Fic: Coherence
Title: Coherence
Fandom: Hellsing (Manga)
Rating: MA, R, NC-17, if you're old enough to read the manga or watch the OVA... nothing serious, just language and almost-sex if you squint.
Word Count:4079
Summary: *SPOILER up to Manga ch.89. Not much else. I've ignored pesky details like actually explaining the end of the battle. Various identities fight for coherence, and Integral walks from the Hellsing chapel to her office. AxI. I cite Catholic prayers here, in Latin, for no real purpose. It just flowed when I wrote, so I went with it. If I care enough to redraft, I will change them into Protestant equivalents, hymns or something.
It was cold. And fuggy, as if the entire universe was fuzz. As if one was suspended in the space between atoms, everywhere. Unable to be attached to any one particle, just floating forever and brushing up against things.
Time passed.
A child was born, somewhere on Earth, and somebody remembered their own labour. It really, really hurt. They, we, all yowled into the grey fug with the moment. Stretching was a very unusual concept, whatever they were. Wherever they were. Because right now, everything just was. All at once. Thinking about it hurt, really. Thinking about stretching, about having a need to stretch.
It was much easier to lie back, and press up against the atoms and particles every now and then.
Time pased.
There were voices, singing. Beautiful voices. They called to one of me or another, all the time. Sometimes there would be blue eyes. Or green.
Maybe.
We missed her husband, he was always so good at taking care of the boys. For a moment, we returned to his grave, and smelt the cold damp earth. But we didn't like it there, because it reminded her - me- we...
The funeral wasn't nice. So I didn't think about it again.
The voices didn't stop. They kept on singing, and bits kept on joining in.
Ave Maria
Sicut in caero, et in terra...
How did it go, again?
Time passed.
He thought it was strange, that there was time. She agreed, and then they started, startled, in the nothing. In the everything. Parts were getting clearer.
He was late for work.
They rushed up, hastily tucking their shirt into their trousers, hoping that they weren't sacked for it. It was their last chance, after the small issue with the missing caramel tarts, and this bakery gig really was their last chance at getting good and straight. For Jamie, it was for Jamie. He deserved to have a dad who was around, at least some of the...
Like a crystal, Douglas appeared. He sat there, fragmented and frozen, in the fug. Meaningless shapes shifted around him, and pressed him up against the atoms. He didn't like it, but there was some reason that he couldn't head into the shop. He'd been running, desperate to get under cover at the last minute, and then...
Time passed.
There was a voice that sung. That stung.
et nunc; et semper; Dominus tectum.
It sounded like heaven, like trepidation and glory. Dorothy joined in, but we didn't know why. Her voice burnt. Shut up, shut up!
Get that rubbish out of here. You'll get to heaven when you get there, you fucking pious bitch.
Wait your turn. I've been waiting for so much longer than you, than you. I'll never get my turn.
“Oh, well not if we're stuck here like this, we won't. I can't believe that a bright young man like yourself can't figure it out.”
We're hardly young now, are we?
“Are you? How old are you, then?”
I'm, I... we... you...
“Do you even remember the cat? What about her? Do you even remember her?”
Her. Yes! Oh yes, her gloriously bloodthirsty smile, and the sweet way she hid from herself. So human, so perfect, so deliciously like Mina.
“Yes, dearie? Oh, come on, Thomas? Give me a hand here. Even if we're not corporeal, I can feel my bones ache. So old...”
“Right, yes. Err. So, like she said. Her. The woman. Surely, you remember her. That's partly why this thing won you over, right?”
What do you mean, won us over?
“Well, blast, how do I say this? I mean, how does a guy just out and say this? You were scared of dying, you wanted to die, for your sins. But you didn't want to. She needed you.”
Needed me.
“So when you got to be everywhere and nowhere, it worked, didn't it? I saw the whole thing, I know you, from inside your head mate, perhaps better than one man ought to be able to know another. Ahem.”
I don't understand. You're all too noisy. Stop splintering and sparking and shining like that.
“Like what, dearie?”
Like crystals. Like tiny chunks of rock, forming in liquid.
“I'm bored, real bored. Seriously, dude, get over yourself and reconstitute. I'd rather puke watching the cute flirting denial you go through daily than sit around in this hole anymore.”
Where the fuck do you get off, you little shit! I should never have absorbed your worthless arse. You didn't even watch interesting porn! I flirt because she needs me, and she needs me to be distant. She's not strong enough, yet. But she needs me to be antagonistic and her dark knight.
“Pfft. Piss off. You're just wanking like a fucking Emo kid, all this bullshit angst. Nail the bird and move on.”
“Now Lachlan, my dear, if your mother heard you speaking like that, she'd be very ashamed.”
“Sod off, Dorothy.”
She needed me.
“Oh, don't you take that tone with Dorothy, lad, or I'll.. I'll...”
Needs me. Not needed me, needs me.
“You'll what, old man? Kill me? Hah. You'll shut up and sit quietly in this shitheap so we can all dissipate again? You know that keeping up these arguments helps us reaffirm our cognitive state.”
