tampered | Log: Complete

Current Mood: sore

Log: Complete

When: Evening, March 9th
Rating: Teen for squicky illness
Characters: Alucard [

favored_son], Integral [

steeldame]
Summary: Left Hand and D offered White an outlet for the need to spread a little pestilence, and are now suffering the results.
Log:

It had started with a lingering ache that deepened as time passed, uncomfortable but easy enough to ignore. Though it hurt to move by the time sunset came around again, D was up and in the process of pulling on his boots. Ill or not, he still needed to tend to his horse. He had promised the parasite that he would come back indoors and relax for the rest of the night once the animal had been cared for. Had he bothered to look in a mirror, what passed for his reflection would have shown him alarmingly pale features (even for a dhampir) and lines of fatigue. D ignored his limbs' protests as he stood and headed for the door. It would only take an hour at most to deal with the horse.

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"You my boy," Alucard said as he slipped through the wall, shadowy portal opening around his body to let him pass fully through, solid and in front of the dhampire. "Are going right back to bed."

He frowned slightly, were the child not a dhampire, he would have looked dead. Corpse pale, and not in the swooningly bishounen way. "The horses will be taken care of."

"I'll be fine," D replied automatically, sidestepping in an effort to go around his father. "It won't take long if I skip the mechanics. Then I'll stay here for the rest of the night." He knew that trying to evade Alucard would lead to nothing if his father were determined not to let him go, but he did not like to be coddled.

"The horse is disposable, you, on the other hand, are not," Alucard replied. "And I shall see to it the horse is cared for. Now. Back to bed or I will tell your mother."

D frowned and persisted. "You do not need to tell my mother anything, because I will be fine."

"You're ill, boy, doesn't that bother you? From watching you heal, I would wager you never suffer common human ailments. Have you ever been sick in your life, heatstroke notwithstanding?" Alucard pressed, stepping closer.

Raising a hand, he brushed D's cheek with the back of his fingers, "Please."

Alucard's "please" finally convinced D. Mutely, D nodded and turned back towards his bed. His father's assumption was correct; he had never been sick in the way humans were. D's childhood illnesses had consisted of things such as the aforementioned heastroke. His father had, of course, been one of the ones who tended him under such circumstances. The dhampir sat down and began working on his boots.

"Lay back," Alucard requested, almost gently, prompting D down with the light but persistant touch of shadows against his shoulders. The vampire knelt and began working off his son's boots.

Concern at the ease with which D acquiesed ate at him. The dhampire was so stubborn, were he really in better physical health, he was sure D would have protested.

"You're worried," D noted quietly. It was a relief not to have to pull his boots off himself. As he made the silent admission, D conceded that his parasite was probably right about his running a fever. He wondered what else was wrong, but brushed off his own concern. On the Frontier, an illness would have been deadly due to the sheer number of creatures that wanted to kill him. Here, he had family who would keep watch. It was a nice change.

"I am," Alucard replied. "Even your mother might not know how to handle this. But how could you have become ill in the first place. Did you eat anyone strange as of late?"

Arthur or perhaps another healer might be a good idea of Integral was stumped when she arrived.

"Very droll," D rejoined, with the first hint of exhaustion in his voice. "No, I did not eat anyone strange recently. Ask the parasite."

"Oh no. You're not letting the blame for this one rest solely on me," his partner immediately protested. "You went along with this. You're the host. It was your job to tell me 'no'."

"Mister Jiggles. What did D go along with?" He asked, eyes narrowed, glowing red and intent on the parasite residing in D's left hand.

"Aw damn it ... " If the parasite could have shifted nervously, it would have. Out of respect for the fact that D was in a notable amount of pain, it didn't so much as tap his fingers. "White needed an outlet, someone he couldn't actually kill."

"White. The same angel of plague that poisoned my younger self's pet?" Alucard asked, eyes narrowing further. "And you agreed to this, D?" Someone was going to be in trouble.

"Poison's such a strong word," Left Hand hedged, but quickly fell silent. It would be an especially bad idea to aggravate Alucard right now.

D answered his father's question in a steady voice, unperturbed by the vampire's mood. "I did."

"When you are better I am going to smack you," Alucard replied. He refrained from the rant ~of all the idiotic things that creature could do. I will note to teach him better in the future when he is young. .~

His son snorted at that. "Only if I don't dodge." Truthfully, he had not expected White to have a disease in his repetoire that was virulent enough to cause this much unease.

"That's the problem, you didn't think," Alucard replied, intruding on his son's thoughts. "You can't be so careless, especially not here. I don't know how you survived as long as you did."

Oh yes. Definitely a fever if his father had just read his mind without D noticing. The dhampir sighed and draped an arm over his eyes, as much against the small amount of light that filtered into the room as to avoid meeting Alucard's gaze. "Perhaps because I am better-equipped to deal with our world than this one. Things have been stagnant for so long there that adaptation does not come as easily as it used to."

