"Alucard, no," Integra said without lifting her head, rolling her pen over her index finger and pointing the back end of it at a particularly enterprising bit of shadow that had inched its not-muzzle over onto the surface of her desk, "I am not in the mood."

"Why, my Master, I know not what you mean?" Alucard chuckled, his voice coming from everywhere and nowhere in particular in that way that made the maids skitter about the corridors when they heard him. "Are you ever in the mood?" he added dryly.

Integra snorted, fighting down a smile, for all the aggravation of dealing with Alucard. "One would think you might be better at sounding innocent," she said, shifting to lean one elbow on her desk - the semi-monstrous shadows were still darkening the corners of the room and gamboling like hopeful puppies around her, "after so many centuries of practise lying."

Alucard materialised at last only to give her a wounded expression that hardly suited his face as he sank into a chair before her desk without invitation, hands over his cold heart. "Master, would I lie to you?"

Integra smirked, barely noticing the fading of her tension headache as she indulged her servant - at least in banter, in granting her attention. "What do you want, Alucard?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

. . .I tried, but this one did not want to stay in 3 sentences. I, like Integra, blame Alucard.