Master... oh, hell. Oh god. Master, sir, Integral!
“Oh, finally. Well done, champ. We'll be out of this place in a jiffy, now!”
***
The cobblestones were cold. She shivered, and wondered if she'd ever been cold before. She looked down at her toes, unreal, surreal, and saw them fade.
“No, no nononononono! Remember, Integral. Sir Integral Wingates Hellsing. Don't know why the fuck you chose to appear here, but we have to make it home. Come on now, second left. Down the drive, big fucking gate. You can't miss it. And call the bloody dog, already. Let's move on.”
What?
“Oh, come on, Integral. INTEGRAL. Master.”
Oh.
“Right. My Master. Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.”
Now, dear, do you remember? Come on, and summon your familiar
The hellhound came. Or rather, he was. It felt better. She brushed her hair back over her shoulders and felt it slide against the coat. She looked at her hands, which were bare. But her hellhound put the right sort of gloves on. For Master. They weren't really the right gloves, but she knew that Master would appreciate the effort. Master would give her some real gloves later.
Her heart was pounding, as she strode purposefully down the long drive. It must have been quite a long time that Master was without her. Her beautiful, gorgeous, stalwart, brave Master. Who smelt so good that her nose flared at the very thought of it.
Master whose voice, very voice, in her ear after a battle, made her hard...
Aha, and here the coin will drop.
Wait, no that was wrong. Because girls didn't have penises. She blushed, because she supposed that was the right behaviour, and tried to remember more.
You knelt at her feet, remember? Please tell me you remember.
Ah yes.
“Thank you, Lachlan.”
She had knelt at her Master's feet, and stared at her feet, bloodied and booty and covered in giblets and gore. She had let go, and let her hair turn back to normal. Her human, physical normal, that she hid behind a special curtain of black, because her sins were so great that she could no longer live as human.
Human.
She'd better let her hair change back, just in case. And breasts, did she have breasts? Maybe. Who knew.
Of course you didn't, you dolt. You're not a woman, you're a...
Oh. Well, that was alright. She knew that she was a girl. It felt more normal, with normal hair, and no breasts. Now she just needed to be a little shorter.
Even if it did mean that the walk took a few minutes longer.
She would come home, and run up the stairs, and see Master standing there. Master wouldn't smile, but when she got up to the top, Master would smirk, and smell so good. Master wouldn't touch her, never touched her, not really, but they would walk and talk. Maybe the Draculina would come with them.
Oh yes! She had missed the draculina, too. So much!
Look, the gates! The gates!
I'm home, I'm home! Master, I have come once more. I will kneel at your feet and smell the arousing scent of death on the cuffs of your suit. I will hear you, once more, use your glorious voice to decimate your opponents.
And you'll be so glad that you lost me, and found me, after so very, very long, that you'll love me forever. You won't say no this time. Never never no again, you'll hold me, my darling. You'll bend your pretty neck, and I'll just open the front door now, and see you on the stairs. No need to dream about what may be, when it is already mine!
“Amen.”
Integral left the chapel and walked slowly and resolutely to her office to begin the day. She'd done it every day for the past week. Spent half the morning praying. She knelt down on the floor, and prayed once to the cross, then turned to the walls.
A war memorial, really. She'd had special notched cut into the walls, and for each person who died in service of Hellsing, she'd ordered a special, finger-thin moulded brass plaque. Their names shone. She'd ordered poppies, and Seras had helped her spread them about. Sticking them into the hollows between the plaques.
They were beginning to rot, but she withstood the smell. Because if there hadn't been a Hellsing organisation, nobody would have died. If she'd let her uncle kill her, and he'd run the organisation into corruption, or dissolution, then there would never have been a strong enough force to prompt the Major's war.
Alucard would never have woken.
And all of these men, all of these people, would be alive.
She'd contributed a large amount of funds to the rescue teams. They were recovering what was left of bodies, so that people could interr their loved ones. The people of England refused to settle for mass graves.
Her footsteps felt oddly hollow on the floor. Walter was gone. Seras was asleep, and Alucard was around. Somewhere. Everywhere.
She wondered, not for the first time, if you could be half-conscious, but not self-aware. If he could hear her, or feel her, in any way.
She hoped he could, the cocksucking arsehole.
He deserved to feel ashamed, for leaving her. If he came back, she would grab the nearest long, pointed object and ram it right through his smug, manic smile.
And then he'd push it aside, and melt around it, and laugh. Or he'd look into her eyes, and just stand there, soically, reading her breathing and her pulse, knowing how horrified and aroused and ecstatic she was to have him back.
Or he'd laugh, and pull it out, and lick his own blood off of it. Then he'd look at her with his insane come-hither eyes, and suggest that they go out of town, find some ghouls, and set some rooves on fire.
But she turned to look, and it was seeing the foyer that shook her into her gut. It hit her like a cramp, deep in her womb. In her visceral humanity. She felt ill, and tears forced their way out of her eyes. She would have screamed, or moaned, or gasped, but she clamped a hand to her mouth.
