RP Log: ...Eskimo song?
Who: Seras and Jamie
Where: the gym
When: sometime last week?
Warnings: none
Summary: Vampire and nerdboy meet and engage in some chit-chat.
His shift at the cafe over for the day, Jamie had headed to the gym to spend the afternoon beating on the punching bag, an activity which both helped him stay limber for Allenby's self-defense class and alleviated some of the frustration that inevitably built up over the week. He'd gotten fairly decent at it, too; while still nowhere near as graceful as Allenby, obviously, he could at least deliver a well-aimed kick without losing his balance. Which he did now, slamming his shin into a spot on the bag that roughly corresponded with where the ribcage would have been on a human opponent, the impact producing a satisfying sharp thud.
Seras stepped into the gym with a cheerful step, a semi-clear waterbottle full of blood hanging from one hand and a towel from the other. Noticing the other person in the gym, she watched him mildly as she started doing her customary stretches.
Jamie delivered a couple more kicks to the punching bag's metaphorical ribs before backing off a bit, regarding it through narrowed eyes as it swayed imperceptibly from his attack on it. Movement on the periphery of his vision caused him to glance over quickly; it was that woman Seras, the one he'd almost stepped on with the Geno at the beach that one time. The - what'd she called it - vampire? Mn. Dropping his aggressive posture out of habit, he jerked his head in greeting and called to her. "Hey."
"Good afternoon, Mr. Hereros," she said, giving a slight wave.
"How's it going?" he asked. "Getting enough...uh, blood?" he added a little awkwardly.
Seras motioned to her bottle. "Plenty. I've been making sure to eat enough so Master doesn't decide to start hunting for me. How have you been doing?"
"Pretty good," Jamie said, bobbing his head in a nod. He paused. "...is your Master...here now?" he asked, looking a little uneasy.
"Unfortunately, he is," Seras said with a sigh. "But Sir Integra's also shown up, so he won't be able to do too much damage."
"Oh." Jamie fidgeted a bit nonetheless. "Does Sir Integra have some way to control him or something?"
"Master is bound to the Hellsing family," she said, finishing her stretches.
From this Jamie guessed he was to infer that Sir Integra was a member of the Hellsing family, explaining his apparent power over Seras' Master. "Well, I guess that's good," he ventured. "Your Master wouldn't...hurt anybody, would he?"
"Depends on the situation," Seras said. Unscrewing the cap, she took a small sip from her waterbottle. "Under orders, he's do anything neccessary. But Sir Integra wouldn't let him hurt someone not one of Hellsing's enemies."
"Oh," Jamie said, feeling relieved. "Uh, that's good. Glad to hear it." He rocked back on his heels a bit, idly. "So...getting some workout time in?"
"Yeah," she said cheerfully. "A girl has to keep in shape."
"I guess so," he said, grinning a bit. After a pause he added, "So...that applies to vampires, too?" He kind of wondered, considering she was technically dead and all. Wasn't she? He still wasn't quite clear on which side of the fence she fell, there.
Smiling, she shook her head. "I have absolutely no idea. But surely it can't hurt."
"Yeah, probably not." His grin widened marginally. For being a blood-drinking not-really-alive creature Seras seemed genuinely pleasant; it was hard to feel uncomfortable around her, even if her smile did show off her sharper-than-normal teeth. Then again, Jamie'd just finished a work shift with a werewolf; maybe he was finally becoming inured to this sort of thing. "What kinda stuff d'you usually do when you come here?"
"Run, lift weights when I can find something heavy enough, hand to hand," Seras listed off. "I don't know how reinforced the bags are here, so I generally leave them alone. Wouldn't want to damage them for other people."
Jamie blinked in surprise. "You could really do that kinda damage to one of these things?" he asked, thumbing over his shoulder at the bag he'd just been using.
Seras suddenly looked sheepish. "I'm able to send a man across the room with one finger."
Jamie had no response to this except to blink a couple more times. "...wow. Really? That...must come in handy sometimes," he said, just a bit enviously. What he wouldn't give to be able to fling some people away from him so easily when they decided to start harassing him.
"It's great when you have a perverted captain like mine," she said, scowling. "Who sings that hideous Eskimo song."
"Eskimo song?" Jamie repeated bemusedly.
"It's horrible and perverted, and that's all you need to know."
