the person is experiencing? And that it can experience somatic sensations as well?"
The snake was shaking its tail impatiently
"Speak your mind, Alucard"
"With just one kiss, I can make us experience adventures we could never perform in this reality, completely safe with no danger lurking out for us"
The snake was now crawling
"Feel more than what I felt before?"
The woman brought the fruit closer to her mouth
"Relive your prime years in its most exhilarating sensations, express your self with no shame and gain your crown in the most debauched way"
The snake was waiting
"Place your black doom around my room before we begin, my count"
The woman bit the fruit and the snake curled around her body.