If she pretended to be strong, Seras would think she was strong enough to keep working through the day. That infuriating sycophant had been keeping an ear out, watching her. Bringing her tea, and tissues, and being so fucking sensitive that Integral wanted to just tear her pretty sympathetic eyes out.
Yes, fuck yes, she was in mourning. But, like in the battlefield, there was work to be done. Integral was not allowed to rest yet.
Just being alive these days, it exhausted her. She sat wearily down, just for a moment, and rested her head in her hands. Felt her energy sink lower and lower, until her feet were heavy with blood. It felt like the universe was being pulled downwards through her soul.
Then the door opened, and light and air streamed in. She ignored it, passed it off as a delusion of her exhausted mind, but then the breeze tickled her with her own hair, and she looked up.
There was a child in the doorway, looking anxiously up at her. Integral felt that inexorable gravity pulling further at her feet. Down the stairs she ran, because there was a child, a child!
A child who looked exhausted, and tired, and Jesus be damned how she got here, there was a little girl, a survivor. Who knew what had happened to her parents, or family? Who knew how traumatised the girl was, or how hungry?
The little girl accepted Integral's embrace, and inhaled deeply.
“I've missed the scent of human.”
The girl smiled, as Integral drew back to look at her. There was something very disturbingly familiar about that smile.
“Don't look worried, Master. My Master. (Oh it feels so good just to say it like that to you). I'm back, here, kind of, and I'll never, ever leave you again.”
The girl grinned wider, if it was possible, and clutched her hands tightly around Integral's neck. Integral felt her stomach churn, and she carefully, gently, disentangled the girl's arms. If it was a girl, which Integral highly doubted.
Seras, can you hear me? We have a situation.
She hoped that Seras would hear her. They'd tested it a little, in the last week. For security reasons. To the girl, who was smiling in a gentler way, and playing with Integral's hair, she spoke sternly and coldly.
“Who on earth do you think you are, and how dare you presume to speak to me in this way. There were no survivors of the massacre, do not think me fool enough to believe that you somehow made it through when... others... did not.”
The girl seemed to quiver around the edges, her whole tiny body shivering. Her dark curly hair danced across her plain shift-dress.
“I... no, I... who?”
“You. You, girl. Who are you?”
The girl flung herself out of Integral's arms and ran to the front door again, forcing it shut with unnatural strength.
“I DON'T KNOW! Master you know! You know me, I know it! And I've come home, and Master!”
The girl crumpled into a tiny ball and began to sob in huge, gulping gasps.
“I knew! I know I knew! I woke up, over and over again, and I knew I was me. I knew my hair, see?”
She turned to face Integral, who was frozen to the spot, brandishing a handful of her long hair.
“And I knew that I didn't have breasts, so I fixed it. And, and, and... and I knew, I did. I knew. I knew that I was me, and that I had to...”
She sniffed, and wiped her nose on her wrist, then her wrist on her dress.
“I had to find you. You, you're Master. And you need me. So I had to come. Because I'm me, and you're you? You know?”
Integral stared at the soggy mess of a child, obviously traumatised, obviously unstable. Maybe she'd overheard things? Maybe she really was human, and damaged?
Or maybe she was Monster, and baiting her along.
“I...”
Seras, for FUCK'S SAKE GET AWAKE AND UP HERE!
“Oh, yeah,” the girl smiled, suddenly, her mood changing quicker than the eye, “Draculina should be here, for the reunion. I've missed her too, though not as much as you, my master. But you're still too quiet, my love. Let me.”
“My love?!”
Perhaps Integral was hallucinating. She had been overextending herself again, of course. Taking too much on, assuming that she was immune to emotional trauma. Just a slight moment of insanity, and it'd all be over.
Integral lay down on the floor, felt the cool stone foyer beneath her suit jacket, radiating calm and solid reality into her flesh.
Seras would arrive soon, and everything would be fine. She would make this problem go away, and Integral would pick herself together again, and get clean jacket, and throw this snot-coated one away. She would sit down at her desk, clean and crisp, and work.
She would work until her brain dribbled out of her ears, and she could lose that voice in her head, that sounded more like herself than she felt right now, that kept telling her that humanity was overrated, and that she loved him, always had, the stupid fucking brat, and that she'd saved herself, and waited, and saved herself, all these years. So she'd be a virgin on her deathbed, just in case. Because she couldn't stomach the thought of a lover, not with him in her life.
Because she hated the concept of childbirth.
But, because of her father's faith in her, and the Hellsing name, just in case, she had to be alive.
But she never really intended to marry, or have children. Just wait a few more years, and then tell him what he'd know all along. That she'd saved herself, and waited. She'd kept her blood pure and clean and perfect for him. And he'd take her.
Stupid, she'd told herself, you stupid little shit! Why didn't you just let him, when he asked? Why did you have to fight it, like some morbid foreplay? Why didn't you let him take you then?
