K peeoples, (pronounced Pee-op-pels, if you must know) This was a hard chapter to write...I really don't like writing dramatic, angst-inducing events. They drive me nuts. Also, sorry if that last chapter seemed rushed...I am trying to post a chapter per day as per demand. (Good gravy you people are ON me about those reviews! Not that I'm complaining) On that note- No, no one will die...Yet. (Mwahahahaha) But these circumstances do impact things.
On that note, I have an idea for a Hellsing only fic that centers around Alucard and Walter. (I really do like Walter; shame he had to DIE, like most side characters I fancy) Yaoi will be incorporated. (But in a very very different kind of light...Episode X haunts me too much to fall back on people's usual explainations for that) Maybe touch on Walter's childhood...I dunno. I want to know if ya'll'd like to see it, since I'm not too attatched to the idea at this point. Give me your thoughts and opinions. :)
Now, shall we get on with this?
WARNINGS: Blood, obviously, Angst, also obviously,- SPOILS for Alucard's past (what we seen of it, which wasn't much) and allusions to Seras's. Spoils/again mentioning Ciel's past (Book of Circus) Possible OOCness.
ONWARD!
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CH VIII
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Seras's eyes were wide with shock- as were Ciel's. He coughed, spraying blood as he did so. There was a distinctly ugly gurgling noise, followed immediately by a strange kind of hissing sound. Ciel made not a sound himself, but instead fell to his knees, gaze lost to the shock he could feel his body experiencing- strange, as he'd been shot before an never felt like this. He clutched his wound absently- Good God it hurt like hell. What the hell was that bullet made of? He daren't look down at the blood he could feel pool on the ground, darent examine his wound. He had a sense if he did he would panic- a feeling he hadn't experienced since he was a small child on that altar, being burned alive; he hadn't wanted to look then either. The sensation was too much.
"Ciel! Master!" Sebastian's voice sounded really far away- why was he on the floor now? He must have collapsed. Oh God, his chest hurt. It hurt and yet it felt numb at the same time- how was that possible? He felt himself involuntarily cough, the action sending ripples of a deep ache through his chest. His wound burned like that, he realised, burned like he was being branded all over again. It was a pain he did not often try to remember, but it came back to him now. He felt something touch his wound, opening eyes he hadn't remembered closing, but seeing little more than blurrs, heard muffled voices across the room- he recognised three; Sebastian, Alucard, and Integra. They were saying things...What were they talking about? Oh, right, he got shot because his servant did something stupid. Go figure.
He opened his eyes again, finding Sebastian leaning over him in a blurry image that slowly came into clarity. He had his hands on Ciel's chest, staunching the surprisingly profuse bleeding. Then again, he had a seven inch hole in his chest, so...
"I warned you, demon-" It was Integra- he could somehow make out her voice in his moment of clarity. "I warned you to mind yourself, and to mind Alucard. I can not help it if you broke his rules."
"Those rounds are made with a mercury based explosive that detonates on impact- I imagine he'll take a few days to recover from that."
"Mercury?" Sebastian's voice warbled again, but Ciel fought to stay conscious. He sounded concerned- something unbecomming of Sebastian.
"Yes. Cassul is one of the only firearms on the grounds that uses such heavy ammunition, but it is extremely effective against even the most stubborn of vampires- why?" Integra spoke. She sounded like she was underwater to Ciel, but he knew that was just him.
'Am I going to die?' He thought. Clearly there was something different about this weapon, so maybe it could kill him.
"...Some demons have no resistance to Mercury. It works like silver on certain ones of our kind. I am genetically immune to it, but Ciel and I come from very different bloodlines; in fact, I am not even sure how he came to be a demon, so I can not say he is from any bloodline." Sebastian's voice began to fade, and Ciel forced himself to stay awake, willing his hand to move with as much energy as he had- he hadn't fed lately, so his strength was shoddy anyway, on top of his now apparently debilitating wound. Sebastian seemed to notice his movement, and he heard a distant booming noise- which he realised belatedly was Alucard's laughter. He felt something tug at him from the inside, making his contracting eye hurt like hell. He realised again late that Sebastain was on the verge of loosing his cool- something that didn't happen very often.
