Chapter Text
Alucard could no longer tell how long they had been fighting.
Stuck in that limbo where things had been going on at such a monotonous continuity that you felt like you had been imprisoned by it, they had probably been fighting for the better part of three hours. But it felt like days. Clashing with the hollow knights or the enraged Celene in bursts of violence with only lulls where they were trying to find the Noble in the absolute labyrinth that was this palace. They were destroying the place in the process, taking out the defense systems, destroying the hollow knights, taking out walls and floors and one even obliterating a minor wing and opening the palace to the pitch black, icy night air. And the more they destroyed, the more the Noble started howling abuse over the ‘speaker system’, but he also seemed to grow angry the longer they did not reply to him, more focused on fighting off the castle’s defenses. Celene’s growing frantic attempts to kill them. The hollow knights. There were so many things to focus on and yet it was all growing mundane the longer they fought.
They found a rhythm somewhere in the chaos, moving around each other, predicting each other’s moves and what they were going to do and then making their own in harmony with that. It reminded him far too much of trying to keep the Belmonts alive, fighting with them for so long that he could predict even what they were going to banter in combat. But there was no quipping, no back and forth, no moves that were more theatrics than actual combat. There was just D and himself, moving seamlessly around each other, wordlessly protecting one another, moving from one fight to another. There was just D and himself.
Thus, he blamed all that for when it went wrong.
Celene had not popped up for awhile, they had gotten too comfortable, and they never could have predicted that she would do as her cruel nature bid. And thus, when Silas greeted them at the end of a hallway, they were both shocked into stalling, boots skidding across the ground as they stared at the older man. Now with blood red eyes and a self confident smirk on his face.
“Well, well, well, look at you two,” Silas chortled, “Looking a little rough around the edges. Having trouble with just one little Noble? And here I thought you were the legendary vampire hunter D.”
“He’s turned,” Alucard hissed, knowing those red eyes anywhere.
“He has,” D confirmed, voice a little icy, “He is a servant of the Nobility.”
“True, I may be a servant, but you know the difference between me and you two mongrels? I can be turned all the way, and you’re just stuck as mutts of something greater,” Silas cackled.
“But the real issue is… did the Noble lord turn him or…” Alucard said, before tensing and bursting into a cloud of bats as a sword whistled through the air that would have impaled him through the heart. It screamed past, reaching Silas who only grinned broadly, showing off his new fangs, but with super human speed he snatched it out of thin air with his prosthetic hand, swinging around with it and threw it just as fast D, who managed to counter it right as Alucard was fully reforming, turning to address Celene who… did not look good. Celene had seemed to be deteriorating as the fighting continued, as she forced her ancient body to keep on attack. Most of her rail thin face was molted with split skin, bruising and blood pooling right underneath the paper thin skin. Her immaculate dress was now dusty, torn and bloodied in a few spots from the rare few times that they had managed to get her. Her long hair was messy, knotted and sliced away in some spots from where they had almost gotten her. She looked like an ancient woman that had been dragged from the bowels of hell, especially with the blood on her lower lip, fangs out and eyes glowing red with acute malice.
“Looks like we’re fighting Celene right now,” Alucard growled, baring his fangs at her as she hissed violently back at him. “I don’t suppose the mercenary can be saved?”
“No.”
“A quick death then,” Alucard snarled, before dashing forward as Celene as he felt the brush of D’s cloak as the man dashed at Silas.
Celene came at him like a woman possessed, howling and screaming as she met every single of his sword strikes with one that made his arms burn from the impact. But he kept swinging back at her, not letting her have an inch on him as they clashed, though fuck did his arms hurt from their swords meeting time and time again. It seemed that Celene was going to push her quickly fading time on earth in this one last battle. Alucard briefly wondered if she knew that this was likely going to be her last ‘hurrah’, attempting to fight and kill D, one last chance to redeem her family. Alucard briefly let himself feel pity for her, before he brought his sword down on her sword strikes even harder.
