A/N: Does anyone really expect anyone on this site to actually own anything? I wrote this on a frivolous whim and am hereforth dedicating it to Miss Erin Ptah, who runs one of the best Hellsing doushinji in the world and is the most confirmed Integra-fangirl on the 'Net today, to my knowledge. Alexei read it for me and liked it enough that I decided to post it. For anyone who needs an example of the key prop in this story, check page 122 of the English Hellsing Vol. 1 manga. Here you go.
A Lack of Firepower
Sir Integra Wingates Hellsing, director of the Hellsing organization, slayer of the undead vermin, opponent of Vatican zealots, keeper of dread Alucard and his –erm, protégé, excellent shot, wearer of tailored suits, smoker of little expensive cigars, drinker of more tea than was really good for any human… -okay, we all know whom we're talking about, now- was ticked.
Very.
She was not, as one would expect, sitting at her desk, doing paperwork and smoking. No, she was standing next to her desk, rifling as carefully as she could through the drawers and resisting the temptation to use some very creative swearwords. A girl couldn't grow up around soldiers without acquiring an impressive vocabulary, but unless really pushed to it, she tried her best not to use those terms. It was bad enough that she was the only female Knight in the Round Table Conference; she didn't want to be known as the one who knew no less than seventeen metaphors for the gluteus maximus.
This was really getting annoying. By her watch, Integra had been looking for twelve minutes. She had managed to finish her paperwork without it, but now the situation was getting dire. She had actually pulled the drawers out and looked under them, though what she sought was unlikely to have fallen behind.
Had she left it in her bedroom? A testy stalk, a throttling twist of the doorknob, and the search resumed. Not on her night table. Not next to the hairbrush. Not under her pillow…
She was wrist-deep in the sock drawer when a knock sounded on the door. Oh, Walter. He would know where it was.
"Come in."
Integra looked up from the sock drawer and almost gasped. It was the little police girl, a laundry basket and a dry-cleaning bag in her arms.
"Good evening, Sir Hellsing."
"Er…good evening." Integra was so surprised the for a moment she didn't even draw her hands out from the sock drawer. When Miss Victoria's eyes found her hands in that odd location, however, she pulled them out with some haste. "Where is Walter?"
"Oh, he's out this evening. I was just cleaning up my uniforms and noticed your clothes were ready, so I thought I'd bring them up. Are you…busy?"
"Oh, no. I was just looking for…"
"Socks?" Seras smiled, clearly trying not to laugh. Integra followed her gaze and realized that a pair of dark patterned knee-highs was caught in her watch. She removed them as delicately as possible and tossed them into the drawer.
"Miss Victoria, have you seen my lighter?"
"No, Sir." The police girl set down the basket and draped the dry-cleaning bag neatly over it before looking around with her hands on her hips. "Could it possibly have fallen off your night table and gone under the bed? I misplaced a retainer that way once."
"A what?"
Seras smiled, showing perfect, if rather clearly vampiric teeth.
"I had braces when I was little, for an overbite. Kind of…ironic now, eh?"
"Yes…er, quite." Integra was still tense, but the image of a preteen age police girl with a case of dental-antennas was somewhat humorously dancing through her mind. It occurred to her that even if Miss Victoria was an inferior vampire, she was a nice –well, 'person' at heart. "I hadn't thought to look there."
"You want to keep checking the drawers, I'll check?"
"…All right."
Integra didn't find her lighter among the socks, though she did find a pair of thick Argyle woolies behind the drawer, which she had secretly missed in the winter months for quite some time. They weren't much in looks, but they sure kept one's legs warm under the trousers and boots. She also found two business cards from the shops where her socks and hosiery came from and made a mental note to call and inquire about the availability of woolies that weren't quite so…Argyle. Red, blue and green socks were alright for some people, but others had a reputation to protect that left no room for frivolous footwear.
"Ah-ha!"
"Did you find it?" Seras climbed out from under the four-poster and held something aloft.
"No, but I did find this book under the box springs. Were you looking for it, also?"
Integra racked her brains for a second to think what the book might be. She had never kept a journal, but that didn't bar some other embarrassing books from being discovered…oh, wait!
"Actually, yes, I was. Thank you." The knight accepted the text and opened it to the elaborate frontispiece.
'The Once and Future King.' Good old T.H. White. Walter had read chapters of it to her as a little girl, and occasionally, so had her father, when he wasn't too busy. So that was where it had gotten to. She was so pleased at having it back that she actually smiled. "Miss Victoria, do you have a favorite book?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"'The Secret Garden.'"
"Oh." Frances Hodgson Burnett, how…surprisingly classic. "This one is mine."
"It's about King Arthur, right?" Seras got up and smiled in her usual chipper way. "We read part of it in school."
"That in itself gives me a little more faith in the British school system." Integra checked another drawer and then sighed heavily. No luck.
"Would anyone… you know… have a lighter you could borrow, or some matches?" Seras asked.
"It's…it's odd. I like my lighter." Integra frowned and Seras suddenly understood. It was a little like one of the troops, who always insisted on his own ear protection for shooting practice. No one else's would do. She herself had a favorite hairbrush.
"I understand. …Is it maybe in the bathroom?"
"I haven't looked there yet."
No lighter was found in what Seras knew had to be the neatest, tidiest bathroom in England. There was, however, one surprising discovery.
"I didn't know you used cinnamon toothpaste, Sir."
"I…don't care for the mint."
"Oh. Well, a lot of people just skip toothpaste 'cause they don't like mint. Better the cinnamon… alright, I didn't even know they made this." Seras pointed to the little box of cinnamon dental floss. "I have the mint kind, 'cause you know, even though vampires shouldn't brush, that doesn't mean we should neglect our teeth –or fangs, but you try explaining that to Master. He thought it was some of Walter's monofilament."
For some reason, that was not hard for Integra to imagine.
"It's not here," she sighed. "Maybe I should check around the office some more."
"Do you suppose…somebody borrowed it?" Integra glared in the police girl's direction.
"Who would borrow my lighter?"
"Well…er…Master, if he wanted to bother you."
"That…vampire!" Integra went stalking off in the direction of the dungeons, with a very frightened Seras trying to follow her. What would her Master's master do? Nail his coffin shut? Give him nothing but horses' blood? Shoot him with the kind of bullets she used on Jan Valentine?
Take his guns away?
Whatever the outcome, her Master's fate was sure to be a terrible, if not quite a bloody one, if he had indeed misappropriated his master's lighter.
"Walter!"
"Sir Integra!"
Seras braced to hear an order to 'nail that vampire's coffin shut!' or worse. Instead, she heard the calm voice of the faithful retainer:
"I took your lighter out to the shop this evening. The sparkwheel was getting dull."
"Thank you, Walter. Has there been any news from MI-5?"
"Nothing adverse. They sponsored a blood drive in the area, though, so Alucard should be pleased."
There was a familiar scratching sound and the smell of cigar smoke wafted to Seras' sensitive vampire nose. Her ears, even more perceptive, picked up the contentment and relief concealed in Sir Integra's sigh.
"I suppose he will be. Thank you, Walter."
The end.