I haven't written a songfic in a while, and though I'm going to make this fic in to two different ones, a Fantastic Four and a Hellsing, I really want to thank Simple Plan for releasing this song on to the radio. Otherwise, I would have never heard this wonderfully meaningful piece.
This is the Hellsing version of this fic. I don't own Hellsing, and I don't own "Perfect" or Simple Plan.
Some people will find this fic disgusting. I'm bloody well sure of it. So I'm going to rate it R for "more mature thoughts" because well, some people don't like the idea about why a woman can carry a child. The fic is not bad in any graphic or sexual way, I'm just raising the rating so that those people that wanna say "That's just sick!" don't read any further than this disclaimer.
There's a little bit of AxI hints, since well, I can't speak of my "more mature thoughts" without having a little bit of some sort of pairing in the fic. And besides, AxI is about the only straight pairing I seem to adore out of all anime, so it should deserve some highlight if I can give it one.
And please review. It makes me quite happy. ^_^
"Perfect"
by BlueMew
"The reports from the latest mission show that while Alucard still is the one who destroyed the FREAK vampire, our men were about fifty-five percent more efficient in their clean-up of the ghouls in the area, while Lieutenant Victoria has become a huge asset in her skills in detecting the exact locations of rouge ghouls. Continuing with the report-"
Integral only continued to appear as if she was paying attention to Walter's post-mission notes. She had turned thirty today, and no one had even thought to wish her a happy birthday, or even seem to care about such an event.
When her father was alive, every year his soldiers made a huge celebration of his birthday, and all looked forward to the celebration that was May 29.
"Sir
Integra? I asked you a question." Walter looked disapprovingly down his nose at
the young woman.
"Sorry Walter. Just leave the
report on my desk. I'll review it tomorrow." She continued to stare up at the
paintings of her male relatives that had led her Organization in the past, wondering
how they had balanced their families so seemingly easy while they tracked down
vampires and other unholy beasts. She could barely find the time to go on
holiday, let alone search for a suitable partner or raise a child.
"Yes Sir." He whispered, setting the papers on her desk before silently leaving the room, closing the door behind him.
Pouring herself a glass of brandy from a hidden flask in her desk, Integral removed her glasses to wipe away tears before she started to drink. Another year had passed, and what did she have to show for all her hard work.
She was alone, and nothing would be able to help take away the loneliness that embittered her soul.
Hey dad look at me
Think back and talk to me
Did I grow up according to plan?
And do you think I'm wasting my time doing things I wanna do?
But it hurts when you disapprove all along.
Alucard remained in his shadow form as he watched his master continue her solitary drinking, the silence of the office only being broken by a sob or whimper that escaped her lips.
In all of his years of service to the Hellsing family, Alucard had never once seen Integral act like she was now. If she had been upset, he could have dealt with that, but crying? And being female on top of that? How in the world would he fix her to be his cold, precise master?
"I'm sorry father…." She whispered as she removed her suit jacket, looking a little flushed in her cheeks.
Alucard chuckled silently to himself. So she was finally regretting her kind's mortality. Maybe he could finally get her to accept his offer of making her a vampire, and finally breaking his bond of servitude to the House of Hellsing.
"I try so bloody hard! I just… I'm not strong enough…. And Alucard…. he's no help… just keeps trying to convert me…"
And now I try hard to make it
I just want to make you proud
I'm never gonna be good enough for you
I can't pretend that I'm alright
And you can't change me.
So that was her problem tonight. Perhaps it was just that time of the month, and those normally dormant feminine qualities were surging to the surface now.
But he didn't smell blood in the room, so Alucard had to give up on that thought, as well as the other hundred more perverse thoughts that had entered his mind upon the thought of her menses. He would have to act on one of those thoughts soon. . . . .
There was only the stench of alcohol, so his dear beloved master could only be drunk, and with as much as he watched her pour in to her glass, any idiot could have figured her to be drunk.
But for her to be holding a conversation with a picture of her dead father was unnerving. She had confessed her sins to the portrait, of how she longed for death, but without a proper heir, she would never even dream of taking her own life, of how she murdered her uncle just a few days after her father's death which caused her mother to grow to hate little Integral, and of how she longed to be given the same respect and adoration that he commanded over his members of Hellsing, not just the forced respect that her men offered. She wanted out, but she could see no way to leave without allowing the undead to rule all of England, since no one could effectively lead the Organization but her.
The vampire would appear soon, just after she finished crying. Integral would never forgive Alucard if he were to see her in such a state.
'Cuz we lost it all
Nothing lasts forever
I'm sorry I can't be perfect
Now it's just too late
And we can't go back
I'm sorry I can't be perfect.
