Disclaimer: I do not own Hellsing.
Author's notes: I did not intend on writing another millennium fic especially after the reviews for the last one usually made me scream "HE'S NOT CUTE! HE'S NOT POOR!" at the screen but you don't really need to know that do you?
The subject popped into my head on my way back from my tattoo artist after a small session of pattern plotting and designing. Damn it I have to wait a few days until I'll get the new tattoo ready….grrrr….ehem….
By all means not everything written here is my experience, oh no!
Warning: Bad language.
Craving
Nervous eyes scanning across the nylon covered pages in a black folder chained to the worktable to keep from theft of material.
Palms sweaty, leaving hand shaped humid clouds on the plastic pages, like steam on glass windows on a cold winter day. Fingers slightly shaking so it's difficult to clamp them down on the next page and she flips one page too much. Correcting her mistake is harder.
The craving.
"I hear they're addictive you know"
She dismissed it at first. I mean come on! Can something painful become addictive! She's not the type to enjoy pain so why would she be addicted!
Nah, you get addicted to things that make you high, not to painful things.
So she dismissed it and shrugged on her third visit to the tattoo parlor.
By the tenth visit she started thinking it might be true, the whole talk about it being an addiction that is.
The idea did not sink in fully until she took Fritz to the parlor to have his first tattoo.
Fritz is meaningless, pointless, cannon-meat in comparison to the werewolf she was but he asked her guidance in finding a good tattoo parlor and she hoped that by bringing a new client the artist in the parlor might start giving her discounts on her next meetings with him.
She didn't think that contemplating a next visit to the parlor, after already having her sixteenth visit a few months ago, meant she was addicted.
She stood in the parlor and skimmed through the plastic pages (they weren't chained to the table back then) with Fritz, looking for the design he was looking for.
The stupid idiot chose a red heart with the words 'Mother Homeland' written in gothic font inside for his tattoo. Such kitsch, such a common pattern, and so old-fashioned.
She didn't mind the theme; she just thought that such a simple, common pattern is an insult to what her tattoo artist can do.
Then again there's the play of the red dye to make it strong by the heart's edges then gradually fainting towards the center, which is an art in itself.
Her? She didn't like color tattoos really. She liked them in bold black against her undead white skin with a few shading in black maybe, but not too much because shading takes two years to really sink in to show the way they should be.
At the time she stood in the parlor and averted her eyes from the sight of Fritz's bare chest (he chose to have his tattoo on his chest above the nipple). The male figure never appealed to her and the sight of the chosen tattoo's pattern in bright blue ink lines where the artist will soon carve them into the skin made her sick. Such a pathetic pattern really.
The smell of the deodorant the artist uses to make the sketch's ink stick to the skin and the smell of the Vaseline he will apply to the newly tattooed skin when it's all over mixed into a pleasant scent in the cooled air of the parlor.
She didn't feel the real rush at that point.
Then the buzzing started. The needle dancing up and down faster then the human eye can see (vampires can see it though, even artificial ones like her and Fritz).
Suddenly the tattoo brochures became very interesting and thoughts of bits of her body left unmarked rushed to her head. She flipped through the nylon covered pages looking for something to apply onto herself.
Suddenly she really wanted a new tattoo, no, needed a new tattoo.
It's when the idea dawned on her; she is addicted.
She asked the professor and he told her that it's the endorphins her body releases into her bloodstream that makes her addicted.
She cocked her head and asked him what the fuck is he talking about (big words like 'Endor…whatever' were not something she got along with very well).
His tiny eyes scanning her twitching arm muscles nervously (they twitched whenever she was in need of beating someone up), he sat down and explained it slowly.
When the body feels pain it releases hormones into the bloodstream to help the body deal with the pain. Endorphins are a group of hormones of the type released to the bloodstream; they are 'natural painkillers'. They also make you just a little bit high. The same thing happens in extreme sports and times of stress.
If it's something that gets you high then you get addicted to it. Now the professor's finally making sense.
Great. She's addicted…just brilliant. She needed to kick something. Where's that little pet of the Major's when you need the brat?
Standing in the parlor for the twenty-seventh time now, craving like fuck. You'll never get a glimpse of Zorin Blitz like this, ever, and if you will you'll be dead in three seconds.
The artist saw it many times but he doesn't care; she's a client, she pays well without complaint and she brings him new clients from time to time.
Sure he's seen many people like her, addicted to the buzz. You can tell by the glint in their eyes. Artists like him feed on people like that, as all business men. See a need, fill a need and nothing more. Shrug the slight guilt pang away,
She needs a new tattoo and she needs it bad.
This morning she saw one of the men showing off his tattoo from the homeland and her heart skipped a beat. The fleeting idea of getting a new tattoo has been bugging her for a while now.
She always postponed the exact time of the next tattooing to the winter time. Tattoos shouldn't be exposed to the sun for two weeks after they're made and her new tattoo is planned to be on her palm. It'd be a drag to run around with a glove for two weeks in this damned humid heat. So she postponed the new tattoo.
But the man flashed his tattoo and she walked closer to examine it and make comments on how he maintained it. The craving reared it's ugly head. Now she's in the parlor again.
The artist has a man and a woman waiting to get they're new tattoos before it's her turn. No, correction, the woman is getting her eyebrow pierced.
Eyebrow piercing….any piercing at all, the strange crazy ideas the youth of today thinks up.
Back in her time getting a tattoo was a shocking idea in itself, now everyone's got one along with five or six piercing at the least. Times have changed.
But she doesn't think about it long because the buzzing starts and she is in another stratosphere.
It's like someone stuck a tube into your ear and is now filling your skull with air. Your brain floats about happily. You can't feel the floor properly and your head swims.
Then your mind hurts and your throat convulses a bit. Your hearts pounds powerfully in your chest. Hormones pumped into your blood to prepare you for the upcoming pain, you can get addicted to those too you know. Your eyes are more intense, your nerves are sharp and edgy.
Craving.
When will it be her turn already?
All the way to the tattoo parlor she thought only of that, all the way from the pharmaceutical store where she bought new bepanten and band aid strips (she has enough gauze from her last tattoo).
Now she has to wait in line, fuck!
What if she ate everyone in line huh? What will the artist think then?
I bet he'll try shooting her or something. And it'll be the end of his business. Nah, she doesn't want that. He is the only one who can carve marks into her skin the best. His shadings are to die for and his steady hand never fails her.
She plopped down to the deep leather sofa in the hallway of the parlor and waited.
The buzzing kept her company. Soon she'll feel the pain too and soon she'll get high on endorphins.
As she tries to avert her mind to other subjects she remembers something.
Long white slender fingers reaching out to her.
Skilled fingers, those who stroke monstrous killing machines into purring obedient kittens.
Fingers which dance as they fly from the safety catch to the small loading lever then finally to the trigger. Fingers which curl magnificently around the barrel to stabilize the immense rifle.
Long white slender fingers touching her skin with their very tip, then travel downwards all along her newly fully healed tattooed skin to examine the new texture. Then they travel lower.
Big deep red eyed behind thick lenses. She fell in love with those eyes back when she saw them in their original onyx shade.
That sassy curl lashing out before her face while the rest of her hair is smoothed back neatly. She wanted to comb and stroke that hair back when it was braded obediently under her simple uniform's hat. She wanted to feel the long fine black hairs on her bare skin.
Zorin smiles; Rip is another addiction of hers.
And now she's craving.
(end)