Happy Thanksgiving! I haven't written for Hellsing in a while! This idea was started a while ago, when my writing was going through its choppy phase, but enjoy anyway!

All characters © Hirano Kouta

Warmongers Can Have Fun Too

December, 1944

"Angel, I do not see why I had to accompany you on this mission."

"Oh, shut it, Alucard," a fourteen-year-old Walter Dorneaz puffed as he spat out an unlit cigar—or rather, a formerly-lit cigar before the burning tip had frozen off. The young butler's cheeks were swarthy with exertion and he had to keep swiping the back of his hand under his nose every minute or so to prevent it from running.

"Stupid Arthur," he groused lowly as the shovel came up again, clearing more snow. "Stupid long Hellsing driveway…"

Alucard sat on the steps with his head cocked, watching this spectacle with curiosity. Brushing his long black locks out of the way, he asked amusedly, "Is it really that troublesome, Angel?"

Walter stopped and regarded the androgynous vampire with eyes of a gray-blue marble color, leaning on the end of the shovel. "Well, unlike you," he sighed, "I don't have super-strength and I actually feel the cold." His eyes fell on the figure who was molding a pile of snow casually with his bare hands.

"Can't you do this for me or something, Alucard?" Walter asked, gesturing to the snow-imbued driveway. He was becoming irritated.

The vampire blinked light ruby irises. "Why? I am not required to do such trivial tasks," he replied. At this Walter heaved a sigh and positioned his shovel again. Alucard continued to observe from his step with humor poorly masked on his pallid features. After a few moments, the butler tucked a strand of dark hair behind his ear, wiped his nose on his sleeve, and looked up irascibly.

"Don't you have something useful to do?"

"I am doing something useful," Alucard answered pointedly. "Master Hellsing said I should re-familiarize myself with the human mores and behaviors so that I may better fit in with your ephemeral kind. It's been a while since I've had to mingle with humans, so observing you is actually part of my study."

Walter stared for a minute before slowly resuming his shoveling. The vampire's words had begun to hatch a devious scheme in the addled corners of his teenaged mind.

"Hey, Alucard," he began, in a tone of dangerous nonchalance dripping with dark unctuousness, "since you're studying modern behavior, I'll give you a little pointer."

Alucard's eyes brightened gleefully and he smiled. "That would be excellent, Angel."

The butler smiled too, gesturing with a gloved hand to his environs. "During the wintertime, when there is this much snow on the ground, d'you know what human children do with it?" Walter 'accidentally' let his hand slip, and the shovel clattered to the ground. He squatted down to retrieve it.

"No. What do they do, Angel?"

Walter straightened up. "This!" he shouted, flinging the good-sized snowball that he had just gathered at the vampire's face with lightning speed. Alucard was too befuddled by this strange action to react in time, and the mass of wet snow reached its destination point with a kssshh sound. The vampire blinked, stupefied, as runners of snow slid down his face and into the folds of his white scarf.

"Ah-Hahahaaa! Hah! Hah!" Walter hugged his ribcage, howling with laughter as Alucard spit out frozen snow disgustedly. "I got you there, vampire! You hadda look at your face, it was classic! Ehee heee!" He let go of his middle with one hand, still doubled over, and pointed at the vampire, who smiled sweetly.

"You got me there, Angel," he said, shrugging and wiping the last of the snow from his cheeks. "I do believe this is the first time I've gotten an object thrown at me that was nonlethal... and you say this is a ritual performed by human children? Hm… the children of my village never did anything of this sort."

Walter didn't answer, still snorting and wiping tears from the corners of his eyes. "What's this, Alucard? No retaliation?" he asked once recovered. How wrong it was of him to provoke the vampire.

Alucard removed his wooly cap and gently placed it on the steps, rising in a single lithe movement. "Oh, I never said that," he said insidiously, giving a white fanged grin.

It was then that Walter finally realized the full extent of what he had done. That glint had appeared in the nosferatu's eye, the kind of glint that suggested that he better run. Now. Which he promptly did, grabbing a handful of snow as Alucard sprang at him.

Arthur Hellsing ducked as a Chinese lacquer vase whizzed by his ear.

"You prat! Imbecile!" Hugh Islands picked up an ashtray and heaved it across the office room, where it broke against the wall. Arthur sighed. There went the fifth one this month.

"How could you not realize those papers were supposed to be submitted to the Council yesterday?" Islands bellowed, a vein pulsing in his temple and his spectacles flashing. "Now I'm going to have to cover for your arse again, you arrant twit!" He hoisted a rather thick tome with both hands and prepared to throw. Arthur cringed and squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the impact…but, it never came.

Tentatively, the senior Hellsing cracked open blue eyes, curious as to the reason why Islands had not thrown the book yet. Sir Islands, in fact, had dropped the book, ignoring it entirely, and was regarding the office window with a kind of fascinated stupor.

"Arthur..." he began, his previous anger completely deflated.

"What is it, Islands?" Arthur asked as he straightened up in his chair.

Islands swallowed. "Have I gone mad, old friend?" he asked hoarsely, removing his glasses, wiping them on his shirt, and putting them back on again. "Come here, Arthur. What do you make of this?"

Arthur lumbered over to the window beside Islands (but not too close, lest Islands be overcome once more with the urge to pelt him with the book). "What do I make of wh—oh my."

It appeared that the teenage Hellsing trashman and the vampire servant, formerly known as Count Dracula, were engaging in a snowball fight.

Clearly visible from the office window, the two were gamboling across the snowy mansion grounds, shrieking and laughing. At a distant glance one might have mistaken them for normal, if rather raucous children. Then they would have noticed that the little girl was pelting balls of snow so fast that her arms blurred, and the observer would have reconsidered.

"I did not realize your professionals had the time for such…frivolities," Islands commented weakly once he had found his voice. There was not much more he could say. His tone lacked the disproval that the words would have typically had due to the sheer ludicrousness of what he was seeing.

Arthur remained quiet, a thoughtful look replacing the haughty expression that generally dominated his features. The two Round Table members watched the two trashmen for a few more moments from their warm, dry office room. The senior Hellsing grinned as Alucard hurled a snowball bigger than himself at the young butler.

"Arthur?" Sir Islands turned to him as he moved away from the window and towards the door. "Where are you going?"

Arthur looked over his shoulder, pale blue eyes twinkling with amusement. "Those boys are going to be mighty cold when they come inside, Islands," he answered. "Better fix them some hot tea."

End.