Two and a half hours later, Integral had stopped her crying, falling asleep wearing just her suit pants and corset. The complaints about it being too hot only fueled Alucard's desire to torment her by keeping the room slightly warmer than usual, which led to her lack of clothing when she fell asleep.
Silently, the shadow that was Alucard that had remained on the ceiling through the entire conversation with her dead father's portrait moved toward the doors, and slipped out through the space between the doors, only to materialize and knock.
"Master. I would like to come in."
Integral just moaned, knowing she heard what sounded like Alucard, knocking at her office door. She growled softly, knowing that for him to be knocking meant that he had been in her office the entire time, and she had been too drunk to realize he was there.
He'd heard the whole rant to her father, and he had seen her halfway naked, she realized as she sat up and looked down at her mostly exposed upper body. This was a disaster.
"Come in Alucard." She tried to bark the command to him, but it came out slurred and disjointed. Alucard had to restrain the smile that wanted to cross his lips at her behavior, but again, he knew better than to incur the wrath of the little Hellsing.
"Happy Birthday Master." He smirked before he turned to leave, only to find that Integral had hurried over, grabbing him from behind and hugging him around the waist, her face buried in his hair as she started sobbing again.
"Get in here and shut the door. I can't have the men see me like this." Was her muffled response to his statement, and Alucard did exactly as she said, terrified that his little Master was going to finally figure a way to kill him. She'd been drunk before and usually became surly, not affectionate, and this side of Integral Hellsing was one he was afraid of seeing.
"Why are you the only one who remembered? Why is it that my men only grudgingly follow my orders? Why did they love my father, but not me?" She was trembling as she clung to his waist, so Alucard turned around, doing the only thing he could think of. Hugging her tightly, he leaned his head down to rest his chin on her shoulder, which only made her grip tighten around his waist.
"Times are different, Miss Hellsing. The troops today don't have that sense of honor that they did even a decade ago."
She whimpered yet again, wiping her tears on his chest, unable to look up at her servant in this emotional state. "But Walter, Ferguson, Seras…. They could have said something. Even if the lower troops didn't care, THEY could have!"
"Please, just forget about this Integra." Alucard whispered in her ear yet again, kissing her neck and deliberately scraping his fangs across her flesh, but restraining himself from making the kiss fatal, as he would never take advantage of his Master while she was vulnerable. "Go on holiday somewhere, and leave the Organization to me while you are gone."
Integral shivered at his kiss, still clinging to him as he backed away, but now forcing herself to look up at his face. Through the shining tears in her icy eyes, she could plainly see that Alucard was sincere in his want for her to be happy and safe.
"I'll leave for America tomorrow."
I try not to think
About the pain I feel inside
Did you know you used to be my hero?
All the days you spent with me
Now seem so far away
And it feels like you don't care anymore.
Though her intention was to stay in America for a week, it had been three months since Integral had crossed the ocean and began her trek across the United States. Growing up in London's high society, she had come to regard Americans as foolish and savage, but now that she had settled in the Oklahoma panhandle for two and a half months with a ranch mogul she met while in New York, she didn't want to leave the country ever again. Periodically, she would have to return a call to Walter or Alucard saying that she was still trying to continue her research on the FREAK creators, but she was certain that both men weren't buying in to her stories anymore.
She had never been so candid in her life when she agreed to move to Oklahoma with Casey Montgomery, but this new spontaneity had given her life a new purpose- making Casey happy.
He was the kind of man her father had shielded her from as she had grown up in Hellsing Manor. Casey was a fighter, spoke his mind quite loudly, was forceful if he didn't have his way, and had the most adorable accent Integral had ever heard. Casey had been divorced three times, and each of his ex-wives had bore him a child, leaving him with no need for an heir to his cattle.
And most importantly, Casey would do anything for Integral. He loved the mystery surrounding the Englishwoman, and that though she was incredibly rich in her own right, she never mentioned what it was that she did for a living.
Casey had promised to take her out for dinner and then some dancing tonight, and she was actually looking forward to an event where she could dress in feminine clothing and look delicate for once in her existence.
Perhaps that was the reason she had been attracted to Casey. He wanted her to look like a trophy girl, something that Integral never had the opportunity of being in her old life.
He had bought her a gorgeous black dress, cut low across her breasts so that she was a little self-conscious, but the skirt was full length, though slit up to her hip. It was a dress she could never wear to the formal functions of England, and though she was embarrassed to go out in public wearing it, she was equally thrilled to be allowed to wear something this provocative.
"Integra honey," Casey smiled as he leaned in the doorway, watching the paid house-servant pin the blonde's hair in a French twist, with what would be her bangs if her hair had been shorter, curled up to frame her face. "There's a man here to see you from your company. He says it's rather important."
"Damnit." She sighed without moving, allowing the woman working on her hair to continue, "Tell Walter to come back in the morning around eleven."
