Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better (Hellsing, Seras, Pip)
A gen_challenge repost. Editing this was much, much harder than writing it. Because when I edited it, I decided to shift everything to the past tense rather than the present tense (which tends to be my default mode when I write these days).
Oh, Hellsing. Seras and Pip usually aren't the characters I'm wildest about (hi, Integra, Alucard, and Walter), but they're fun. And writing snark is damn relaxing.
Now I just need Vincent to shut his yap long enough for the plot to stop dragging, and I'm set!
Title: Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better
Author: puella_nerdii
Recipient: ilyat
Fandom: Hellsing
Characters: Seras, Pip
Rating: PG
Prompt: Practice on the firing range.
Summary: Being a vampire has its advantages sometimes.
Wordcount: 1,015
It wasn’t that Seras didn’t appreciate all the work Walter did for the Hellsing organization. She knew his job was a hard one, and she didn’t envy him it at all. If she had to talk to Sir Integra Hellsing as often as Walter did, she’d probably stammer and blush-vampires can still blush, a fact she’s all too aware of-and make a dreadful fool of herself. And he designed the most marvelous weapons, he really did. She’d caught herself just looking at Alucard’s Casull and Jackal sometimes, staring deep into the smooth lines of the barrel and searching for…a reflection, maybe. Proof that she was still there.
Still, she thought as she hoisted the Harkonnen over her shoulder, he could have made this a little smaller.
The fact that it felt so light and easy in her hands was what bothered her most. The Harkonnen stood at least a foot taller than her. Something that large shouldn’t handle so smoothly. It wasn’t right, the way she balanced it on her shoulder when she ran, the way spotlights shone on her targets even when they were meters away and shrouded by darkness, the way she barely even noticed the recoil when her fingers found the trigger and squeezed hard in one fluid motion.
“They might as well hold up a sign over my head,” she muttered as she loaded a shell (depleted uranium, she remembered Walter telling her) at the very back of the Harkonnen’s long barrel. “A big sign. ‘She’s not human! Go and gawp at her, why don’t you! Great fun for the whole family, it is.’”
“They’d gawp even if you were human, mignonette.”
Seras squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth. Perfect. Just perfect. Just what she needed.
“Do you mind?” she asked Pip, forcing the words out through her clenched jaw.
“The firing range was open to all employees of the Hellsing organization, last I checked.” Pip Bernadotte grinned at her in the way only Pip ever did: half cocky and blustering, half leering, and half earnest.
“Some of us like privacy while we practice.” She stuck her nose in the air.
“But practice is always better with two.”
Seras swung the Harkonnen around ninety degrees; Pip was too close for her to aim the blasted thing at him properly. “Are you offering to be a target, then?”
Pip held up his hands in surrender. (Typical of a Frenchman, she couldn’t help but think.) “Just a coach. That’s all.”
“Are you saying I need a coach?”
He grinned again. “I’m saying that you should try to shoot the target all the way back there-” He pointed. “Get him in the head, and do it with this.” With a flourish, Pip produced a full-sized pistol from the holster slung around his hips-a SIG-Sauer P226, from the markings on the barrel (and also because Seras knew that Walter favored that particular model).
She eyed it warily. “I do know how to use one of these, you know. I’m not incompetent.”
“This,” he said, tapping the pistol’s barrel, “requires more finesse than that thing over your shoulder does. If you load that with an incendiary round, your target’s dead even if you miss him by a good few meters. Easy.”
“If it’s so easy, you try lifting this thing,” she shot back, gripping the Harkonnen more tightly.
“Just watch.”
Seras set the Harkonnen on the ground carefully. She’d dropped it once when she’d come in tired from a long day in the field, and it had left a sizable dent in the floor.
Pip bent over the cannon and rested one hand on top and one hand beneath, the way he’d seen her do it. Unlike her, though, he couldn’t get any farther than that. She crossed her arms and watched the drops of sweat collect on his forehead as he tried to sling the cannon over his shoulder as casually as she usually did.
