HeathelFuss- Whoo! So, here it is, the first installment of what my brain coughed out. I don't have too much to say, other than the fact that I'm basing some of this on the cliché body switching thing, but that's why its a cliché, because its so much fun to do, messing around with other people's lives and stuff. Hopefully this story will last a little longer than my other two, but I have confidence in this one, because Hellsing is just that great of an anime that I actually have a significant interest in writing stuff for it. Lets just hope I don't butcher it, and if I do, well, sorry I guess, being in character is so boring. So without further ado and rambling, here it is, the first chapter. If you can get past this, I promise things will be a bit more interesting the next time around, well, I won't promise, but lets just pretend that I did.

Warnings: Well, if your sensitive to language then you probably won't want to hang around. I write the way I talk, and I must admit, I have a filthy mouth, in fact its gotten to the point where I don't even notice that I'm cussing at all. I know what your going to say, it isn't necessary to put curse words in your writing, but part of my writing style is writing in the manner of which I speak-very loose, very informal, and the way that I speak isn't pretty. I don't think there's a lot of language in this chapter, but just for future reference.

-:-Disclaimer: Fine, I don't own Hellsing or any of its characters. The only person I own is Marley, who is a semi-projection of myself. Everyone else that isn't Hellsing affiliated I don't own either, because their actual people, and as much as I'd like to own a few of them, I can't, so, they own themselves I guess.

Some Bang For Your Buck

Or a better title:

A Morning At The Zoo

By: HeathelFuss

I woke up that morning, feeling like some tiny persistent creature was trying to burrow its way through my skull to set up cable modem in my brain, which would've been very much appreciated since my mind works on dial-up, but at 6:00 in the morning its hard to be grateful for anything. Right now all I know was that I had a headache, and whatever was in my brain was causing it. I'm no stranger to headaches, in fact they seem to like me a bit too much, but this one was difference, this one passed into the realm of humanly impossible, keeping my vision in a state of fuzzy pea soup for a while even after I'd put my glasses on. I rubbed at my eyes I think, behind their black smoothly rectangular lenses, and tried to decipher the red digital numbers of a code that should have read 6:05 or something remotely related to it. I hate not being able to see two inches in front of my face, and I'm sure any other members of the Visually Impaired Anonymous group understands my grief.

Why was it so damn early! What's today anyway? Thursday? Sounded about right.

I resolved, again, to replace my eyes with bionic orbs, and flopped lazily from my nest of sheets blankets and various articles of hidden clothing, grumbling angrily when an uncooperative fuzzy dark green floral print comforter insisted on interfering with the communications network between my brain and my legs. Damnit. I didn't want to call the phalangical repair men at this hour of the morning, but it couldn't be helped, and after a few minutes of forceful negotiations, I managed to free the prisoners of war.

Lumbering my way towards the bathroom, I went through the usual morning routine of sleeping in the shower, suffocating on the toothpaste in my mouth, burning my ears with a straightened, and tripping down the stairs as my mom threatened to smash me into the earth if I didn't get my ass moving faster. Yeah, it was a nice normal morning. In an attempt to awaken my body from its vegetative state, I tried burning it with coffee, listening lazily to one out of a thousand motherly speeches about how I failed for not getting down here early enough, and decided that masochism just wasn't my thing and made a peace offering of chilled apple juice to calm the raw throbbing in my throat. The ride to school was dull but enjoyable, since driving in cars makes me happy, and for some reason I felt I was missing something very important. English project? No, I could procrastinate on giving my year end report for another day. Spanish? No, I'd studied...at least I think I did. I don't remember. Well, it probably wasn't anything very important if I couldn't remember, important being important to me, but I have memory problems anyway so even if it was important, there wasn't anything I could do about it now.

First period doesn't matter because its first period. I'm irritated with first period for taking away the cool art teacher who posed a striking resemblance to Mr. Clean, and sticking us with an assembly line of uncool ass-backwards substitutes who can't tell a charcoal pencil from oil pastel. I used to like drawing, now every piece of work that I'm assigned destroys some inner part of myself, makes it curl up in a corner and die while cutting out pieces of it's hair follicles. Poor baby. English was alright I suppose, we're reading and discussing a book by Ralph Elison, Invisible Man, I believe it was called. Very interesting book if you ever get bored of the one you're reading. We weren't doing much in Ap art since we'd turned in our portfolio's, but I do get to paint a door in my teacher's classroom, so I was very happy slapping paint onto it while bobbing my head to the lullaby voice of David Byrne.

