whiteofcrime | [drabble] The War Is Over

The war was over. He was twenty summers old now and the promise of a peaceful future seemed bright. With Millenium scattered to the winds and the supernatural threat receding in their wake, Walter felt both joyous and restless.

There wasn't a corner of England to where the news of Japan's surrender had not reached. While the country's celebratory mood had penetrated even the Hellsing manor's solid walls, there was one room which remained forlorn.

Walter escaped the drunken, tentacled grasp of one of Arthur's "guests" and made his way to that lonely room. Tucked away in the servants' wing, one turn down from his own, he rapped on the wooden panel and waited.

When no response came, he knocked a second time. After another short wait, he tried the knob and, finding it unlocked, took that as leave to enter the room.

Inside, he found his partner seated before the window, chin in hand, elbow on the ledge, gazing down at the courtyard where the Hellsing men were rousing themselves with song and drink. Their baudy tunes could be faintly heard, even here, but Walter was past blushing at their innuendo.

He shut the door quietly behind him. His voice was soft, gentle. "You knew."

A short, jerky nod. Walter crossed the floor, dragging over a second chair so he could sit beside the other man. He focused on their profile and ignored the outside men's cheers.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

"There's nothing to talk about." It was tired. Resigned. "I've known it would happen since we got here."

Walter sat forward, gloved fingers pushing back his love's uneven fringe. The other man closed his eyes and leaned in.

"It's not like I feel devastated by it or anything," they tried to explain softly. "I don't know them. And it happened decades ago for me. But...those people out there, celebrating the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent lives the Americans just wiped out - how can they be proud of what happened? How can they smile?"

The same reason he smiled on the battlefield, Walter thought. But he kept silent. He knew nothing of the future. Someone like him, Hellsing's garbage man-slash-butler, didn't have the luxury of plotting out a grand life for himself. He courted Death with his threads of high tensile steel. It wasn't for him to angst over morality.

Gathering the other man to his chest, he bowed his head and breathed deep of their scent. Wartime soap, dust and smoke. Gunpowder.

"You went outside?" he asked.

Another nod. They shifted against him, turning their face inwards. "Just to look."

"It's a mess, isn't it," he said conversationally. "All rubble and charcoal. I bet it looks much better in your time."

"I don't remember." He heard them sigh. "I was a kid when Dad took me there."

Walter squeezed his partner's shoulder. "I'll take you out to town someday. When those drunk sods aren't singing 'God Save the Queen' all hours of the night. We'll find a pub and you can disguise us so no-one's the wiser."

He felt them smile against his chest. "It's a promise."

There would be a few more conflicts, he was told later - a 'cold war', scuffles in east Asia - before they would know anything like peace. Even then, Kaito had said, it wasn't as if the prospect of another world war had vanished altogether. Modern-day America on its own, he was told, sat on a cache of nuclear warheads that could devastate the entire world.

He didn't care. If he lived that long, it would be by some miracle of God.

True to his word, he took Kaito to a newly rebuilt pub in the East End. A crowded little place with less elbow room than the trenches, less air than cigarette smoke. But the pints were cold and Kaito found them a table near the back where a game of poker was in progress. The magician took a seat as a player; Walter hovered over his shoulder.

For days, weeks, months after, Walter would remember leaning down to peer at Kaito's hand, loud cheers dimming to static as a bubble of intent silence descended over the table. He would remember the quiet breaths his partner took, the soft patter of cards, voices raised only to call, bet, or fold. Cheers when the pot was won, groans when the game was lost. Somehow, Kaito walked away with only one pound less than what he had taken into the game.

"Couldn't you have won that last round?" he asked once they were embraced by grey, London skies.

"People remember a big loss," Kaito responded easily. He began to play with a shilling, tossing it between his thumbs and flashing it over knuckles. "They also remember a big win. I lost the hand so they wouldn't hold a grudge later."

After considering that, Walter nodded thoughtfully and trailed after the magician. They had begun humming quietly: a popular song on the radio Walter could not recall the name of. He seared the memory of their happiness into his thoughts as the first drops of rain began to sheet down upon the city.