"Eheh. I'll take your word for it, I guess." Not that he hadn't heard his fair share of horrible and perverted things when he'd had Wild Eagle sharing headspace with him, but that was neither here nor there.
She buried her face in her hands, shaking her head. "He sings it as a marching cadanance."
Jamie scratched his cheek. "Yeah, I guess that'd get annoying, if it's as bad as you say it is..."
"Sir Integra and I are the only women in the Hellsing organization other than doctors and maids," Seras said with a sigh.
That was a bit odd, since in Jamie's experience "sir" was a title only used by men, but then again Seras was from an entirely different universe. "That must be rough," he said. "But at least you can, y'know, put 'em in their place if they start hassling you, right?"
"Most of them, but the captain has rank," she said. "Master or Sir Integra would step in if he tried anything. I don't think he would though."
"I'd kinda hope he wouldn't," Jamie said, frowning. "Anyone who'd use his rank to get away with being a jerk deserves to get flicked across the room."
Seras snickered. "Oh, I don't think he'd try to use rank for that. He knows what I can do."
"Mn. Must be nice to have something like that to deter people," Jamie said, again unable to keep a trace of envy out of his tone.
"One nice thing that happened when I became a vampire," she said. "Not sure if it outweighs much of the negative aspects, but there you are."
The teen fidgeted a bit; he recalled now how Seras had gone oddly and suddenly silent when he'd asked last time what becoming a vampire did to a person, and though he was still sort of curious, he didn't want to upset her by asking again. "Guess it's a...silver lining," he offered, recalling what Itsuki'd said to him in the hangar.
"Not the way to phrase it to a vampire, but yes," she said with a nod.
"Oh," Jamie said, brow furrowing a bit. Apparently he'd misstepped anyway. "Sorry...?"
She waved away his apology. "Don't worry about it. Mythologically, vampires are burned by silver. While I haven't tested normal silver, I know that blessed silver hurts like hell. That's all."
"Oh," he said again, a little more lightly this time. Her response to his platitude made sense now, at least, and he flashed a reserved half-smile. "Got it."
"It's a lot like sunlight I think," she said. "So, what have you been up to?"
"Nothin' much," he said with a self-depricating shrug. "Working, studying, taking care of the Zoids, practicing with Allenby."
"The Zoids are those giant machines?" Seras asked, wanting to make sure.
"Yeah. Well, some of 'em," he amended. "The animal-shaped ones."
"Ah."
"The other ones're Gundams," he said, rambling on. "Wul, and that ship in there belongs to Jon's girlfriend Samus, and there's one that belongs to that little girl who works in the first-aid station..." He trailed off and shrugged again, offering a slightly sheepish grin. "So, uh, yeah. The Geno and the Raynos are the only Zoids in there right now."
"Are there a lot of them in your world?" she asked.
"Yeah, they're everywhere," Jamie said, grin widening a bit at the question. "There were Zoids on Zi before humans lived there. We use 'em for combat, transportation...all kinds'a stuff."
"Before humans?" Seras asked, confused. "But if they're machines, then who built them?"
"Mn...well, they're technically biomechanical," Jamie explained. "That means they're kind of alive, too, not like...I dunno, cars and stuff. So they just...evolved on Zi, the way organic animals did on Earth, I guess."
The idea was very foreign to her. "Strange..."
He shrugged. "Well, I guess it probably would be if you weren't used to it, yeah. To me it's just the way things are, y'know?"
"Guess it's like how fighting vampires and ghouls would be to most people," she said with a nod.
"...yeah, actually," Jamie said, blinking. "I mean, I know that I'd never even heard of that kinda stuff before that first time we talked. Do many people in your world know about the kind of stuff you do?"
Seras shook her head. "Most people don't even believe we exist. Vampires and other creatures are thought to be myths."
"Mn." Jamie nodded a bit. "So...is that what you thought, too, before you actually got involved in all of it?"
"Yes," she said. "Let's just say I got proof otherwise that I couldn't argue with."
"Kinda makes you wonder what other stuff is actually happening that you think isn't real," Jamie commented.
"Like some of the nicer myths, maybe."
"Oh?" Jamie glanced at her. "Like what?"
"Unicorns, faries, things like those," she said.
The teen's brow furrowed in confusion, as none of those things really rang a bell with him. "I, uh...guess I'll have to take your word for it," he said with a lame grin.