Casey just gave her a look, folding his arms. "The man wasn't named Walter. It was an unusual name… Al… Al-something."
Integral stood up, not minding what the hairdresser was trying to do now, and headed toward the waiting room of Casey's plantation-style manor, pulling her smaller version of Alucard's Jackal from a hip holster.
"I TOLD you not to follow me Alucard." The words were spoken through clenched teeth as the little blond pointed her gun at the vampire clad in red.
Casey froze upon seeing Integral holding a gun toward her employee, not wanting to interfere, less he get a bullet somewhere to his person. She was a strong girl, and Integral could handle this herself.
"Master, we need you back in London."
Like a clap of thunder, a bullet flew from the barrel of the gun, grazing Alucard's cheek before settling in the wall behind him. Integral cocked it again, this time aiming for his heart. "I won't miss next time Alucard. Go home."
"Your father came to me Miss Hellsing. He is quite disappointed."
Integral just laughed. Her father had returned from the dead to speak with one of the undead. It was rich. "Alucard, my father is dead. You know this. He cannot speak to you as you are not psychic, and ghosts do not exist in this plane of reality." She raised her gun again. "I am staying in America until I choose to return to London, Alucard. You are to stay in charge of the Organization, though I swear if you come after me again, I will not hesitate to kill you. Dismissed."
~*~*~*~*~
Integral sat up in the bed she shared with Casey smoking a cigar as he lay next to her, his hands still lightly caressing her thigh as he lay next to her. The evening had been so ordinary, yet so magical at the same time, as it felt as if Casey was the only thing that mattered in her world now. Hellsing and its future heirs be damned- this American was fun.
"So you said you'd tell me how you got your money afterwards."
Integral sighed as she set her cigar in the ash tray on the night stand next to her side of the bed before she shimmied down to lay next to Casey, playing a hand through his hair as she gazed in to his eyes. "I guess I did. Well, have you ever read Dracula?"
Casey just chuckled, leaning in to her hand. "Integra, everyone in this damned state read Dracula for tenth grade English. Are you one of Bram Stoker's descendents who owns the rights to that book?"
Integral couldn't help but chuckle, closing her eyes as she grew more tired. "Kind of. What that book left out was the fact that Abram van Hellsing actually had been married and had a couple of sons."
"Abram van Hellsing was eighty and had never married."
"That is what the family wants people to think."
Casey glared at her. "That book is pure fiction."
Shrugging, Integral opened her eyes partially. "Well, even if you don't believe that Abram van Hellsing has descendants, believe me when I say vampires exist. Alucard, that man that came to visit yesterday, he's a vampire."
"You're just drunk, Integra. Sleep it off."
Sighing, Integral stood from the bed and began to slip clothing on; not the feminine apparel that Casey gave her, but the suits that she was accustomed to wearing. "Thank you for showing me what independence can do for one's soul Casey. I'm going home."
And now I try hard to make it
I just want to make you proud
I'm never gonna be good enough for you
I can't stand another fight
And nothing's alright.
The summer had been gray and dreary, much like every other previous English summer, and though the threat of most FREAK vampires had been significantly decreased by a Hellsing-like organization in North America when they captured and killed the FREAK chip creators, Integral had the worst past half year of her life.
As soon as she arrived home, the routine of command started over again, and Integral was just as distant and cruel to her men as she had been before going on holiday. With nothing to eliminate, she had her private army drilling every night there was not a mission, which lowered morale even more than her constant belittling of the troops.
Yet every day when she returned to her office to stare up at the pictures of the Hellsing men before her, she was certain that their expressions grew more foul with each passing day, especially that of her father. Fate had been cruel to make her a woman, and each day she regretted that she did not have a brother to command the Organization, or that she herself would have been born male.
Pulling out her newest bottle of brandy, Integral didn't even bother to pour the alcohol in to a glass this time, instead just drinking from the bottle like a common slob. This was the routine that happened more and more frequently as the days passed, so she could speak to the portrait of her father without arousing more suspicions than those of her being drunk. She wiped her mouth with the back of her gloved hand, staring up at her father. "Why did you have to die so early in my life?"
She didn't know why she ever expected an answer from the portrait, yet each time she asked a question to the blond man staring down at her and did not receive an answer, Integral became more and more depressed with each passing moment, drawing comfort from her bottle. She had no one to understand her, and no one to turn to, and no one to protect her from herself. Not even Alucard could be trusted anymore, for he was the one who turned her innocent young self into a murderer.
Her own death was also a daily thought, and as she removed her white gloves and pulled back the sleeves of her white dress shirt, Integral examined the purple-blue veins of her wrists, imagining how simple it could be to use the letter opener sitting in the first drawer of her desk to gouge out all hope of existence for the last of the Hellsing line.