“You’re going to throw your back out at this rate,” she informed him tartly. “Give me the pistol, please.”
“Take it,” Pip gasped. “I’ll have this monstrosity-oof-this monstrosity ready to fire in-ah-no time…”
“I’m sure,” she said coolly. Seras lifted the pistol from the floor, and if she’d thought the Harkonnen light, the pistol was barely a feather in comparison. She steadied one hand under the barrel and wrapped the index finger of her other hand around the trigger, like she’d been taught at the academy. She took in a deep breath and the sound of Pip’s struggles trickled away into nothingness. All that mattered was the target, its blank white face staring at her. Challenging her.
She accepted the challenge and pulled the trigger. There was probably some sort of recoil from the pistol going off. She didn’t notice it. What Seras did notice was the round hole, positioned perfectly in the center of the target’s head.
She spun around and looked down at Pip. “D’you want me to blow his entire head off with the Harkonnen? If you do, you get to explain what happened to…about three-quarters of the private booths; I think that’s the range on one of the incendiary rounds. Anyway, you get to explain that to Walter.”
“And he’ll take it out of my paycheck.” Pip straightened up and pushed a few sweaty strands of hair out of his good eye. “No, I think I’ll concede the match to you, mignonette.”
“And a good thing, too. Any longer trying to pick the Harkonnen up and you’d have broken something.”
“Not broken,” he protested. “Pulled a little, perhaps. But only just a little.”
“The exhaustion’s affecting your brain.” She would have slapped his arm, but she realized that if she did that, Pip really would break something.
“Then would you accept a second challenge?” he asked. “Once my wits have returned to me?”
You have wits? she wanted to ask him. But no, she’d let him keep some of his pride intact. This time. “I would,” Seras said. “And I’d win again, too.”
He wagged a friendly finger at her. “Pride comes before the fall, you know.”
“Then you’re in trouble.” She smiled and pushed open the door leading back into the mansion proper.
A rematch. She liked the sound of that.
Oh, Hellsing. Seras and Pip usually aren't the characters I'm wildest about (hi, Integra, Alucard, and Walter), but they're fun. And writing snark is damn relaxing.
Now I just need Vincent to shut his yap long enough for the plot to stop dragging, and I'm set!
Title: Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better
Author: puella_nerdii
Recipient: ilyat
Fandom: Hellsing
Characters: Seras, Pip
Rating: PG
Prompt: Practice on the firing range.
Summary: Being a vampire has its advantages sometimes.
Wordcount: 1,015
It wasn’t that Seras didn’t appreciate all the work Walter did for the Hellsing organization. She knew his job was a hard one, and she didn’t envy him it at all. If she had to talk to Sir Integra Hellsing as often as Walter did, she’d probably stammer and blush-vampires can still blush, a fact she’s all too aware of-and make a dreadful fool of herself. And he designed the most marvelous weapons, he really did. She’d caught herself just looking at Alucard’s Casull and Jackal sometimes, staring deep into the smooth lines of the barrel and searching for…a reflection, maybe. Proof that she was still there.
Still, she thought as she hoisted the Harkonnen over her shoulder, he could have made this a little smaller.
The fact that it felt so light and easy in her hands was what bothered her most. The Harkonnen stood at least a foot taller than her. Something that large shouldn’t handle so smoothly. It wasn’t right, the way she balanced it on her shoulder when she ran, the way spotlights shone on her targets even when they were meters away and shrouded by darkness, the way she barely even noticed the recoil when her fingers found the trigger and squeezed hard in one fluid motion.
“They might as well hold up a sign over my head,” she muttered as she loaded a shell (depleted uranium, she remembered Walter telling her) at the very back of the Harkonnen’s long barrel. “A big sign. ‘She’s not human! Go and gawp at her, why don’t you! Great fun for the whole family, it is.’”