If you'd let him, he would never have left you. He would have fought for you.
If you'd let him, even if he was still gone, you'd have the memories. You'd have had the chance, at least.
The floor was blessedly cold. She jammed her hands against her ears, and rolled over so that a new, cooler patch of floor was pressed against her forehead.
It was silent. And calm. She grabbed for the first thing in her mind, and held onto it. A Catholic prayer, from the first memorial broadcast on the radio.
Pater noster, qui es in caelis: sanctificetur Nomen Tuum; adveniat Regnum Tuum; fiat voluntas Tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra.
She mouthed the words against the floor in Protestant English; none of that pompous Latin posing for her faith, thank you. She was humble, and real, not distant and mystical. Felt her lip catch with its' own moisture, and her blood pulse against the hard surface. She felt frail, and human, and alive, which was in itself strange. She couldn't recall feeling this alive since she'd stared right through his fading eyes.
“Give us this day, our daily bread, And forgive me my trespasses, As I forgive those who trespass against me.”
She felt a small, childish hand press into her lower back.
“And lead me not into temptation, But deliver me from...”
The hand shook her, more insistent, and she stopped her lips moving.
“I came back for you, you know.”
Integral screwed her eyes shut and pressed her head lower against the floor, ignoring the pain of her glasses digging into the flesh beside her eyes.
She whispered out against the floor.
“Your voice is different now, deeper.”
The girl continued, her hand firmer now. It moved in deliberate circles against Integral's skin.
“Just the thought of you, not even you alone, or you despairing. Or you, angry in battle. Just you,”
The hand fell, heavier, to her shoulder. Solid and warm and impossible. When the voice came it was deeper still, and strangely hot against her neck. She could imagine him now, in her mind. Restored to his true self, perfectly broken, lips half-open as he pressed them against her collar.
“Just you,”
She daren't move, not at all. She heard rather than felt a hand slap down abruptly beside her head. He withdrew, and watched her for a moment.
“Turn around, Master.”
She rolled, awkwardly - but only because she was so exhuasted and shaky - and looked up at him. His eyes were unmistakeable now, and his grin was predatory. It sent a wild shiver through her spine.
He loomed closer, resting on his arms, caging her in. As if she would try to run. His mouth worked, as if in surprise, or shock. And instead of on her neck, she felt the weight of his forehead on her own. She stared into his eyes, so close to her own.
He looked scared.
“Master, you know my name.”
His voice was tiny and quiet, and had more than a little bit of that frail girl-child about it. It made her wonder exactly what he'd experienced, and how much of him was left.
“Don't be simple, servant. Of course I know your name. If you dare try testing me like that again, Alucard, I will keep you at home, to remind you of the chain of command, while Seras has some fun.”
Yes, like that. Good job, she told herself, just pretend that everything's normal. Because it is, and the sooner he realises that, the sooner the Schrodinger effect will stabilise.
He inhaled, and closed his eyes in deference.
“Of course, my Master,”
He slid his head off of hers, and let gravity pull his face down beside her own with a sussurus of hair and clothing. His buttons dug into her chest painfully, and she could almost taste him on the air.
“Countess,” He punctuated the movement, and then slid closer, pressing his lips gently against the base of her ear.
“Sir,”
He licked at her neck, and the sensation set her nerves on fire.
Then he cupped her breast in his hand, and kneaded it gently. Her jacket suddenly felt very thick, stiff, and uncomfortable.
“Are you scared, servant?”
“Oh, no,” He smiled into her neck, and wrapped an arm tightly around her waist. He slid a leg between her own.
“I just wanted to savour the moment, I've waited so long for it.”
Integral elbowed him in the side, and he rolled with her, until she was lying sprawled on top of him.
“Well I don't.”
She lowered her head, and pressed into his neck, inhaling the leathery, earty scent of his skin.
“Count, I've had enough of pretense and postulation, and layers. I'm sick of titles and positions and everything. I've adhered to them for years, and nothing has gone the way that I've wanted.”
He contemplated her, and then raised his hands to her hair. Bare and soft, so softer than the gloves, they cradled her head before tugging her up and over, until she waited, lips pressed against his own.
“So I'll call you 'Integral', and you'll call me...?”
“Vlad.” She decided.
“Aha. Fine. Vlad. That could work. And what will we do, now?”
She grinned against his mouth, and ground her hips down against his.
“Everything.”
She slid her tongue into his mouth. Forcing, pressing, for a moment, until his surged up to meet hers. They rubbed, and kissed, and felt. They forgot who was making which noise, until she pressed her tongue up against his teeth, and dragged it across his mouth, grazing all along and letting the blood fill his mouth. He hissed, and grabbed at her back and arse, clutched her close and pressed tight against her.
It was warm, and foggy. As if the entire world had been shut out of existence, and there was nothing, anywhere. But everything, everywhere. As if they were suspended in time, and space, and in an endless ecstacy. Just floating in this bliss, and occasionally brushing up against the delicious contact of flesh.
