tampered | Log; Ongoing

Log; Ongoing

When; July 26th
Rating; PG? Just to be safe? >.>
Characters; Walter Dornez

dark_butler and Tony Foster

darkest0knight
Summary; Tony and Walter have a contest of wills.
Log;

It wasn't until he'd stepped out onto the street, sneakers pointed towards his meeting with Walter, that Tony realized he had probably made a mistake in agreeing to the contest. He remembered the Shadowlord's possession of him, and the way Henry's simple, snarled declaration of ownership tore him free of it, as if his body recognized and accepted the call of its master. He remembered the Notice-Me-Not spell and how it only took his name on Henry's lips to reveal him, expose him fully to the vampire's sight.

Maybe things worked differently for vampires from other worlds, but Tony hadn't had much success at resisting demons (unless you considered Leah, which really didn't count because she was only a handmaiden to a sex demon and she had girly bits he definitely wasn't interested in).

But he wasn't going to take back the agreement. Walter had looked relaxed and amused when he made it, and after putting his foot in it by bringing up ghosts of the other man's past, Tony figured the least he could do was try to cheer him up.

'Besides which,' he thought, 'I might stand a chance.'

Afterall, Walter did not have the added bond of actually feeding off his blood like Henry did. And his focus had been a lot better lately.

Spotting the older man up ahead, Tony shoved aside his nervousness and concentrated on giving a cocky grin. What Walter had said was true: no point going into a fight when you don't think you're going to win.

"Hey," he said, raising a hand in greeting. "Ready to lose?"

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Walter had left the manor to find Tony feeling both amused and curious. He didn't expect the young man to win, but he also hadn't seen demonstrations of his power yet. In this city it was worse than ill-advised to underestimate anyone until you had actually put things to the test.

Out among the City residents he had contented himself with a game of picking a single heartbeat out of the many he could hear and following it until it either blended back in to the background or passed too far to hear at all.

Until he heard Tony's and turned to smile at young man with the courage and cockiness to challenge a vampire to a contest of will. It was interesting that he was getting a better insight into Alucard's interest in him so many years ago through interacting with someone with certain parallels.

He shook his head, smile broadening to include a flash of fang. "Never. But I could be ready to be impressed if you surprise me."

'Always showing off the teeth. Vampires.' Tony turned what would have been a reflexive rolling of his eyes into a scan of the moderately busy street corners surrounding them.

"Where do you want to do this?" he asked, the tips of his ears reddening a little as the familiar phrase brought back memories of more sordid meetings from his days of hooking the Toronto streets.

This was certainly not one of those meetings.

Close enough, his pulse rate argued. You're going to let him inside your head.

No, the whole idea was to not let Walter inside his head, he argued back.

From the way his throat tightened, it didn't look like his body believed that.

Walter raised an eyebrow at the reactions Tony's body betrayed. It was almost... cute. But Walter wasn't there to take advantage of the young man in that manner. He'd meant it when he had told the false medium that his dance card was full.

Still. He was definitely starting to understand that for Alucard when Walter had been a youth, not all of his own appeal had been physical. There was something compelling about a human who had such non-physical strength.

And he was asking Tony to display still more for him?

He shook off his own thoughts and held a hand toward a nearby coffee shop. "There, or, for someplace with refreshments we both can enjoy, I can take you underground to the Raven."

The underground had places that served human blood? Well, that explained a few of the warnings he'd gotten from people about venturing down there after dark. It figured that a City this packed with demons and supernatural creatures would have specific places that catered to that kind of clientel.

Hell, he'd heard of a few places in downtown Vancouver that boasted the same thing, although he'd never frequented them. The goth scene wasn't really his thing, he thought, the irony of it pulling a smile from his lips.

But it didn't matter to him where they went, really.

"Wherever you want," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "I trust you."

I trust you.

Those were three words that held more resonance for Walter than Tony could possibly understand at this stage in their acquaintance. He had been untrustworthy for so long. One of the greatest gifts he'd received from Xulchilbara was that of being able to be trusted again.

"Then we'll avoid the Raven for now. I don't particularly wish to see Lacroix. He and I have some unfinished business."

Walter took a step toward the coffee shop and looked back at Tony. "Come. We'll get you something to drink before we have our little contest."

"Lacroix?"

Tony's hands came out of his pockets, where he'd put them to reduce signs of fidgeting, and swung at his sides as he stepped forward to catch up to the older man.

The breeze blew wisps of brown bangs, longer than he wanted them as he hadn't gotten a haircut since he'd entered the City, into his eyes. He flicked them away with his fingers and inhaled the scent of roasted coffee beans that wafted over to him from the cafe.

Unexpectedly, his stomach growled. He put a hand to it and laughed sheepishly.