“How can you stand to be around them?” Celene hissed at him in between strikes, “Those filthy fucking humans!”
Alucard did not answer. He was not going to play philosophy with this deranged woman, not going to give her a chance to get into his head, make him doubt, make him miss. She had made her bed, siding with the brutal side of her heritage, she could lay in it.
“You think that town will save you for killing our precious pureblood lord? They’ll spit on you and tell you to get out! That’s the thanks you’ll get, boy!” Celene hissed violently, reaching behind her.
Alucard broke into bats, narrowly missing the hailstorm of swords that rained down on him, swords whistling at him at blistering speeds, sinking to the hilts and some even further into the walls, ceiling and floor as the swarm flew this way and that, separating to avoid the barrage of swords. Fuck she had a lot of swords. Even when he reformed, he hissed at all the little nicks he had earned as bats from the strikes. Nothing deep enough to drip, but damn did it sting.
“You must be related to Him to have such power, only the Ultimate Nobility would have the power to change shape,” Celen hissed out in disgust, glaring darkly at him despite how tore the already darkening skin of her face. There were bleeding splits at the corners of her eyes, her nose nostrils, the corners of her mouth and even the skin between her eyes. Blood was pooling underneath the skin, and was black-purple where it was not enraged blood red.
“I really do not know who this him is, but I know that I am not related to him,” Alucard hissed back. “My mother was Lisa Tepes and my father Vlad Tepes. I have no connection with this world or it inhabitants”
“It matters not, I suppose, because I’m about to eliminate you from this world,” Celene snarled, lifting up one of her remaining swords.
Only to suddenly spasm, looking over Alucard’s shoulder. Foolishly, Alucard turned to look as well, watching as D pulled his sword from Silas’ chest and kicked him away, the man going ashen gray, gray, and then crumbling into dust with a death rattle. And without skipping a beat, D turned to look at her, snapping his sword with an expert flick of his wrist to wring the blood from it as he advanced on her. Celene’s face could not pale, not with all the blood pooling just underneath the skin and how bruised it was, but Alucard saw the fear in her eyes as she watched this gorgeous visage of death approach her. He also watched her arm snap back and then forward. And Alucard realized far too late that the sword was not going towards D, but himself, raising his sword far too late to try and stop it as it came screaming towards his heart.
D, who seemed untouched by the rules of this universe, was not.
Alucard flinched at the small spray of blood that licked his features and the horrible, horrible sound of a sword slicing through flesh as he watched the sword sprout from the center of D’s chest. D, who had seemingly teleported from further down the hallway and had stood in the way of the strike. D, whose pale features showed absolutely no sign of distress or worry as he looked down at the sword through his chest, deep and dark eyes flicking up to meet Alucard’s, before they rolled up and the man started to topple forward as Alucard screamed, catching him and easing him onto the ground and onto his side, fruitlessly looking all over him as though there was some other cause for his collapsing other than a fucking sword through the fucking heart.
“No no no no,” Alucard mumbled.
His one way home. The man that befuddled him. His guide in this hellish world.
“You should have never meddled--” Celene hissed.
Alucard was transforming before he knew it, swiveling on his paws and launching himself at Celene with more speed than he had ever put into a pounce, getting past Celene’s defensive sword swipe, fangs sinking into her throat. She tried to scream, but he was so very tired of all of this. So tired of her. He sank his fangs in and then twisted his whole body to the side to tear out her throat and while she was gagging and trying to cup where her throat was now missing, he pounced again, taking her to the ground as he bite at her hands, rending them until she pulled them away and he could latch onto whatever was left of her neck. Writhing like a rat hunting dog, he shook his head until Celene’s garbled screams stopped as he snapped her head free and tossed it aside. But even then, he did not stop, using fang and claw to tear his way into her chest and ripping out the withered husk of her heart and tearing it to pieces, and only as her body turned to ashes to make a mess of the butchered carpet, did he finally stop.