Very uneventful to say the least...and then lunch rolls around.

If you listen closely, you can almost hear the muffled thunder of the oncoming storm, the tension in the air rising steadily as the cauldron slowly begins to bubble up to its brim threatening to spill over. A tumble weed rolls by as a crow sounds off the noon bell. Then it comes, like a rolling thunder, a clap of lightning as the deafening clanging of the bell sounds far and wide across the prairie, and all at once a tsunami of teenagers breaks apart the flood gates and pours out into the main stream, the torrent descending on the be-speckled middle aged lunch ladies, brandishing their cans of Pepsi and Chimichangas, ready to hurtle it out into space after a swift flash of green floats across the counter. It'd taken me two and a half high school length years to figure out that fighting against the deluge never got you anywhere, even if you could dog paddle your way through it or tread water as you waited within the miasma. No siree Bob! I gave that up and now I drift at my own pace, content with swooping in at the last second and snatching a bottle of Minute Maid ten minutes before the bell calls back the tides and closes the floodgates.

Somewhere on a red stone table, sitting beneath an olive tree that was trying desperately to survive the heat, we'd set up camp after chasing off the resident Harpies and claiming it in the name of yaoi, cheesecake and Nine Inch Nails. Yawning lazily, I flopped against April's side, my soft spoken Asian girl friend with an unexpected wild child streak, digging a hand into an offered bag of Cheez-its as we watched the fleshy masses of people tromp by us. I stared at the cheesy square for a moment, then lolled my head in her general direction.

"Why don't they serve Cheez-its? Their so much tastier than 3 day old reheated pizzas." She gave me her trademark laughing smile, which lit up her entire face and just made you want to hug the sweetness out of her.

"I dunno, maybe it's cheaper to feed us that stuff."

I nodded slowly. "That's true, it just wouldn't make sense to spend an excessive amount of money on making sure teens eat healthier food and prevent them from turning into lard balls, even though everyone and their momma's-janitor's-dog is whining about how we're not eating healthy."

"Yep, that could be it. Oh yeah, I finished watching the first disk of Descendants of Darkness."

I brightened up a little. Yaoi has that effect on me. "Oh really? Did you like it?"

"Yeah, it was good. Good stuff. Um, but I'm not sure who I want to go as."

"Hm. You could go as Oriya. You've got his hair and stuff. I mean, that is if you want to. I'm just going as people that won't require drastic hair changes since I can't dye my hair too many more colors. Can't have it falling out."

"Yeah, I was thinking that too. I could get a wig, but, I dunno, it'd just be easier huh."

"Yeah, its a lot easier, a lot less expensive too."

We took a moment to bask in each others presence in silence, taking in the ever changing scenery of high school in springtime. It was funny to think about, that I'd soon be leaving all of this behind, since I'd practically lived here for half of my life it seemed. I wasn't sad to see it go mind you, I'd been dying to get out of this hole since Sophomore year and if it hadn't been for the few friends I'd made here, I might've gone crazy and imploded. Speaking of friends, I felt the hairs on my neck rise as one particular friend's presence could be felt halfway across the Quad. I turned slowly in time to see a boy wearing dangerously low riding tight pants and a pastel blue shirt, streaking across the grass towards me, arms thrown out as he charged through clusters of people.

"...-aaaaaaaarrrrlllleeeeeeey!" It sounded like an oncoming train, the sound growing in volume as it closed in on me. Aw shit, were my thoughts as I made an attempt to avoid the freight train, but I should know by now that I can never avoid it. I got myself run over and was immediately smothered by the presence and love of a very good looking black gay boy.

"Heeeee! You're wearing your suit Tatsumi! Your the smex today!"

"Ith Thaursday," he mumbled into his chest, squirming around in an attempt to free myself so my brown suit wouldn't be wrinkled. Ironing this thing's a bitch. "Gerroffame! Off! Off! Now!"