"S...Sebas...tian..." He forced himself to talk, to snap Sebastian out of it. His energy was rising and swirling and damn did his eye hurt. "Sebastian," He croaked. It seemed to work, and Sebastian's energy faded- at least, he thought it did. He wasn't too sure in his half-conscious state. "Master, You'll be alright. There may have been mercury in those rounds, but I don't think there was enough to kill you. But sadly your wounds will take some time to heal." He hadn't the strength to open his eyes. "Feed...Sebastian...Strength..."
"What?" He heard Integra say- but her voice sounded far away again. He realised with a mental start that he was being carried now. "You truly have good timing for these things, Alucard." Sebastian said bitterly. "My master and I were in need of feeding ourselves just before this happened. However, in his state, he can not feed for a while more- a fact that will drastically slow his recovery. I can not act in battle without him beside me, nor can I feed myself. So- it would seem you've won this round." Sebastian rued. It seemed she wasn't satisfied with that response, but he blacked out before he could hear the rest of their talk, too tired to fight it anymore.
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Integra waited for everyone to calm down before she crept through the halls later that night to the door of the demon's room- she felt truly damned for it, but she supposed if she let the little demon die she'd have Sebastian to contend with- as well as Alucard- and frankly she wasn't sure she could handle them both. She heard a quiet "enter" before she even knocked, and walked into their room with a straight posture. She found she didn't have the gusto, though, when she seen Ciel's body prostrate on the bed, shirtless and wrapped tightly in bandages. She kept her voice authoritative, thoughwhen she adressed the demon sitting beside his Master on the bed.
"Will he live?"
"With time. But I am unsure how much of that we have. Ciel told me the vampires are beginning to infect more and more people in london, making more Ghouls- your men are having to be dispatched almost every night to deal with the problem. I feel that our fight will be upon us soon- but I can not fight what I believe I will have to if Ciel does not release my power. Which he can not do in his weakened state." Sebastian explained, eyes never lifting from Ciel. He had a confused look on his face she was more accustomed to seeing on Alucard, as if he didn't understand his own feelings right then. "I am bound to him." He said quietly after a moment.
"I know. He told me you can not feed on your own." He looked up at her then, a smiling grimmace on his face. "That does not surprise me. He seems very fond of you."
"You're telling me." She huffed. She looked at Ciel for a long moment, seeing from her periphery that the butler did the same.
"Is there any way to help him?" She asked after a moment, unsure. They would undoubtedly need the demons for the fight to come, but she felt compelled to offer her assistance for more reasons than that. Damn her human heart. Damn her human emotions. Damn her all to hell for feeling pity for a demon.
"Hm...I suppose we can try feeding him blood once he is conscious, but without the presence of a living soul I can not guarantee it will help him much."
"I see." She said, looking down before bringing her gaze back up to them- Sebastian had yet another unusual expression on his face, and she suddenly got the impression she was somehow interrupting something. "How soon do you suppose he will be back on his feet, so to speak?"
"Oh, he'll be able to stand within a day or two- but he will not be strong enough to fight or feed for at least a week, if not more. A long time by demon standards." Sebastian replied. He seemed to be having some kind of internal conflict, so she backed out of the room then, leaving him to sort himself out alone. If there was nothing she could do to help them, then there wasn't anything she could do about it.
'Alucard, you and your stupid pride...'
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Alucard appeared in Sera's room as she prepared for bed- his favorite time to bug her, it seemed. Then again, she did say some pretty unkind things to him while she was angry...and he did say he'd have to punish her...A sudden sense of dread pooled in her belly at his company. He seemed to notice her apprehension, and he laughed at her sardonically.
"I will not punish you physically. No, that would be abuse." He sneered. She immediately cringed, regretting her rant at him before. "You can not take back what you said. You would not have said it if you did not believe it either. No matter how small the part of you that does." She was about to retort, but thought better of it. He was right, as much as she hated to admit it.
"Tell me, Seras- what exactly do you know about me?" The question threw her off guard. "What I know about you? Well, I know you were a Count once...I know you used to be Vlad the Impaler...And I know that you and Walter were pretty close- at least, you knew each other pretty well. A-and, I know you're super strong 'cause Hellsing did some weird stuff to you..." She trailed off, unsure exactly what he was asking. "I know you're mean, but...I don't think you're always that way on purpose." He quirked a brow at this.