“They’d gawp even if you were human, mignonette.”
Seras squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth. Perfect. Just perfect. Just what she needed.
“Do you mind?” she asked Pip, forcing the words out through her clenched jaw.
“The firing range was open to all employees of the Hellsing organization, last I checked.” Pip Bernadotte grinned at her in the way only Pip ever did: half cocky and blustering, half leering, and half earnest.
“Some of us like privacy while we practice.” She stuck her nose in the air.
“But practice is always better with two.”
Seras swung the Harkonnen around ninety degrees; Pip was too close for her to aim the blasted thing at him properly. “Are you offering to be a target, then?”
Pip held up his hands in surrender. (Typical of a Frenchman, she couldn’t help but think.) “Just a coach. That’s all.”
“Are you saying I need a coach?”
He grinned again. “I’m saying that you should try to shoot the target all the way back there-” He pointed. “Get him in the head, and do it with this.” With a flourish, Pip produced a full-sized pistol from the holster slung around his hips-a SIG-Sauer P226, from the markings on the barrel (and also because Seras knew that Walter favored that particular model).
She eyed it warily. “I do know how to use one of these, you know. I’m not incompetent.”
“This,” he said, tapping the pistol’s barrel, “requires more finesse than that thing over your shoulder does. If you load that with an incendiary round, your target’s dead even if you miss him by a good few meters. Easy.”
“If it’s so easy, you try lifting this thing,” she shot back, gripping the Harkonnen more tightly.
“Just watch.”
Seras set the Harkonnen on the ground carefully. She’d dropped it once when she’d come in tired from a long day in the field, and it had left a sizable dent in the floor.
Pip bent over the cannon and rested one hand on top and one hand beneath, the way he’d seen her do it. Unlike her, though, he couldn’t get any farther than that. She crossed her arms and watched the drops of sweat collect on his forehead as he tried to sling the cannon over his shoulder as casually as she usually did.
“You’re going to throw your back out at this rate,” she informed him tartly. “Give me the pistol, please.”
“Take it,” Pip gasped. “I’ll have this monstrosity-oof-this monstrosity ready to fire in-ah-no time…”
“I’m sure,” she said coolly. Seras lifted the pistol from the floor, and if she’d thought the Harkonnen light, the pistol was barely a feather in comparison. She steadied one hand under the barrel and wrapped the index finger of her other hand around the trigger, like she’d been taught at the academy. She took in a deep breath and the sound of Pip’s struggles trickled away into nothingness. All that mattered was the target, its blank white face staring at her. Challenging her.
She accepted the challenge and pulled the trigger. There was probably some sort of recoil from the pistol going off. She didn’t notice it. What Seras did notice was the round hole, positioned perfectly in the center of the target’s head.
She spun around and looked down at Pip. “D’you want me to blow his entire head off with the Harkonnen? If you do, you get to explain what happened to…about three-quarters of the private booths; I think that’s the range on one of the incendiary rounds. Anyway, you get to explain that to Walter.”
“And he’ll take it out of my paycheck.” Pip straightened up and pushed a few sweaty strands of hair out of his good eye. “No, I think I’ll concede the match to you, mignonette.”
“And a good thing, too. Any longer trying to pick the Harkonnen up and you’d have broken something.”
“Not broken,” he protested. “Pulled a little, perhaps. But only just a little.”
“The exhaustion’s affecting your brain.” She would have slapped his arm, but she realized that if she did that, Pip really would break something.
“Then would you accept a second challenge?” he asked. “Once my wits have returned to me?”
You have wits? she wanted to ask him. But no, she’d let him keep some of his pride intact. This time. “I would,” Seras said. “And I’d win again, too.”
He wagged a friendly finger at her. “Pride comes before the fall, you know.”
“Then you’re in trouble.” She smiled and pushed open the door leading back into the mansion proper.
A rematch. She liked the sound of that.