He released me after I poked at his ribs, eyeing him angrily as I smoothed down my hair and adjusted the blue and white tie at my neck. It became an unannounced habit of the boys in my English class to dress up on Thursdays, simply because they could, and since I felt left out of the cool people ring I decided I'd dress up myself. I've always liked the way I looked in a suit: Sharp, important looking, like I had some meeting in Paris to be at, but it was mostly because I hate looking for dresses and nice skirts. Their either too short, too long, too hoochie, too tacky, too...well, the list could go on forever really. Unfortunately, this also meant that a certain flaming human being going by the name of Iyonte, would religiously attack me on Thursdays and hang on me more than ever simply because I was dressed like a man. But anyway...

"Your lucky you didn't put any wrinkles in it, or else I'd have to cut off your hair."

"Ahn! No! Bad!" He cried, digging his fingers into his very well kept shoulder length dark hair, giving me his best beaten puppy look. It'd taken about half his life to finally get it looking really healthy and touchable. It was practically the pride of his life. He was always running his fingers or a comb through that mess, and when I'd cut my own long hair he'd nearly fainted on the spot. I got him to shut up about it by buying him various hair products, porn and Strawberry Pocky.

Later on, the remainder of the crew finally filtered over to the table as soon as they remembered that we'd changed our meeting spot because of an intense pest infestation, and to pass the time until I went to get food, Dominic and Alex entertained us with their Abbot and Costello routine. It still seemed so strange that I wouldn't be seeing these guys next year, since April and myself we're the only Seniors out of our group, but they made me promise to come back and visit when life didn't get in the way. That would be a promise I could keep. After Iyonte, Brittany and myself had gone to the student store to buy the suddenly overpriced and not very tasty junk food they could provide us, we sat and discussed our plans for the two summer conventions we were going to in July: Comic Con and Anime Expo.

"Nnnnn! But I wanna be Hakkai!"

"Ok fine, be Hakkai, nobody said you couldn't be him Iyo."

"Yeah but, you gave this look..."

"She always gives you that look, she gives everyone that look you airhead."

"Shut up Bit! No ones talking to you, female."

"So anyway, I'm thinking that I'm not going to go another year as a gun-less Alucard." I said absently munching on a Dorrito. I felt so out of the toaster walking around as an unarmed No-Life-King, which was bad because the rabid fangirls can smell an unarmed Alucard a mile away and flock towards it like flies on stink. I'm still not sure if I like the feeling of people ganging up on me out of nowhere, but I guess you could get used to after it happens to you for an extended period of time.

"Wasn't Larry gonna make you some guns? He's pretty good with wood carving stuff...actually he's pretty good with everything."

"Yeah, Sanity's lucky...God I hate her! Why does she get all the good men!"

"Are we takin your car Marley?"

"I guess so. I can fit about...eh...4 people in it."

"Wait, don't you have that back, back seat? The one that faces the back of the car? That makes it 6 then."

"No, I don't want to use that back seat when we're on the freeway. If I get rear-ended I have to explain the two mutilated bodies in the very back seat of my car."

"Yeah, ew, bad. Ok then, so we do need another car. Bobretta's coming right?"

"Yeah, she said we can use hers, and then theres mine, but you, Iyo, are not allowed to comb your hair at all in my car!"

"Eh! Why!"

"I found all your damn hair on my carpet, and glitter in the stitching of my seats. Glitter's fuckin hard to get out of seats biotch, so your not allowed to even breathe if you ride with me."

"Psh, quite overreacting."

"I'm not overreacting, I've still got glitter up my nose from having to clean it all out, you stupid Fairy."

"Ha ha ha! Iyo's a fairy!"

"Shut up Bit, your just made cause you have a vagina and I don't!"

"Oh right, and this from the guy that thinks he's a chick. You fuckin fail."

"Ha! He's a chick with a dick."

"God I hate you guys, your so mean to me!"

"Hee hee, I love you guys. Um, so, where do you want us all to meet?"

"I was thinking my house since everyone kinda knows where I live. So, we're gonna try to leave sometime in the morning 'cause it's gonna be a mad monkey house at the con."

"Yeah, I don't wanna stand in line for sixty-bagillion years like we did last time. That was just...uhn, oh Jesus on toast, so many people sucking up my life."

"Speaking of life, did I get money from everyone for the hotel?"

"I think I owe you 8 dollars. You'll get it when I feel like throwing it up."