Seras pondered. "Though the older versions of those weren't too nice either."
"Oh...really? What'd they do?"
"Well, faries were in the habit of stealing babies, among other things, and unicorns tended to stab non-virgins who got near them, I think."
"Uh...wow." Jamie blinked again. "But they're supposed to be...nice things, now?"
"They've kind of mutated into children's stories," Seras said. "So those bits tend not to get told."
"Ah...heh." Jamie chuckled a bit. "Yeah, those'd make some pretty weird kids' stories."
"I'm kinda glad it never happened to vampires," she said with a laugh. "I get teased enough, I don't need people bringing up a watered-down sparkly version."
"I guess that would make it hard for anyone to take you seriously," Jamie agreed. "Then again, the more incompetent someone thinks you are, the more surprised they'll be when you actually catch 'em off guard."
"Ghouls don't have minds, and all of the other vampires I've fought thought they were practically gods anyway," she said with a shrug. "But it would make things more difficult for Sir Integra, since she has to deal with the police and military when they're involved."
"Oh," Jamie said, looking thoughtful. "What do they think of you guys, anyway?"
"No idea. The men and I usually go straight into the fight."
"But they actually know about you and what you do? Or does your boss have to make up some kinda cover story, since vampires and stuff aren't supposed to be real?"
"They tend to find out as they need to," Seras said.
"Mn. Guess there's no guarantee they'd believe it if you told 'em the truth anyway, huh?"
"Exactly."
He looked a little contemplative again. "Isn't that...frustrating, sometimes? People never really knowing about the work you do?"
"Not really, unless they get hurt because they weren't given proper warning," she said, thinking of the men her Master had killed in their last mission before her arrival on the island. "Then it's horrible."
Jamie nodded again, somewhat subdued. "Yeah, sounds like it would be," he said a little awkwardly.
Seras put on a smile. "But we're here to work out, right? So we should probably do that."
Jamie smiled back, grateful for the change of topic. "Ah - yeah, probably. Sorry for keeping you so long."
"Dont' worry about it," she said. "I like talking to people."
"'s good," Jamie said, ducking his head a bit, still wearing that lopsided grin. "Guess I'll talk to you again later, then. Have a good workout."
"You too," she said, smiling.
Where: the gym
When: sometime last week?
Warnings: none
Summary: Vampire and nerdboy meet and engage in some chit-chat.
His shift at the cafe over for the day, Jamie had headed to the gym to spend the afternoon beating on the punching bag, an activity which both helped him stay limber for Allenby's self-defense class and alleviated some of the frustration that inevitably built up over the week. He'd gotten fairly decent at it, too; while still nowhere near as graceful as Allenby, obviously, he could at least deliver a well-aimed kick without losing his balance. Which he did now, slamming his shin into a spot on the bag that roughly corresponded with where the ribcage would have been on a human opponent, the impact producing a satisfying sharp thud.
Seras stepped into the gym with a cheerful step, a semi-clear waterbottle full of blood hanging from one hand and a towel from the other. Noticing the other person in the gym, she watched him mildly as she started doing her customary stretches.
Jamie delivered a couple more kicks to the punching bag's metaphorical ribs before backing off a bit, regarding it through narrowed eyes as it swayed imperceptibly from his attack on it. Movement on the periphery of his vision caused him to glance over quickly; it was that woman Seras, the one he'd almost stepped on with the Geno at the beach that one time. The - what'd she called it - vampire? Mn. Dropping his aggressive posture out of habit, he jerked his head in greeting and called to her. "Hey."
"Good afternoon, Mr. Hereros," she said, giving a slight wave.
"How's it going?" he asked. "Getting enough...uh, blood?" he added a little awkwardly.
Seras motioned to her bottle. "Plenty. I've been making sure to eat enough so Master doesn't decide to start hunting for me. How have you been doing?"
"Pretty good," Jamie said, bobbing his head in a nod. He paused. "...is your Master...here now?" he asked, looking a little uneasy.
"Unfortunately, he is," Seras said with a sigh. "But Sir Integra's also shown up, so he won't be able to do too much damage."
"Oh." Jamie fidgeted a bit nonetheless. "Does Sir Integra have some way to control him or something?"
"Master is bound to the Hellsing family," she said, finishing her stretches.