Time passed.
Fandom: Hellsing (Manga)
Rating: MA, R, NC-17, if you're old enough to read the manga or watch the OVA... nothing serious, just language and almost-sex if you squint.
Word Count:4079
Summary: *SPOILER up to Manga ch.89. Not much else. I've ignored pesky details like actually explaining the end of the battle. Various identities fight for coherence, and Integral walks from the Hellsing chapel to her office. AxI. I cite Catholic prayers here, in Latin, for no real purpose. It just flowed when I wrote, so I went with it. If I care enough to redraft, I will change them into Protestant equivalents, hymns or something.
It was cold. And fuggy, as if the entire universe was fuzz. As if one was suspended in the space between atoms, everywhere. Unable to be attached to any one particle, just floating forever and brushing up against things.
Time passed.
A child was born, somewhere on Earth, and somebody remembered their own labour. It really, really hurt. They, we, all yowled into the grey fug with the moment. Stretching was a very unusual concept, whatever they were. Wherever they were. Because right now, everything just was. All at once. Thinking about it hurt, really. Thinking about stretching, about having a need to stretch.
It was much easier to lie back, and press up against the atoms and particles every now and then.
Time pased.
There were voices, singing. Beautiful voices. They called to one of me or another, all the time. Sometimes there would be blue eyes. Or green.
Maybe.
We missed her husband, he was always so good at taking care of the boys. For a moment, we returned to his grave, and smelt the cold damp earth. But we didn't like it there, because it reminded her - me- we...
The funeral wasn't nice. So I didn't think about it again.
The voices didn't stop. They kept on singing, and bits kept on joining in.
Ave Maria
Sicut in caero, et in terra...
How did it go, again?
Time passed.
He thought it was strange, that there was time. She agreed, and then they started, startled, in the nothing. In the everything. Parts were getting clearer.
He was late for work.
They rushed up, hastily tucking their shirt into their trousers, hoping that they weren't sacked for it. It was their last chance, after the small issue with the missing caramel tarts, and this bakery gig really was their last chance at getting good and straight. For Jamie, it was for Jamie. He deserved to have a dad who was around, at least some of the...
Like a crystal, Douglas appeared. He sat there, fragmented and frozen, in the fug. Meaningless shapes shifted around him, and pressed him up against the atoms. He didn't like it, but there was some reason that he couldn't head into the shop. He'd been running, desperate to get under cover at the last minute, and then...
Time passed.
There was a voice that sung. That stung.
et nunc; et semper; Dominus tectum.
It sounded like heaven, like trepidation and glory. Dorothy joined in, but we didn't know why. Her voice burnt. Shut up, shut up!
Get that rubbish out of here. You'll get to heaven when you get there, you fucking pious bitch.
Wait your turn. I've been waiting for so much longer than you, than you. I'll never get my turn.
“Oh, well not if we're stuck here like this, we won't. I can't believe that a bright young man like yourself can't figure it out.”
We're hardly young now, are we?
“Are you? How old are you, then?”
I'm, I... we... you...
“Do you even remember the cat? What about her? Do you even remember her?”
Her. Yes! Oh yes, her gloriously bloodthirsty smile, and the sweet way she hid from herself. So human, so perfect, so deliciously like Mina.
“Yes, dearie? Oh, come on, Thomas? Give me a hand here. Even if we're not corporeal, I can feel my bones ache. So old...”
“Right, yes. Err. So, like she said. Her. The woman. Surely, you remember her. That's partly why this thing won you over, right?”
What do you mean, won us over?
“Well, blast, how do I say this? I mean, how does a guy just out and say this? You were scared of dying, you wanted to die, for your sins. But you didn't want to. She needed you.”
Needed me.
“So when you got to be everywhere and nowhere, it worked, didn't it? I saw the whole thing, I know you, from inside your head mate, perhaps better than one man ought to be able to know another. Ahem.”
I don't understand. You're all too noisy. Stop splintering and sparking and shining like that.
“Like what, dearie?”
Like crystals. Like tiny chunks of rock, forming in liquid.
“I'm bored, real bored. Seriously, dude, get over yourself and reconstitute. I'd rather puke watching the cute flirting denial you go through daily than sit around in this hole anymore.”
Where the fuck do you get off, you little shit! I should never have absorbed your worthless arse. You didn't even watch interesting porn! I flirt because she needs me, and she needs me to be distant. She's not strong enough, yet. But she needs me to be antagonistic and her dark knight.
“Pfft. Piss off. You're just wanking like a fucking Emo kid, all this bullshit angst. Nail the bird and move on.”
“Now Lachlan, my dear, if your mother heard you speaking like that, she'd be very ashamed.”
“Sod off, Dorothy.”
She needed me.
“Oh, don't you take that tone with Dorothy, lad, or I'll.. I'll...”
Needs me. Not needed me, needs me.
“You'll what, old man? Kill me? Hah. You'll shut up and sit quietly in this shitheap so we can all dissipate again? You know that keeping up these arguments helps us reaffirm our cognitive state.”