"Well, just make sure you clean it when you do, I don't like wet money. Ok, so, no one owes me money right? Great. Now all we have to do is do some more costume making and survive the last month and a half of school."

"Thank God, I'm so fuckin tired of dealing with these people. I think 2 years of this is enough already."

"But Marley's leaving us, leaving to be all famous and cool without us."

"Dude, you guys say it like I'm gonna forget about you or something. Please, I couldn't forget you even if I tried."

"You say it with such love, it almost sounds like we're a bad rape experience you can't get ride of."

"Well, in your case Iyo, yeah, it is."

"Aww! You suck! I hate you Vincent! I hope your mangina shrivels up and falls off."

"Ok, yeah, eating, shut the hell up now, k?"

"Was that the bell?"

"What! Already! Damnit, didn't even get to stalk Maya."

"Who?"

"His new man-friend."

"You mean his new sex toy."

"Shut up! Leave Maya alone, he's a Heavy moder and he pawns all you bitches!"

"Oh dear lord, don't ever say that again!"

"Yeah Iyo, WTF man, Double-ewe...tee...eff."

"I think he just likes him cause he digs pale scrawny guys."

"Yeah, that too."

"Shut up, you guys can't possibly fathom the uber cuteness of the Maya-chibi. Right Marley?"

"Whaddaya mean 'Right Marley'? I like men, not boys that look like 6 year olds. I swear you were a pedophile in your past life."

"That would explain why all your role-play characters are little boys no older than 12...Michael."

"Ewewewewewew! Gross! Don't ever mention me and Michael in the same sentence ever again you hoe!"

"He's in denial...and we're not even in Africa."

"..."

"What?"

"Anderson, that was...LAME!"

"Aha. Fuck you guys."

"Guys we're gonna be late, how 'bout we finish this after school at Legends or something?"

"Naw, I have work."

"And I have a computer to be at...downloading tentacle porn."

"...Ok...Freak...Fine, how about tomorrow then?"

"I can't either."

"Well no one invited you Bit, Miss I Have More Money Than God."

"Fuck yeah bitches, it's called a job."

"Hey, I have a job."

"No, you have a come-in-on-just-Saturdays job, which isn't technically a job."

"That's true huh."

"I'm leaving, I don't wanna be late for Econ."

"Mr. Gannon doesn't care."

"Yeah, but he's cool, and he's Irish, so he deserves punctuality or something."

"Alright then, I'll see you guys online!"

I was thinking, as we all slowly made our separate ways to class, how much I really loved being around these guys and that I never wanted to loose touch with any of them, even after we all got older and boring and grouchy and hated our jobs and lives. I cringed at the idea of seeing myself 30 years from now, but I figured I'd be pretty much the same.

The remainder of the day didn't really mean much after Economics, my last class of the day, and as I meandered my way towards Juice and Java, relishing in the small freedom of being able to get out of school earlier than most of the school, I began to really think about that strange dream I'd had last night. It remained in my mind until I'd miraculously found myself in front of the computer, a piece of spaghetti hanging from my mouth, my body forgetting that it had a chewing job to do as my brain took over.

By the way, I never did explain that dream. I opened up Microsoft Word and began typing it out, because if I didn't I would lose it forever in the fuzzy recesses of my mind. I'd come to the conclusion during lunch, while I was eating someone else's Starbursts, that this dream had some deeper profound meaning, maybe. This was beyond me, because I could usually care less about the meaning of dreams if they didn't inspire some artwork, if I could remember them. But there it was, unfolding beneath my fingers...

This funny dream I had

Before I'd opened my eyes, I could feel that things were not quite as they should be. The room was large,

far larger than my small green walled crypt, and my bed had become this four poster chamber of Egyptian

silk and down pillows. I'm just guessing it was Egyptian silk because it felt exotic, and it was incredibly comfortable,

deliciously cool and slippery, a much nicer feel than my black cotton spread that my body usually gets tattooed to when

noon rolls around.

I sat up, or at least I think I did...it was a really odd feeling though. It was like sitting up, but it wasn't me

that was sitting up. Does that make sense? Whatever. It's a fuckin dream, it's hard to explain the sensation. Ah! Surreal!

That's it!

M'kay, so...that's a really big spider on my screen. Hello spider. Your in my way kinda, please move. Thanks much.