"Maybe something to munch on too?"

Walter laughed at the growl and walked over to hold the coffee shop door open for Tony. "Of course some food as well. I don't want you using hunger as an excuse when I win."

His smile lost some of its genuineness when he answered his young companion's other question. "Lacroix is one of the oldest vampires in the City to my knowledge. His daughter, Divia, is older, but not by much. Older as a vampire, not older in years," he clarified, thinking of Lacroix and how he had betrayed Walter.

It didn't matter that Walter had expected Lacroix to use him at some point. He had not expected Lacroix to use Kagura simply because she was Walter's friend.

Again, thoughts for another time. He was enjoying himself and didn't want to stop because of things that could not be changed.

Instead he cocked an eyebrow at the heavily pierced and tattooed counter person and looked to Tony. "This seems to be a uniform of sorts. Either that or a cult of would-be lightning rods."

Oops, another touchy landmine spot that Tony had unthinkingly stomped over.

I'm getting pretty good at that, really.

He sighed and accepted Walter's subject change, dutifully observing the man at the counter. The sardonic dig at the many piercings covering the guy's face tugged a smirk from Tony's lips. He'd seen worse, really. There'd been a guy manning the tattoo parlour at Younge and Dundas who could barely life his head for all the rods and studs he'd carried on his ears, eyebrows, tongue, and chin.

"Tribal markings," he said, playing along. "He's a devotee of the God of Scrap Metal."

"That requires quite serious devotion," Walter observed sotto voce as they reached the counter and he ordered a cup of darjeeling for himself. He glanced over at Tony, waiting for him to make his selection.

This was all so very... normal. Only he'd never really had this sort of normal even when he'd been human because Hellsing had been the totality of his life. How odd to find normalcy in such a not-normal place.

"Midnight orgies with toasters, and the firstborn is wrapped in swaddling aluminum foil," he whispered with a grin before turning and giving his own order of coffee with too much sugar and cream to be healthy and a sandwich.

It felt nice to have someone to talk to again. He'd gotten used to socializing at his job at CB Productions, and he missed the easy camaraderie of the set; Amy's sarcasm and general weirdness, Zev's quiet friendship, Lee's...Lee.

It was pretty clear that getting a new life had kind of spoiled him. He didn't want to be isolated from the world anymore. He liked his place in it.

"Fascinating. It sounds as though you've conducted your own in-depth anthropological studies," Walter murmured, lips curled up in a smile that made the counter person stop and blink before turning away to prepare Tony's sandwich. "How long has it been since your last confession, I mean midnight toaster orgy?"

"Hey, I've only got one piercing. Hardly even a luke-warm devotee," Tony replied, missing the smile as he was busy fiddling with the coffee cup and the tray. A tray he didn't really need but felt bad about not using, since the counter-guy had gone to the trouble of getting it out for him.

He took the wax-paper wrapped sandwich and stuck it on the tray with a napkin just to make it look useful, and carried the coffee in the other hand.

"I just hear things from people. Used to be the best snitch Vicki ever had," he grinned, hefting the tray. "Where d'you want to sit?"

"Over there," Walter said, lifting his chin toward a two-person table against a wall away from the windows and other customers.

He brushed a few leftover crumbs off the table before sitting down, hands wrapped around the cup to enjoy the heat it radiated. Maybe he'd learn to forget that marrow-deep chill for more than a few hours at a time someday, but not yet.

"You can eat and tell me about being a snitch before we get down to business."

Tony sat and already had a section of sandwich unwrapped and headed for his mouth. Having food was something he didn't think he'd ever take for granted. He ate with enthusiasm and, remembering Vicki's scolding when she used to treat him to the occasional meal, swallowed his mouthful before attempting to speak.

"I told you I was a street kid, right? Vicki was a cop. She busted me when I was fifteen, and asked me to be her eyes and ears on the street in exchange for getting off with a warning. She was the one who introduced me to Henry."

He paused to take another bite of sandwich, washing it down with a gulp of hot coffee.

Walter watched the way Tony ate and was struck again by some of the parallels between the two of them. It had taken him years and quite a bit of scolding from his etiquette teacher to get over the habit of wanting - almost needing - to wolf down his food.

"A police officer knowingly introduced you to a vampire?" He raised an eyebrow at that and lifted the cup almost as though drinking from it. After a fashion, he was when he let the steam warm his skin and drank in the scent of it.

He didn't miss tea quite as desperately as he used to, but being unable to drink it was one of the things he thought would take a very long time to get over.

The rest of the sandwich disappeared in little more than five bites. Tony licked his fingers and hummed appreciatively, feeling instinctively better for the full stomach.

Then he caught sight of Walter's raised brow and sheepishly used his napkin instead.