Casey had been right. The world thought of everything she did to be pure fiction, and that her name was just sheer coincidence to the written history of vampire hunting. What was the bloody point of continuing with the Hellsing Organization if it didn't exist but for a few people?
Slowly, deliberately, she pulled the top desk drawer open, eyeing the letter opener before removing it from the drawer and turning it over in her hands a few times. Taking one last drink from her bottle of brandy, Integral tightened her grip on the letter opener, jabbing it in to her wrist and tearing down toward her elbow the length of her arm. Alucard was out on a mission tonight, so he wouldn't be home soon enough to find her in a partially alive state.
Integral did not flinch, and she did not scream as her limp arm took the makeshift blade in its hand and sliced the vein of her opposite hand, allowing for more blood to rush from her body. Her eyes stayed trained on the portrait of her father as the feeling of lightheadedness washed over her. "I'm sorry daddy."
'Cuz we lost it all
Nothing lasts forever
I'm sorry I can't be perfect.
Now it's too late
And we can't go back
I'm sorry I can't be perfect.
Though he prided himself on being one of the truly undead and had witnessed many grotesque scenes, Alucard was shocked to see the little Hellsing, his beloved master, laying in a puddle of her own blood on the floor next to her desk. He could still feel a heartbeat, though it was incredibly faint, and as he rushed over to her side to examine her wounds more closely, he hated how cold she felt.
"Integra!" He shouted, shaking her limp body just a bit, hoping to revive her a little, but besides the heartbeat that he could hear pumping blood out of her wounds, Integral Hellsing was dead.
"Damnit. I promised her I'd never do this…" Alucard growled as he ripped the sleeve from his jacket, sinking his fangs in to his own wrist, and making a paste out of his blood with his fingers, placing it on her open wounds. He was relieved to see her wounds healing over quickly as the vampiric blood worked its so-called magic on her mortal body, though her heartbeat was still faint, and a human doctor would have considered her dead.
And though she kept medical packets of her own blood in her office refrigerator as treats for Alucard when he pleased her, Alucard had no idea how to do a human blood transfusion, and by the time the Hellsing doctors were awake and ready to start the operation, Integral would be dead. He couldn't let her die.
Walking over to her refrigerator, Alucard opened the door and examined the packets of medical blood. If she just drank as he did, nothing would happen to save her.
Ripping the packet open with his teeth, Alucard quickly downed the contents of the packet, moving through the lot that she had stored previously with a heightened sense of urgency. Her heartbeat was becoming less and less, so the vampire stopped his gorging on the medical packets, and returned to her side, kneeling next to the blood-stained young woman. "I'm sorry master."
If she had been conscious, Integral would have fought Alucard's blood being forced in to her body, but as every cell yearned for life anew as the vampiric blood entered her mouth, she started to breathe and move again, latching on to his bleeding wrist and tearing the wounds open even more, sucking the blood from his being.
"ENOUGH!" Alucard screamed as he pushed Integral away, who just glared at him through reddening eyes, upset that she had been denied what she now craved. "Walter has alerted the medical staff already, and you are going for a transfusion before you become permanently tainted.
Looking over the blood-saturated office, Inteagral sighed as she walked over to her closet to pull out another shirt, slipping it on to replace the now red dress shirt. "I wanted to die Alucard."
"You're joking." The vampire smirked as he placed an arm around her waist, leading her toward the medical wing. "You don't even have an heir designated to replace yourself."
Integral sighed as she continued walking with Alucard, glancing over at her father's portrait in her office. It was now bloodstained, and she was certain that he was furious with his only child now that she had tried to take the coward's way out through suicide. "That's exactly why I want to die Alucard. I'll be out of this political bullshit and someone else can worry about feeding you and cleaning up England so that no creature of the night can live here anymore. Every time I see my father, he just looks down upon me, letting me know how bloody stupid and incompetent I am in my dealings with the undead, the Vatican, and my Queen. I had fun with Casey, but father dragged me back here through you…."
"So you're speaking to the dead now Miss Hellsing?"
"Do you know what he said when he died?" Integral allowed herself to be laid down on the hospital bed, offering her wrists to the doctors that would be helping her become human again. "That I was to make him proud by leading Hellsing in to the new millennium, and then to find a nice man and have a child so that a male could run Hellsing. If I didn't do it, he said he would be very disappointed in how I grew to adulthood."
Alucard looked down at his master, trying to untangle her blood-matted hair. "Is that what you want?"
Integral just closed her eyes, feeling the needles pierce her skin. "I want to be perfect."
Nothing's gonna change the things that you said
Nothing's gonna make this right again
Please don't turn your back
I can't believe it's hard just to talk to you
But you don't understand. . . .