Ok...oh yeah! Dream! It was like...an out of body experience, except I wasn't out of my body, looking at myself as you would

expect something like that to be. But it wasn't my body, yet I was in this flesh, anchored to it, but it wasn't mine. It didn't

feel like me, it was like this instinctual sense that automatically knew when things weren't quite right, even if the rest of my

brain hadn't caught up with the problem.

Damnit...this doesn't even make sense...but it feels pretty good getting it out. This dream keeps happening.

I wonder if it means anything.

I stared at the screen. This wasn't coming out the way I'd wanted it to.

It was a sticky spring night, which was a momentary break from all the weird cold weather we'd been getting so far, which I really preferred over this ghastly humidity. It felt like Jersey. Looking at the keyboard intently, as if it held some ultimate answer that I'd miss if I didn't concentrate on it long enough, I thought about hitting the "Delete" key and purging this jumble of crap to the outer reaches of the computer-verse.

Then it came to me, as my finger hovered over the key, that I didn't know if it was truly gone or not. Yeah, to my eyes the document would be blank again, but if you hit the "Undo" button, it would come back again, all highlighted and exactly how you wrote it. If I'd actually deleted it, it wouldn't be able to come back again because it would be gone for good, right? Maybe this "Delete" button just made my text invisible or something, made it undetectable to all things outside of its realm, until a decision was made to see it on the screen again. Maybe that's how the world works in some ways. Somebody, somewhere, decided to press a special button and Pof-Bam, there goes your Birth Certificate, your proof of existence, just vanishes and your suddenly invisible to the world of numbers, codes, and accounts. You were the true embodiment of the Invisible and the Negative. Then some higher power presses "Undo" and suddenly you reclaim your substance and identity.

I stared hard at the "Delete" key. The very existence of the words in this document depended solely on my whim. This key had taken on a new meaning. I decided to keep the text, but I think some small physiological part of myself was forever damaged.

Somewhere off to my left the speakers said: "Kids with guns..."

I had this sudden burning desire to eat yogurt, and as I was trudging my way into the kitchen, the scenery snapped all around me, like a switch had been thrown. My brain adjusted to the change in surroundings before my eyes did, as before, and I tried to make out the lines in the checkered tile floor stretching out and away from me. A large desk, a simple high backed richly upholstered chair, amplified by the towering gothic windows arching tall behind it. It's nighttime: Cool, dark, shadows shifting in the corners of the this expansive room. I took a step forward, aware of the heavy molasses-like resistance against my movements, but it's just as real as before, even down to the sound of whatever shoes I'm wearing connecting with the tiled floor as I walk, making a crisp rhythmic clicking sound.

Hair brushes over my eyes and shoulders, the frames of my other eyes round and rimless, the bitter smell of smoke lingers close by. I'm trying to look around but my vision is so fragmented. Some things are very detailed but they eventually fade back into blurriness, as if someone's just punched out my eye and I'm having this half sight and blindness thing going on. There's a voice off to one side, I can't quite make it out, but it's got to be a man's voice, unless this "woman" has a really deep and smooth bass. There's something about this voice that bothers me, that it sounds so familiar even though I know of no one with such a rich tone like that, because that's the kind of voice that's usually connecting to a gorgeous piece of man flesh and I'd be stalking this person already. I wanted to see who this was. I turned...

I was back, sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, legs stretched out in front of me, hunched over, my hands clasping a skillet as if brandishing it for a fight to the death with a final boss. My eyes shifted slowly. No more checkered tiled floor, no more excessive space, no more orgasm worthy voice over my shoulder, just the atrocious 80's tiled floors and the center of the wooded counter looming above me on all sides, enclosing me in this prison of homey comforts.

I looked at my foot. I was wearing flip-flops-...wait, I'm not wearing shoes, I'm wearing sandals. My hair doesn't cover my ears, it's only longer in front of them, but unless I get extensions or a steroid pumped version of Rogaine, it's never going to be cascading over my shoulders. My glasses are smooth rectangles not spherical. I don't smoke, I think.

All these little details seemed to be falling into a puzzle that wouldn't let me see all of the pieces, and it frustrated me to think about the fact that I'd actually had a hallucination without being previously steeped in some substance or activity. What the hell just happened! Why am I sitting on the floor holding a skillet!