"She needed help. Henry had been attacked by some demon thing and she'd already given him her blood but it wasn't enough. So she asked for a donation."

Walter chuckled at the way Tony's emotions played so plainly over his face and set his tea down, as it seemed they would be coming down to business soon. Still, he was curious about the picture the young man was painting.

"Is this common in your world? For police to have relations with vampires?"

"Not exactly. But Victory never was an average cop anyway," Tony said, thinking back to the last time he'd talked to Vicki. At the time, she'd been busting some voodoo priests or something. 'Strictly amateur,' she'd said.

Then again, that was when Tony'd been busy trying to keep a demongate from opening and destroying the world, so he guessed neither of them was very average.

"Maybe it's because of the wizard thing; that I don't freak out about vampires existing or demons being real like you're supposed to."

"Some people are just born exceptional," Walter said, still thinking about the parallels between the two of them. The supernatural had never turned his head, either. "And some are almost naturally unflappable."

He set his hands on the table in front of him, folding them together in their fingerless gloves.

"Now, my unflappable friend, are you properly prepared by your sandwich and coffee? Fortified enough to fend off the 'creepy hypno-gaze'?"

He almost managed not to smirk as he asked. Almost.

"If you want to call 'weird' exceptional, go right ahead," Tony laughed. He didn't think he was totally unflappable. After all, the Shadowlord had scared the shit out of him, so much that he still felt twinges of nausea whenever the shadows didn't seem to be moving like they should.

But if he saw something, he couldn't pretend like it wasn't there, or brush it off as delusions, so without denial to deal with, he supposed he came off as really practical about things.

Things like having a staring contest with a vampire.

"Ready when you are," he said, gripping the edge of the table with his fingers. The nervousness was still there, but with his stomach full he didn't feel it so much.

Walter and Alucard could help him with his shadow issues. Or exacerbate them, possibly, but it might be easier when the creepily moving shadows were on your side.

That would be something Walter would have to know about to offer, however.

He smiled almost kindly at Tony and tilted his head to the side, listening to the young man's heartbeat and what it gave away about his confidence.

"Then let us begin." He raised his eyes to Tony's - at the moment they were a mild grey - and bent his will to a minor task for the human to fulfill.

Really, didn't Tony think that Walter needed another, fresh, hotter cup of tea? Walter really needed some tea. Some tea would be lovely. Tony would like to get him some more tea. Just some tea. A hot, steaming, fragrant cup. of. tea.

Caught in Walter's gaze, Tony's own blue eyes widened slightly, dilated.

He felt something brush over his thoughts, soft but persistent. Tea. He needed to get tea. Walter wanted...

Didn't he have a cup full of tea already? Tony wanted to look down at the table just to refresh his memory on that, but he couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from the other man's face.

The thought continued to tug urgently at him. He tightened his grip on the table, the effort to resist making his palms sweaty.

Very nice. Walter smiled, and it was the sort of fond, avuncular approval that went well with the next thoughts to pass to Tony's mind.

The cup Walter had already was inadequate. It couldn't be as good as one brought to him by Tony's own two hands. Hotter than the tea on the table. Meaning more because his friend had gotten it for him. Walter did so love tea and he did so appreciate when a friend did him such a kindness. It would make him so happy if Tony were to bring him a cup of tea. Walter would smile then and the world would be a better, brighter place, and all Tony had to do was bring him that cup of tea.

Tony swallowed hard, feeling the change in direction. The brush against his mind was more like a liquid now, sinking down into cracks of his mental defenses he couldn't quite shield, as they fed on parts of his own personality.

Walter was his friend, and he trusted him. Water wanted tea. Tea would make him happy...didn't Tony want Walter to be happy? Friends did things for each other, didn't they?

He half rose from his seat, only to freeze a second later, the smile on Walter's face reminding him of the teeth that lay beneath it.

Vampire. Trying to control my will. Bad thing.

He hated it when Henry dictated to him. Tony leaned against the table, hands trembling and white knuckled where they grasped the edge. He couldn't quite make himself sit back down, but he wasn't moving either.

Walter wouldn't say it aloud, but he was proud of Tony when he stopped. It was, however, as he said, training for them both - Tony had to resist and Walter had to compel. Besides, the vampire was determined that if Tony got to be smug at him, he was bloody well going to have to earn it.

There was no reason to be concerned. There. Was. No. Problem. They were in a coffee shop. Walter's tea was cold. This wasn't strange or unusual or even anything Tony needed to think twice about. People moved around all through the shop, taking their drinks to their tables, drinking, eating, chatting. All Tony had to do was bring Walter some more tea and they could resume their friendly conversation. They were enjoying each other's company, after all. It was so good to have a friend to sit in a coffee shop with and just talk. But how could they do that if Walter's tea was cold?

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