From this Jamie guessed he was to infer that Sir Integra was a member of the Hellsing family, explaining his apparent power over Seras' Master. "Well, I guess that's good," he ventured. "Your Master wouldn't...hurt anybody, would he?"
"Depends on the situation," Seras said. Unscrewing the cap, she took a small sip from her waterbottle. "Under orders, he's do anything neccessary. But Sir Integra wouldn't let him hurt someone not one of Hellsing's enemies."
"Oh," Jamie said, feeling relieved. "Uh, that's good. Glad to hear it." He rocked back on his heels a bit, idly. "So...getting some workout time in?"
"Yeah," she said cheerfully. "A girl has to keep in shape."
"I guess so," he said, grinning a bit. After a pause he added, "So...that applies to vampires, too?" He kind of wondered, considering she was technically dead and all. Wasn't she? He still wasn't quite clear on which side of the fence she fell, there.
Smiling, she shook her head. "I have absolutely no idea. But surely it can't hurt."
"Yeah, probably not." His grin widened marginally. For being a blood-drinking not-really-alive creature Seras seemed genuinely pleasant; it was hard to feel uncomfortable around her, even if her smile did show off her sharper-than-normal teeth. Then again, Jamie'd just finished a work shift with a werewolf; maybe he was finally becoming inured to this sort of thing. "What kinda stuff d'you usually do when you come here?"
"Run, lift weights when I can find something heavy enough, hand to hand," Seras listed off. "I don't know how reinforced the bags are here, so I generally leave them alone. Wouldn't want to damage them for other people."
Jamie blinked in surprise. "You could really do that kinda damage to one of these things?" he asked, thumbing over his shoulder at the bag he'd just been using.
Seras suddenly looked sheepish. "I'm able to send a man across the room with one finger."
Jamie had no response to this except to blink a couple more times. "...wow. Really? That...must come in handy sometimes," he said, just a bit enviously. What he wouldn't give to be able to fling some people away from him so easily when they decided to start harassing him.
"It's great when you have a perverted captain like mine," she said, scowling. "Who sings that hideous Eskimo song."
"Eskimo song?" Jamie repeated bemusedly.
"It's horrible and perverted, and that's all you need to know."
"Eheh. I'll take your word for it, I guess." Not that he hadn't heard his fair share of horrible and perverted things when he'd had Wild Eagle sharing headspace with him, but that was neither here nor there.
She buried her face in her hands, shaking her head. "He sings it as a marching cadanance."
Jamie scratched his cheek. "Yeah, I guess that'd get annoying, if it's as bad as you say it is..."
"Sir Integra and I are the only women in the Hellsing organization other than doctors and maids," Seras said with a sigh.
That was a bit odd, since in Jamie's experience "sir" was a title only used by men, but then again Seras was from an entirely different universe. "That must be rough," he said. "But at least you can, y'know, put 'em in their place if they start hassling you, right?"
"Most of them, but the captain has rank," she said. "Master or Sir Integra would step in if he tried anything. I don't think he would though."
"I'd kinda hope he wouldn't," Jamie said, frowning. "Anyone who'd use his rank to get away with being a jerk deserves to get flicked across the room."
Seras snickered. "Oh, I don't think he'd try to use rank for that. He knows what I can do."
"Mn. Must be nice to have something like that to deter people," Jamie said, again unable to keep a trace of envy out of his tone.
"One nice thing that happened when I became a vampire," she said. "Not sure if it outweighs much of the negative aspects, but there you are."
The teen fidgeted a bit; he recalled now how Seras had gone oddly and suddenly silent when he'd asked last time what becoming a vampire did to a person, and though he was still sort of curious, he didn't want to upset her by asking again. "Guess it's a...silver lining," he offered, recalling what Itsuki'd said to him in the hangar.
"Not the way to phrase it to a vampire, but yes," she said with a nod.
"Oh," Jamie said, brow furrowing a bit. Apparently he'd misstepped anyway. "Sorry...?"
She waved away his apology. "Don't worry about it. Mythologically, vampires are burned by silver. While I haven't tested normal silver, I know that blessed silver hurts like hell. That's all."
"Oh," he said again, a little more lightly this time. Her response to his platitude made sense now, at least, and he flashed a reserved half-smile. "Got it."
"It's a lot like sunlight I think," she said. "So, what have you been up to?"
"Nothin' much," he said with a self-depricating shrug. "Working, studying, taking care of the Zoids, practicing with Allenby."