My mom came in and asked me the exact same question running through my mind, a bowl of strawberry sorbet poised in one hand, spoon suspended in the air.

I looked at the skillet.

"I...wanted to make bacon."

"At 9:30 at night?"

"You know how you get those weird urges."

"Yeah...ok...but why are you on the floor?"

Pause.

"I tripped?"

"That's a question honey."

"I got dizzy and fell over."

"..."

"What? Hey, I'm your daughter. I've lived with you for 18 years. You should know by now that I never make any amount of sense."

"No. You make sense in your own way." The spoon hovered like a guided missile.

"My sense doesn't make sense to me sometimes. I think my brain is smarter than it wants me to believe."

"Well, that could be it too."

"Hm...Want some bacon?"

"Get off the floor honey."

I think that my mom understands more of how my brain works than I do...well...maybe in a few cases. I think maybe that job is better suited for Sanity.

There wasn't any bacon but there were eggs up the hooznit, and after 5 straight days of consuming bird embryo, it didn't sound very appetizing now or for the next few months. I washed the skillet and my hands, put it away, and rooted around in the refrigerator for that yogurt I'd been on a quest for.

Some movement among the house made me realize that I'd left a CD outside in my car, which was probably melted to the dashboard, but I figured I'd make the effort to save its plastic life. Stepping outside, I noticed that for 9:30 at night it was incredibly bright, brighter than usual for night time actually, and the world looked very dusty beneath a charred burnt smoky sky. A thick haze of red and light shadow had descended, like a thicker heavier smog than California is usually prone to, which is very impressive to say the least. The sky wasn't raining ash though, like it had when those fires had eaten up the mountains and houses about a block above us.

"Mom. The sky's all red."

"Its been like that all evening." She was watching Law and Order. It's a rerun I think, not one of my favorite episodes though.

"I was asleep."

"You're always asleep."

I did find my CD, which was now warped into an abstract artist's dream, took one last look at the scenery resembling Mount Doom and went back inside to the computer, crammed neatly under the stairs and scouted out role-plays on Gaia that measured up to my standards of interesting. Tonight wasn't my lucky night I guess. Aside from the one I was in, I couldn't find one other decent Hellsing role-play, or at least one that didn't have a band of 3 fingered monkeys with Alzheimer's playing the roles of various Hellsing characters. There should be a Commandment against desecration of an anime character through shitty role-playing, in fact, I decided I'd take that up with God when I saw him. Hey, God, can't you do something about all these know-it-all-but-don't-really-know-it-all people killing character personas? I dunno, maybe you could like electrocute them or something? No? Ok, how about no sex for 3 months? Yeah, I had a plan.

I sent a message to Sanity, who we'd dragged into the Gaia community a while back, who was complaining that Prudence, their menopausal cat, had gone missing again. I told her she was having a cow and a few chickens on account of the new puppy they'd just gotten. I recommended sedatives to keep the feline from devising various ways to dispose of Patience. I got a reply of a string of shouting and screaming smilies, followed by a few sentences about how I was insane and evil and that I needed to make a post so we could move our thread along.

My mind was still hooked to what had happened an hour ago, and I wondered if I was really crazy after all, that there was something actually wrong with me. I mean, I'd had my suspicions all along, but it's much different when you sit down and actually consider the facts with hard evidence. Hallucinations occur, for me anyway, when I've reached certain extremes, like I haven't slept for half a century, too many double shots in one sitting, yadda, yadda, but I'd just taken a nap no more than 5 minutes ago and Starbucks hadn't even popped into my head, 'course now that I was thinking about it, I hungered for Chai Tea. Should I tell Sanity about this? Where would I even start? But something distracted me and I found myself typing out a post for our role-play, trying to decide if I wanted to keep my lackey alive or send him to sleep with the fishes. Maybe it had no meaning, maybe I just had an overactive imagination or some crazy shit like that.

Maybe it was just one of those days.

HeathelFuss- Yeah I know, not a very exciting chapter, but it's chapter 1 so I have an excuse. Feedback is most appreciated, loved, worshipped, devoured with a side of peanut butter. Lucky for you I've been writing out this fic on paper, so I have about 100 some odd pages to fork over in rapid succession, hopefully. After that though it might slow down, simply because I'm a bit lazy and also because I want to make sure I'm not going to run into a wall or something.

Till we meet again!