Master... oh, hell. Oh god. Master, sir, Integral!
“Oh, finally. Well done, champ. We'll be out of this place in a jiffy, now!”
***
The cobblestones were cold. She shivered, and wondered if she'd ever been cold before. She looked down at her toes, unreal, surreal, and saw them fade.
“No, no nononononono! Remember, Integral. Sir Integral Wingates Hellsing. Don't know why the fuck you chose to appear here, but we have to make it home. Come on now, second left. Down the drive, big fucking gate. You can't miss it. And call the bloody dog, already. Let's move on.”
What?
“Oh, come on, Integral. INTEGRAL. Master.”
Oh.
“Right. My Master. Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.”
Now, dear, do you remember? Come on, and summon your familiar
The hellhound came. Or rather, he was. It felt better. She brushed her hair back over her shoulders and felt it slide against the coat. She looked at her hands, which were bare. But her hellhound put the right sort of gloves on. For Master. They weren't really the right gloves, but she knew that Master would appreciate the effort. Master would give her some real gloves later.
Her heart was pounding, as she strode purposefully down the long drive. It must have been quite a long time that Master was without her. Her beautiful, gorgeous, stalwart, brave Master. Who smelt so good that her nose flared at the very thought of it.
Master whose voice, very voice, in her ear after a battle, made her hard...
Aha, and here the coin will drop.
Wait, no that was wrong. Because girls didn't have penises. She blushed, because she supposed that was the right behaviour, and tried to remember more.
You knelt at her feet, remember? Please tell me you remember.
Ah yes.
“Thank you, Lachlan.”
She had knelt at her Master's feet, and stared at her feet, bloodied and booty and covered in giblets and gore. She had let go, and let her hair turn back to normal. Her human, physical normal, that she hid behind a special curtain of black, because her sins were so great that she could no longer live as human.
Human.
She'd better let her hair change back, just in case. And breasts, did she have breasts? Maybe. Who knew.
Of course you didn't, you dolt. You're not a woman, you're a...
Oh. Well, that was alright. She knew that she was a girl. It felt more normal, with normal hair, and no breasts. Now she just needed to be a little shorter.
Even if it did mean that the walk took a few minutes longer.
She would come home, and run up the stairs, and see Master standing there. Master wouldn't smile, but when she got up to the top, Master would smirk, and smell so good. Master wouldn't touch her, never touched her, not really, but they would walk and talk. Maybe the Draculina would come with them.
Oh yes! She had missed the draculina, too. So much!
Look, the gates! The gates!
I'm home, I'm home! Master, I have come once more. I will kneel at your feet and smell the arousing scent of death on the cuffs of your suit. I will hear you, once more, use your glorious voice to decimate your opponents.
And you'll be so glad that you lost me, and found me, after so very, very long, that you'll love me forever. You won't say no this time. Never never no again, you'll hold me, my darling. You'll bend your pretty neck, and I'll just open the front door now, and see you on the stairs. No need to dream about what may be, when it is already mine!
“Amen.”
Integral left the chapel and walked slowly and resolutely to her office to begin the day. She'd done it every day for the past week. Spent half the morning praying. She knelt down on the floor, and prayed once to the cross, then turned to the walls.
A war memorial, really. She'd had special notched cut into the walls, and for each person who died in service of Hellsing, she'd ordered a special, finger-thin moulded brass plaque. Their names shone. She'd ordered poppies, and Seras had helped her spread them about. Sticking them into the hollows between the plaques.
They were beginning to rot, but she withstood the smell. Because if there hadn't been a Hellsing organisation, nobody would have died. If she'd let her uncle kill her, and he'd run the organisation into corruption, or dissolution, then there would never have been a strong enough force to prompt the Major's war.
Alucard would never have woken.
And all of these men, all of these people, would be alive.
She'd contributed a large amount of funds to the rescue teams. They were recovering what was left of bodies, so that people could interr their loved ones. The people of England refused to settle for mass graves.
Her footsteps felt oddly hollow on the floor. Walter was gone. Seras was asleep, and Alucard was around. Somewhere. Everywhere.
She wondered, not for the first time, if you could be half-conscious, but not self-aware. If he could hear her, or feel her, in any way.
She hoped he could, the cocksucking arsehole.
He deserved to feel ashamed, for leaving her. If he came back, she would grab the nearest long, pointed object and ram it right through his smug, manic smile.
And then he'd push it aside, and melt around it, and laugh. Or he'd look into her eyes, and just stand there, soically, reading her breathing and her pulse, knowing how horrified and aroused and ecstatic she was to have him back.
Or he'd laugh, and pull it out, and lick his own blood off of it. Then he'd look at her with his insane come-hither eyes, and suggest that they go out of town, find some ghouls, and set some rooves on fire.
But she turned to look, and it was seeing the foyer that shook her into her gut. It hit her like a cramp, deep in her womb. In her visceral humanity. She felt ill, and tears forced their way out of her eyes. She would have screamed, or moaned, or gasped, but she clamped a hand to her mouth.
