This is the first of some one shots that will not really be linked in any way other than they will all take place in the apartment. These will just be some short things about Rick and Pip living in an apartment together. If you have read "Funny Little Feeling" then you'll remember Rick, but if not then he's an OC I made up on the spot.
Disclaimer: Hellsing, Pip specifically, isn't mine. Rick Graham is.
The small apartment was a cluttered mess. There were shits, pants, underpants, old dishes, old food, new food, coats, hats, ladies undergarments (including, but not limited to: bras, panties, thigh high stockings, corsets, single perfect wool socks that were obviously not a man's, and the ever popular thong), rugby uniforms and of course shoes and vegemite. A great lump of dirty clothes was the couch and it was occupied by the first of two room-mates: Pip Bernadotte. The Frenchmen was eating vegemite by the spoonfuls. The television was on and he sat with his heels crossed, feet up on the coffee table between him and the TV. He wore a white man's tank and his underwear, which were black with red hearts. He looked as if he hadn't moved since the French revolution. His face was scraggly with fresh facial hair. He was watching the weather.
A woman scurried about behind him. She spoke quietly, saying "Excuse me…" as she bustled about taking up what she was sure was her clothing. She looked at a sock a moment before dropping it and leaving it to be covered up by other things. It wasn't her sock.
Rick Graham emerged from a bedroom, the only bedroom. He scratched his head and watched the woman, a hint of sleep still in his eyes. He was tall and lanky, with constant summer freckles on his shoulders and nose, of which had been broken many a time. His hair was sandy blond and he wore only his boxer shorts, decorated with tiny devils and the phrase 'horny devil', because they didn't already lack maturity between the both of them.
"Where are ya going, Sheila?" his accent was Australian.
"To work," she said and disappeared with her clothes in hand out the door without so much as a goodbye to the Australian man she had just spent the night with. She had been drunk and she had thought him humorous with his accent. Now, it was shameful.
"Bitch," Pip said and smiled at his room-mate. He held the vegemite to his partner.
"She wasn't, Pip," the Australian said and the Frenchman shrugged.
"Rick," he began, spooning the last bits of vegemite from it's container. "She was, 'ow you zay, ashamed."
Rick looked disjointed. His shoulders sloped and he frowned. Pip was eating his vegemite. The Aussie took the container from Pip and glared. He'd finished it off.
" 'Ow was the bed?"
"Warm and the couch, mate?" Rick flopped down next to his room- mate and kicked his own heels up.
There was a sacred code among men who had lived in this bachelor pad. There had always only been one room. The man who caught a girl got the bed for the night, while the other had the couch. When there was no couch the other had the bathtub, or the pantry, or, if the case was that they did not own a single of these things: the porch or hallway. Originally, they had not even owned the couch, but after the first few nights in the apartment Rick decided that he did not want to sleep in the bathtub anymore. They had invested in a couch.
Rick sunk lower into the fabric. Pip flipped through the channels.
"Porn, mate!" Rick sat up and pointed. Pip reversed direction and if one listened closely enough they could hear the remote button's screech like tires. He ceased and they sat, glazed eyed and watched a woman being taken from behind. Oh, the glories of free cable. They gazed for what seemed like hours, but was only minutes for them, when Rick finally tore himself from the glory that was pornography. He wandered to the kitchen, where he opened the fridge and looked in. Moaning seemed to echo his movements.
"That…is abso-bloody-lutely disgusting," Rick said and his made a pained face at the inside of the fridge. Pip stood and loped to his friend's side.
Pip and Rick had met in their line of work: As mercenaries. They had hit it off quite well and became close friends. They decided, for lack of better things, to share an apartment. They had lived in the bachelor pad (Previously owned by Rick's great uncle, who was forever and ever a bachelor) for only a few days before it began to reek and become theirs. Pip opened the fridge and exhaled a breath at the rank smell that came from it. He waved his hand before his face.
"Wow," was the only word spoken.
"Jesus Christ, what died in there?" Rick demanded and went instead to the counter. He found bread. That was an easy enough breakfast. Pip followed him, like a lost animal. He couldn't possibly be hungry after a jar of Vegemite.
Rick gave him a look. Pip raised his eyebrows.
"What?" he asked and Rick turned back to making his toast. He shoved the moldy bread into the toaster and pushed the lever down. Pip watched.
"Make me zome," he said and Rick glared at him again.
"Make yer own fucking toast," he said and the watched the bread darken in the toaster.
"Fuck, Rick, don't be a dick," Pip said and frowned.
Rick turned from his toaster to look at his room-mate. "You ate all the fucking vegemite."
"Oui," Pip smirked and laughed. "Your point being?"
"That you ate all fucking the vegemite!" Rick declared and turned back to his toaster. There was a fire blazing from the tiny mechanism. It caught the curtain and immediately it went up in flame.
"Fuck shit," Pip said and immediately tried to spring into what one could call action. Rick took a dirty pan from the sink and filled it with water, flinging it at the fire. Pip took the hose from the sink and sprayed the curtains until they were a charred heap of fabric.
"My mother made those," Rick said and sighed. He took up a fork and began trying to dig his toast out of the toaster.
Pip returned to the couch, he wasn't in the mood for toast today. From behind him Pip heard the screech of Rick being electrocuted by his mistake.