"The Zoids are those giant machines?" Seras asked, wanting to make sure.
"Yeah. Well, some of 'em," he amended. "The animal-shaped ones."
"Ah."
"The other ones're Gundams," he said, rambling on. "Wul, and that ship in there belongs to Jon's girlfriend Samus, and there's one that belongs to that little girl who works in the first-aid station..." He trailed off and shrugged again, offering a slightly sheepish grin. "So, uh, yeah. The Geno and the Raynos are the only Zoids in there right now."
"Are there a lot of them in your world?" she asked.
"Yeah, they're everywhere," Jamie said, grin widening a bit at the question. "There were Zoids on Zi before humans lived there. We use 'em for combat, transportation...all kinds'a stuff."
"Before humans?" Seras asked, confused. "But if they're machines, then who built them?"
"Mn...well, they're technically biomechanical," Jamie explained. "That means they're kind of alive, too, not like...I dunno, cars and stuff. So they just...evolved on Zi, the way organic animals did on Earth, I guess."
The idea was very foreign to her. "Strange..."
He shrugged. "Well, I guess it probably would be if you weren't used to it, yeah. To me it's just the way things are, y'know?"
"Guess it's like how fighting vampires and ghouls would be to most people," she said with a nod.
"...yeah, actually," Jamie said, blinking. "I mean, I know that I'd never even heard of that kinda stuff before that first time we talked. Do many people in your world know about the kind of stuff you do?"
Seras shook her head. "Most people don't even believe we exist. Vampires and other creatures are thought to be myths."
"Mn." Jamie nodded a bit. "So...is that what you thought, too, before you actually got involved in all of it?"
"Yes," she said. "Let's just say I got proof otherwise that I couldn't argue with."
"Kinda makes you wonder what other stuff is actually happening that you think isn't real," Jamie commented.
"Like some of the nicer myths, maybe."
"Oh?" Jamie glanced at her. "Like what?"
"Unicorns, faries, things like those," she said.
The teen's brow furrowed in confusion, as none of those things really rang a bell with him. "I, uh...guess I'll have to take your word for it," he said with a lame grin.
Seras pondered. "Though the older versions of those weren't too nice either."
"Oh...really? What'd they do?"
"Well, faries were in the habit of stealing babies, among other things, and unicorns tended to stab non-virgins who got near them, I think."
"Uh...wow." Jamie blinked again. "But they're supposed to be...nice things, now?"
"They've kind of mutated into children's stories," Seras said. "So those bits tend not to get told."
"Ah...heh." Jamie chuckled a bit. "Yeah, those'd make some pretty weird kids' stories."
"I'm kinda glad it never happened to vampires," she said with a laugh. "I get teased enough, I don't need people bringing up a watered-down sparkly version."
"I guess that would make it hard for anyone to take you seriously," Jamie agreed. "Then again, the more incompetent someone thinks you are, the more surprised they'll be when you actually catch 'em off guard."
"Ghouls don't have minds, and all of the other vampires I've fought thought they were practically gods anyway," she said with a shrug. "But it would make things more difficult for Sir Integra, since she has to deal with the police and military when they're involved."
"Oh," Jamie said, looking thoughtful. "What do they think of you guys, anyway?"
"No idea. The men and I usually go straight into the fight."
"But they actually know about you and what you do? Or does your boss have to make up some kinda cover story, since vampires and stuff aren't supposed to be real?"
"They tend to find out as they need to," Seras said.
"Mn. Guess there's no guarantee they'd believe it if you told 'em the truth anyway, huh?"
"Exactly."
He looked a little contemplative again. "Isn't that...frustrating, sometimes? People never really knowing about the work you do?"
"Not really, unless they get hurt because they weren't given proper warning," she said, thinking of the men her Master had killed in their last mission before her arrival on the island. "Then it's horrible."
Jamie nodded again, somewhat subdued. "Yeah, sounds like it would be," he said a little awkwardly.
Seras put on a smile. "But we're here to work out, right? So we should probably do that."
Jamie smiled back, grateful for the change of topic. "Ah - yeah, probably. Sorry for keeping you so long."
"Dont' worry about it," she said. "I like talking to people."
"'s good," Jamie said, ducking his head a bit, still wearing that lopsided grin. "Guess I'll talk to you again later, then. Have a good workout."
"You too," she said, smiling.