If she pretended to be strong, Seras would think she was strong enough to keep working through the day. That infuriating sycophant had been keeping an ear out, watching her. Bringing her tea, and tissues, and being so fucking sensitive that Integral wanted to just tear her pretty sympathetic eyes out.
Yes, fuck yes, she was in mourning. But, like in the battlefield, there was work to be done. Integral was not allowed to rest yet.
Just being alive these days, it exhausted her. She sat wearily down, just for a moment, and rested her head in her hands. Felt her energy sink lower and lower, until her feet were heavy with blood. It felt like the universe was being pulled downwards through her soul.
Then the door opened, and light and air streamed in. She ignored it, passed it off as a delusion of her exhausted mind, but then the breeze tickled her with her own hair, and she looked up.
There was a child in the doorway, looking anxiously up at her. Integral felt that inexorable gravity pulling further at her feet. Down the stairs she ran, because there was a child, a child!
A child who looked exhausted, and tired, and Jesus be damned how she got here, there was a little girl, a survivor. Who knew what had happened to her parents, or family? Who knew how traumatised the girl was, or how hungry?
The little girl accepted Integral's embrace, and inhaled deeply.
“I've missed the scent of human.”
The girl smiled, as Integral drew back to look at her. There was something very disturbingly familiar about that smile.
“Don't look worried, Master. My Master. (Oh it feels so good just to say it like that to you). I'm back, here, kind of, and I'll never, ever leave you again.”
The girl grinned wider, if it was possible, and clutched her hands tightly around Integral's neck. Integral felt her stomach churn, and she carefully, gently, disentangled the girl's arms. If it was a girl, which Integral highly doubted.
Seras, can you hear me? We have a situation.
She hoped that Seras would hear her. They'd tested it a little, in the last week. For security reasons. To the girl, who was smiling in a gentler way, and playing with Integral's hair, she spoke sternly and coldly.
“Who on earth do you think you are, and how dare you presume to speak to me in this way. There were no survivors of the massacre, do not think me fool enough to believe that you somehow made it through when... others... did not.”
The girl seemed to quiver around the edges, her whole tiny body shivering. Her dark curly hair danced across her plain shift-dress.
“I... no, I... who?”
“You. You, girl. Who are you?”
The girl flung herself out of Integral's arms and ran to the front door again, forcing it shut with unnatural strength.
“I DON'T KNOW! Master you know! You know me, I know it! And I've come home, and Master!”
The girl crumpled into a tiny ball and began to sob in huge, gulping gasps.
“I knew! I know I knew! I woke up, over and over again, and I knew I was me. I knew my hair, see?”
She turned to face Integral, who was frozen to the spot, brandishing a handful of her long hair.
“And I knew that I didn't have breasts, so I fixed it. And, and, and... and I knew, I did. I knew. I knew that I was me, and that I had to...”
She sniffed, and wiped her nose on her wrist, then her wrist on her dress.
“I had to find you. You, you're Master. And you need me. So I had to come. Because I'm me, and you're you? You know?”
Integral stared at the soggy mess of a child, obviously traumatised, obviously unstable. Maybe she'd overheard things? Maybe she really was human, and damaged?
Or maybe she was Monster, and baiting her along.
“I...”
Seras, for FUCK'S SAKE GET AWAKE AND UP HERE!
“Oh, yeah,” the girl smiled, suddenly, her mood changing quicker than the eye, “Draculina should be here, for the reunion. I've missed her too, though not as much as you, my master. But you're still too quiet, my love. Let me.”
“My love?!”
Perhaps Integral was hallucinating. She had been overextending herself again, of course. Taking too much on, assuming that she was immune to emotional trauma. Just a slight moment of insanity, and it'd all be over.
Integral lay down on the floor, felt the cool stone foyer beneath her suit jacket, radiating calm and solid reality into her flesh.
Seras would arrive soon, and everything would be fine. She would make this problem go away, and Integral would pick herself together again, and get clean jacket, and throw this snot-coated one away. She would sit down at her desk, clean and crisp, and work.
She would work until her brain dribbled out of her ears, and she could lose that voice in her head, that sounded more like herself than she felt right now, that kept telling her that humanity was overrated, and that she loved him, always had, the stupid fucking brat, and that she'd saved herself, and waited, and saved herself, all these years. So she'd be a virgin on her deathbed, just in case. Because she couldn't stomach the thought of a lover, not with him in her life.
Because she hated the concept of childbirth.
But, because of her father's faith in her, and the Hellsing name, just in case, she had to be alive.
But she never really intended to marry, or have children. Just wait a few more years, and then tell him what he'd know all along. That she'd saved herself, and waited. She'd kept her blood pure and clean and perfect for him. And he'd take her.
Stupid, she'd told herself, you stupid little shit! Why didn't you just let him, when he asked? Why did you have to fight it, like some morbid foreplay? Why didn't you let him take you then?