But that left him with D, who he rushed too after transforming back, muttering about how he was going to fix this. He was not turning to ash like the other two, so maybe he was alive? But how did he fix this? Could this be fixed?!
A rasping chortling chuckle rang through the air and more than a little frazzled, he reached down and grabbed the source, D’s left hand.
“‘Bout time we met, kid.”
Alucard held onto D’s hand, watching with absolute horror as the skin of D’s bone white palm twisted and started changing, pinching and pulling like there was something underneath the skin, moving until the creases formed what looked like a face. The face of an ancient old man, one that sneered up at him with teeth like grains of ice and eyes so puckered with presumed age that they were nothing more than slits and Alucard could not tell if this thing in D’s hand even had eyes.
“What the fuck…” Alucard swallowed, forgetting all else. Because what the fuck was this? He had seen a lot of fucked up things in this world, but the fact that that hoarse voice had been this thing inside of D’s left hand? Maybe just maybe he would have his expected breakdown right here and now? That sounded like a good idea actually, maybe he would get on that--
“Now don’t you go freaking out on me just yet, kid, I need your help,” The little voice said in a hoarse rasp, squinting up at him as though he were being unreasonable. He poked the thing’s nose, which just made it yell indignantly at him. “Stop it! This guy ain’t dead-- or, well, he could be. Who knows. But I can heal him. It’s why I’m stuck here, anyway.”
“How can you heal him, he’s been--” Alucard said, shuddering as he looked down at the very still form of D. His white skin had taken on an ashen hue, chest not moving with breath, face lax in the way that only corpses were. God damn it, god damn it, god damn it. He was so tired of people dying around him, especially ones that he had come to like. And D had seemed so strong and here he was, laying on the ground with a hole through his chest from a sword, straight through the heart. God damn it--
“Listen, this guy? He ain’t any ordinary dhampir, and while I won’t go into specifics about why, but something like this? If I help him out, he’ll brush it off no problem. But I need a little help.”
“I’m already talking to a talking hand, what else can happen?” Alucard sighed, deciding that trying was better than giving into despair. “What do you need?”
“Earth, water, air, fire,” The thing said. “Air and fire I can do on my own, earth and water? A little harder. Think you can look around for me?”
“I’ll see what… I can do,” Alucard muttered, entirely unsure of what he was doing anymore. But if he could help D, who was still supposed to get him home, then he needed to try. So he reluctantly rose from the fallen D’s side and went hunting through the castle, sure that with Celene and Silas now laying dead and the Noble now silent as the coward undoubtedly found a corner to hide in, he was sure that it would be no problem to look for what he needed.
When the thing mentioned ‘earth’, Alucard assumed dirt was perfectly fine. Which turned out to be only a little trouble, as his assumption that just finding one of the flower pots was good enough, and he was right, he just needed to look for one that actually had dirt and not what he was horrified to find; crush gemstone powder. But he did, ripping the plant out and carrying the pot back, finding D’s arm lifted while the thing looked expectantly at him and behaving as though D’s arm was a separating entity from the man himself. When he placed the pot down, he was more horrified to watch D’s hand plunge inside, coming up with the sounds of chewing. Already feeling his frail sanity unraveling, Alucard went looking for water. This turned up fruitless, as he could not find any washrooms, when he went back downstairs he could not find any kitchen with any working water pipes, and he feared leaving D to go running back down to the town. He found a few bottles of liquor, but worried about their water content too much to take them back, including a flask of rather potent smelling whiskey on Silas that he threw at the asshole’s head after. Eventually he came back, starting to actually panic.
“I can’t find water,” He said, “I could try town… there was also liquor, wine and such, can we try that?”