Left Hand scoffed. "Also, he has a martyr complex."

"Yes, I haven't the slightest idea how he would have developed one. I must note to ensure it doesn't happen this time around," Alucard replied with a snerk at Mister Jiggles.

"Are you hungry? Perhaps some of my blood would help chase the illness, hm?"

Hunger was not high on D's list of concerns. His appetite had disappeared with the sunrise and neglected to return. Still, Alucard did have a point. His blood had helped D heal more quickly in the past. The dhampir sat up, running a hand through his hair to push the locks away from his face. "We could try."

Alucard approached, moving to sit beside D on the bed. He neglected to simply will his sleeve rolled up and veins exposed, but instead went through the very human motion of undoing the buttons on his cuff and rolling them up.

In a moment, his pale flesh was lain bare and Alucard presented the wrist to D.

There was hesitation on D's part, this time largely due to his missing appetite, but he took the offered wrist. He took only a few mouthfuls before he pulled away and shook his head, neglecting to clean his fangs. What little he had drunk sat heavy in his stomach. Nausea was apparently going to be part of this adventure as well.

Alucard pursed his lips, "Well. Let us hope something other than your demise comes of this." He was frustrated at his inability to help the boy, angry at D's allowing this to happen and wanting to rip apart the one responsible for the transfer of illness to his boy.

Integral dashed into the scene. She had been unable to read the parasite's message prior and felt terribly for leaving D in such state alone.

"Alucard," she said, noticing that the vampire was looking after their son already. "Alucard, how is he?"

"Ill." Alucard replied, his reply was not a quip, but rather an assessment. The dhampire should not have been ill, after all.

"He cannot drink of my blood, I am unsure whether he will keep the small amount he ingested down," he added.

"He's not going to die," the parasite interjected, making reference to Alucard's earlier statement as D dealt with his body's rebellion against nourishment. "That was part of the arrangement. Nothing fatal and nothing contagious. I suppose we should have been a little more specific than that."

Integral nodded at Alucard and stared at D's ill face for a moment. This was most unusual, but she was hardly a dhampire's expert. The parasite's words attracted her attention, anger already rising.

"Pray tell me, what arrangement and with who?" She had a general idea of the responsible. The only being who could spread plagues and her son had befriended recently.

The vampire stayed silent, a dark shadow over Integral's shoulder staring down at their son and the parasite inhabiting his hand.

This is not my day, Left Hand thought before repeating the answer he had given Alucard. "We both thought it would be better for White to target someone he couldn't kill if he needed a way to blow off some steam."

D, meanwhile, had leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes in an effort to quell nausea and the lightheadedness that accompanied his fever.

Her anger was subsided into admiration, Integral adjusted her spectacles and took some minutes to speak again. The nobility her son displayed was admirable, but that didn't take away the stupidity to trust the creature in first place.

"Have you asked for a cure to heal it?"

That was a good question, now wasn't it.

"I haven't been on the network," D said, though he did not open his eyes. "Have you spoken with him since?" he asked the parasite.

"Only a little. He apparently decided on a customized bug especially for you. I'm not sure if he's in the business of curing things. Mostly, I'm trying to find out what to expect."

She voiced the next question with some hesitation. "Didn't you specify the illness to have a cure, Dante?"

"Noble sentiments are nothing without the forethought to get yourself out of the repercussions," Alucard replied, eyes glowing slightly. Upper lip curling back from his fangs, "You said it not be fatal, but there are a vast many diseases that you can live with. Permanantly."

The dhampir sighed tiredly and scrubbed at his eyes. "Yes, that had occurred to me. I've given entirely too much free rein to my so-called partner recently, I'm afraid."

"Hey now ... just because I negotiated the details is no reason to ... Okay, fine. Blame me. I screwed up. Let it be known that for once, I actually helped D charge blindly into a corner instead of chastising him the entire way. Happy?"

D snorted. "Not particularly."

Integral was losing her patience again, she glared at the parasite coldly and issued her command. "You will have the Horseman fix this, or I will ask personally to grant you the same symptoms D is suffering."

"The question is whether the horseman is able to fix this," Alucard replied. "And what his proper punishment should be for harming my son."

There was an audible gulp from the parasite as the combined force of Integral and Alucard's anger was directed at him. "I'll do what I can about getting it fixed, but a little help would be good. I'm trying to mitigate the effects on D. That's part of my job. Only problem is, I don't know much more about what's going on than he does. So far, we've got pain in the extremities that's been getting worse since last night, we've got loss of appetite, nausea, exhaustion, and definitely a fever. I think he hit normal human temperature in the last five minutes."

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