"Do explain." He drawled, edges of his mouth turning up in a smirk.
"I-I mean...You aren't exactly the kind of person who is always good with words, is all..." Seeing his brow rise higher as his smirk faded promted her to continue. "W-what I mean to say is that you have a different way of communicating with people, so sometimes it comes off as something maybe it wasn't supposed to be?" She confused herself now, much to his apparent amusement. "I'm not totally sure how to say what I mean, but...well, neither do you." She settled with. She sighed. "What I guess I want to say is that...I'm sorry, for saying those things. You were right about him tricking me, making me think things to push us apart, no doubt, the lying cretin." her brow furrowed almost cutely as she thought about it before relaxing. "But I guess that's my fault."
"Indeed." He replied, and she had to fight not to feel insulted. He laughed at her struggles.
"You said once you wanted to know why I always, and I quote, 'take it out on you'," She cringed at the sneer in his voice. "Are you really sure you want to know why?" She nodded. She was almost positive he was just going to try scaring her, but at the same time...
His booming laughter caught her completely off guard. "Seems you know me well enough," he said finally, moving away from the wall he had appeared from and coming to stand beside her where she sat at the vanity. She wore her sleeping clothes, having already made most her routine preparations. (which meant basically changing clothes and brushing her hair now that she need'nt do anything else...). "Perhaps you are naive, but you are remarkably observant for the kind of person you are."
"And just what's that supposed to mean?"
"It means I find you interesting." She had to balk at his words, unsure if they meant good or bad things for her. Again, he laughed at her thoughts. "Frankly speaking, Seras- I don't know."
"Don't know what?" She asked, confused.
"I don't know why I take it out on you," He replied simply, his expression neutral in a casual kind of way. He seemed...relaxed. Which was strange to her for some reason. "As you might say, it's something I do because I don't know how to put to words what I...feel." He said the word strangely, as if it made him uncomfortable. Which, knowing him, it probably did.
"And..." dare she ask? "What...what do you feel?" She asked quietly. His expression seemed thoughtful as she peered up at him. At least he was taking her seriously.
"I don't know that either," He finally replied, gloved fingers smoothing over his jaw as if soothing some absent stubble she knew was only there if it had to be.
"Words are not my forte- action is. Feelings are even less my forte- rather, they are less than a diminuendo to me. I don't feel- I just act." He explained, eyes having a distant kind of quality that came from honest thought.
"But you do think, Master. A lot." He chuckled almost mirthily at her. "That I do. And I've had a great deal more time to do so than you- even more so after those thirty years." She could only imagine what it was like to destroy a "self"- she called them "ghosts", which seemed to fit better since they were only kind-of there - you had consumed.
"It is a long process- you must willingly relinquish them from your mind, from your body; but not very many vampires can do that, nor would they desire to- after all, the more you consume, the more power they can grant you."
"That's true..." She suddenl remembered the nightmare Alucard had had that night- it felt like forever ago to her- and could not help but wonder if he had been dreaming of fighting one of the "ghosts" he'd consumed- did one even have to fight them?
"Sometimes." He replied. "Believe it or not, some of them do not like to go willingly."
"Hn. Master-"
"You don't want to know about my nightmares, Seras." He said, a note of meloncholy touching his tone.
"But...I don't know, maybe sharing it would help? I assume you've had the nightmare before." She remembered Sebastian saying something that stuck to her now-
He suffers a most tortured childhood- though his story is not mine to tell, I can see the way it has affected him; he is angry. Deeply, deeply angry.
"Sometimes talking to people helps, believe it or not."
'There's a technique in the police force, whereby you use the suspects desire for recognition to get them to confess. I'm not accusing him of anything, but...maybe if I acknowledged his suffering, he might not feel so bad about it.' She made sure to guard her thoughts from him so he wouldn't suspect her.
"Again, I am confident you don't want to know. You would pity me, in any case- and I hate being pitied." He hissed. "It's a useless feeling. You can not change what has happened to me any more than I can change what has happened to you- so what's the point in feeling ill about it?"