“The better the water, the better the results and the better he’ll be when he pops up again,” The thing grunted, sounding like it was thinking. Its tiny little mouth puckered as it thought. “I guess we could do that again but… he threw a fit when I told him how I got water from Su-In. Little priss…"
Horribly confused, but not willing to derail the thing’s thoughts, Alucard squatted on the floor near its level as it thought. Eventually, it tisked in annoyance and swiveled around to look at him.
“Well… I have a few ideas on where to get water, but you’re not going to like any of them.”
“Spit it out,” Alucard scolded.
“You could go to town, but that would leave me and the boss man up for getting stabbed by the Noble. You could also do a deep search of the castle, but any water you’re bound to find without human servants needing it anymore, is bound to take forever to get this pretty asshole up and about. There is also a disgusting way that you could get me some water, but it depends on how willing you are to drop your trousers and piss right here and now.”
Alucard slapped the hand, recoiling as it howled in pain and yelled at him for doing that. Even as he knew it made sense. Urine was water in large part. But also he rarely did that since his body tended to utilize everything that he put into it, which was rare. The past few days he had not eaten or drank much either. Not to mention the prospect of having to pull his pants down and piss in front of the thing, and either get it into its mouth or let it lap it up off the floor? There was simply no way. Absolutely no way. His morals would not let him and his panic and anxiety would further not let him. Even if D was his ticket home, there was simply no way he could do that.
“Or the third option, which the boss man won’t like one bit and you might end up getting hurt in the process,” The parasite said, little face puckering with a wince.
“What is it? Anything but the second option,” Alucard groaned, rubbing his gritty face.
“What else but the waters of life?” The thing said, wincing again like it knew that this was a terrible thing to even speak aloud, “Blood.”
“What’s… wrong with blood?” Alucard asked. It sounded a hell of a lot better than the second option.
“I really don’t want to get into it, this guy can be a real hardass and make my life hell if I blab all of his dark secrets, not that even being attached to him let me be privy to what he’s thinking or doing, but… D has never been one to ‘hold his drink’ when it comes to blood. Never liked drinking, never liked unleashing his Noble side. So he can get a little…”
He can get a little blood drunk, then. But that made sense. Even if D was as old as Alucard was getting a feel for, if he just chose to not drink any form of blood, only taking those capsules, then he would rarely get a chance to buffer himself against the effects that it had on his body and his split biology. Though this now gave him an idea of how D viewed his vampiric side, and Alucard could only guess how deeply self loathing D was too. But… trying to look for water would mean…
“... Surely a few drops…” He tried to reason.
He bit his thumb, just enough to get a few drops of blood to flow, holding it over the things mouth as it held itself out like an offered hand. Blood dripped between its grains of rice like teeth and for a moment, nothing happened. Alucard knew that it would not be like D jumping up like a spring flower, but surely--
D’s eyes opened.
They were red.
“Oh fuc--” Alucard hissed with the parasite in D’s hand, the parasite in D’s hand that just vanished into the skin like a little asshole, leaving Alucard to get a fistful of his hair yanked on as his head was yanked down with a grip that he knew that he would never break, pulling his head down to D’s level, forcing him to half lay on the man as he felt icy cold corpse breath wash over his neck. A tepid feeling tongue dragged along the skin and he knew exactly what D was doing. The creature was looking for more blood.
Alucard pulled an arm back and put it to D’s cheek as hard as he could. Once, twice, and just as he felt the prick of D’s fangs, a third time that seemed to get through to D. He hissed as he pulled back, letting Alucard’s hair go as Alucard lifted his himself up, pinning D to the floor as D hissed and growled and writhed, his eyes giving off such a terrible blood red light, once beautiful face twisted into something gnarled and wrinkly and with his fangs extended fully.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Alucard said as he kept D pinned to the ground, “It’s going to be okay. Just breathe. Just breathe through it, D.”
D let out a guttural sound, fangs and teeth gnashing together as his clawed hands wildly scrambled along Alucard’s sleeves, suddenly elongated talons catching on the fabric.
“It’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay,” Alucard muttered, wondering for whose benefit he was saying it for.