If you'd let him, he would never have left you. He would have fought for you.
If you'd let him, even if he was still gone, you'd have the memories. You'd have had the chance, at least.
The floor was blessedly cold. She jammed her hands against her ears, and rolled over so that a new, cooler patch of floor was pressed against her forehead.
It was silent. And calm. She grabbed for the first thing in her mind, and held onto it. A Catholic prayer, from the first memorial broadcast on the radio.
Pater noster, qui es in caelis: sanctificetur Nomen Tuum; adveniat Regnum Tuum; fiat voluntas Tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra.
She mouthed the words against the floor in Protestant English; none of that pompous Latin posing for her faith, thank you. She was humble, and real, not distant and mystical. Felt her lip catch with its' own moisture, and her blood pulse against the hard surface. She felt frail, and human, and alive, which was in itself strange. She couldn't recall feeling this alive since she'd stared right through his fading eyes.
“Give us this day, our daily bread, And forgive me my trespasses, As I forgive those who trespass against me.”
She felt a small, childish hand press into her lower back.
“And lead me not into temptation, But deliver me from...”
The hand shook her, more insistent, and she stopped her lips moving.
“I came back for you, you know.”
Integral screwed her eyes shut and pressed her head lower against the floor, ignoring the pain of her glasses digging into the flesh beside her eyes.
She whispered out against the floor.
“Your voice is different now, deeper.”
The girl continued, her hand firmer now. It moved in deliberate circles against Integral's skin.
“Just the thought of you, not even you alone, or you despairing. Or you, angry in battle. Just you,”
The hand fell, heavier, to her shoulder. Solid and warm and impossible. When the voice came it was deeper still, and strangely hot against her neck. She could imagine him now, in her mind. Restored to his true self, perfectly broken, lips half-open as he pressed them against her collar.
“Just you,”
She daren't move, not at all. She heard rather than felt a hand slap down abruptly beside her head. He withdrew, and watched her for a moment.
“Turn around, Master.”
She rolled, awkwardly - but only because she was so exhuasted and shaky - and looked up at him. His eyes were unmistakeable now, and his grin was predatory. It sent a wild shiver through her spine.
He loomed closer, resting on his arms, caging her in. As if she would try to run. His mouth worked, as if in surprise, or shock. And instead of on her neck, she felt the weight of his forehead on her own. She stared into his eyes, so close to her own.
He looked scared.
“Master, you know my name.”
His voice was tiny and quiet, and had more than a little bit of that frail girl-child about it. It made her wonder exactly what he'd experienced, and how much of him was left.
“Don't be simple, servant. Of course I know your name. If you dare try testing me like that again, Alucard, I will keep you at home, to remind you of the chain of command, while Seras has some fun.”
Yes, like that. Good job, she told herself, just pretend that everything's normal. Because it is, and the sooner he realises that, the sooner the Schrodinger effect will stabilise.
He inhaled, and closed his eyes in deference.
“Of course, my Master,”
He slid his head off of hers, and let gravity pull his face down beside her own with a sussurus of hair and clothing. His buttons dug into her chest painfully, and she could almost taste him on the air.
“Countess,” He punctuated the movement, and then slid closer, pressing his lips gently against the base of her ear.
“Sir,”
He licked at her neck, and the sensation set her nerves on fire.
Then he cupped her breast in his hand, and kneaded it gently. Her jacket suddenly felt very thick, stiff, and uncomfortable.
“Are you scared, servant?”
“Oh, no,” He smiled into her neck, and wrapped an arm tightly around her waist. He slid a leg between her own.
“I just wanted to savour the moment, I've waited so long for it.”
Integral elbowed him in the side, and he rolled with her, until she was lying sprawled on top of him.
“Well I don't.”
She lowered her head, and pressed into his neck, inhaling the leathery, earty scent of his skin.
“Count, I've had enough of pretense and postulation, and layers. I'm sick of titles and positions and everything. I've adhered to them for years, and nothing has gone the way that I've wanted.”
He contemplated her, and then raised his hands to her hair. Bare and soft, so softer than the gloves, they cradled her head before tugging her up and over, until she waited, lips pressed against his own.
“So I'll call you 'Integral', and you'll call me...?”
“Vlad.” She decided.
“Aha. Fine. Vlad. That could work. And what will we do, now?”
She grinned against his mouth, and ground her hips down against his.
“Everything.”
She slid her tongue into his mouth. Forcing, pressing, for a moment, until his surged up to meet hers. They rubbed, and kissed, and felt. They forgot who was making which noise, until she pressed her tongue up against his teeth, and dragged it across his mouth, grazing all along and letting the blood fill his mouth. He hissed, and grabbed at her back and arse, clutched her close and pressed tight against her.
It was warm, and foggy. As if the entire world had been shut out of existence, and there was nothing, anywhere. But everything, everywhere. As if they were suspended in time, and space, and in an endless ecstacy. Just floating in this bliss, and occasionally brushing up against the delicious contact of flesh.
Time passed.