"Because...whether you want it to or not, it still haunts you." Seras said bolder than she meant to. "I...I get nightmares, sometimes, about...about my parents." She had to swallow the lump in her throat. "I don't want anyone to change what happened, either- but...talking about it to the psychologist at the orphanage, having people recognise that that happened to me...it kept me grounded. Made me feel like I wasn't...wasn't alone. Not completely." her voice got quieter as she talked. "Even you have to get lonely, Master." She added the last part before regretting it. It was never a good idea to make assumtions about Alucard, even if they were right. There was a long silence before Seras looked up at her master- only to find his gaze lost again, though his face had a decidedly conflicted appearance to it.
"Master?"
"You really want to know what I have nightmares about, Seras?" He said suddenly, a note of malice lying somewhere in his voice as he smiled- toothily. "Fine. But don't say I did not warn you." He pulled back his sleeve suddenly and offered her his wrist. "Bite me."
"But-"
"It will not break our bond- it takes a progressive amount of blood to do that. A little bit here won't do anything. Now bite me." She hesitated. He growled impatiently, stepping closer.
"Drink from me."
She grasped his arm almost delicately, and she suddenly didn't appreciate the shit-eating grin on his face. But, she obeyed, resting her fangs against his skin testingly before letting them sink in- noticing on the way that her Master litterally had thicker skin than most humans. Upon feeling his blood, which had a surprisingly sweet taste, flow down her throat, she felt her mind aussaged by memories, by thoughts, by feelings- and suddenly, she understood too well the nightmare-world he'd lived in. But as she went deeper into his memories, his human memories, her stomach suddenly twisted in disgust, making her immediately release him in favor of retching his blood onto the floor.
"I tried to tell you." was all he said, smug smile on his face. She had to gasp, parlty out of reflex when one vomitted, and partly from the sudden squeezing pain in her chest. She suddenly couldn't blame him for being angry- or losing his faith in God.
"You...They..."
"They raped me. They tortured me. They starved me. They humiliated me, in more ways than I care to share." He said, smiling wickedly, almost ruefully. "I know. How well I know." She was at a loss for words- loss for thoughts as well, apparently. She was trying not to have an anxiety attack, focusing on calming down. He could have just told her they'd done all of that, he didn't have to show her it. She'd watched before-
'No, don't even go there, we are NOT going there,'
"Seras?" Alucard said, but she was too preoccupied with NOT focusing on the remarkably vivid rape scene she'd witnessed...again.
'DO NOT GO THERE!'
"Seras!" Alucard pulled her from her thoughts, and she seen him through a reddish haze. She realised then, that she was crying.
"I-I'm sorry, M-Master...I'll c-collect myself..." Her voice trembled, and she fought back a sob that pushed at her diaphragm with all her might, closing her eyes against the anxiety. She shook visibly.
Suddenly, there was a hand on her shoulder- and it didn't do anything but rest there, a small solace. The closest to an apology she'd ever probably get from him, too. "Seras." He said her name again. She looked back up at him, swallowing thickly. He had a strange expression. A moment passed, and she stood up in spite of herself, wrapping her arms around his waist. He froze at the contact, but made no move to remove her. She held onto him for his benefit as much as hers, so she figured. She didn't know how to say 'I understand' and 'you aren't alone' to him without sounding piteous. He was a "man of action" anyway, right? His dark chuckle served to soothe her strangely, and she felt...safe, for lack of a better term. His coat was surprisingly soft against her face, and she could feel his subtle warmth. He wasn't a monster, not here and now. He was...something else.
"I will always be a monster, Seras. No matter if you think of me otherwise- though, really, you shouldn't. You still don't know the half of it."
"I don't care." She murmured against his coat. "What's in the past it in the past. Here and now..." She couldn't finish- she wasn't sure how to speak her mind for once, but he seemed to understand, hand resting almost delicately on the center of her back.
"Master?" She thought of something.
"Yes?"
"Do you think we can dance again soon?" He seemd surprised before he chuckled lightly.
"I think I can arrange that."
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There ya go, you ravenous wolves, the closest to an honestly "fluffy" moment between these two as you'll probably get. Don't forget to Review/PM me with your opinion about that other fic- I really wanna know, so do this struggling college kid (aren't we all?) a favor and pitch in your ideas.
No asterisks, I don't think...
