Author's Note: Has anyone else ever thought about how Anderson's nicknames are a mouthful? If you're a vampire, you don't have time to say "It's Off-With-His-Head-Anderson!" before you die. Personally, I like my own blunder-filled brain's opinion, which made me spout off "Pixie-Dust Anderson" once. (He was one of the Lost Boys, right?)
Seras flipped through the book Walter had given her. She had enjoyed reading the highlighted tales of sirens, but most of it was false, except for the bits that Walter had already told them about at the briefing. Now, she was indulging in fanciful tales of Celtic druids and fairies. Turning the page, she was greeted by a pretty blonde woman with the title "mermaid" glittering in embossed gold above her head. Smiling, she rolled her eyes at the highlighted pages beneath her hands. Surely mermaids and fairies weren't real. Maybe Walter was playing a trick on her or something with this book. Still, it was very old and Walter wasn't the type to bring a prank so far as to ruin a perfectly ancient book with a highlighter.
Seras… Seras…. SERAS. Seras looked around the room. Alucard called her, but she thought he had already turned in for the day. She focused on his room down below, but he wasn't in there. Looking in the ceiling and all over the walls, she shrugged and went back to her book, disregarding the disembodied voice. If he really wanted her, he knew where she was. She looked back down at the book to see two glowing eyes smack-dab in the middle of the pages, the voice growling playfully. She was so shocked, she could do nothing more than shriek like a banshee before her mind caught up and she realized that it was her master. Dark chuckles filled the room and she frowned as the eyes vanished and Alucard phased through her mattress to join her on the bed. She tapped his head lightly with the book when he bent over to accommodate for the lack of space where she hadn't raised the lid to her bed all the way.
"Master, you're so mean sometimes. Can't you quit your teasing for one night?" she grumbled as she moved over to give him more room. He spread out, crowding her into one side of the bed and she gritted her teeth and buried her nose in the book, determined to not let him see any sign of irritation on her part.
"I might; but it's daytime now, not nighttime. And yet my dear fledgling is foregoing her beauty sleep to read. Such a little scholar, you are." He seemed just as determined as she was to make her blow a fuse as he pressed every button she had. He began to fiddle with a stray thread on her nightgown, tapping his foot loudly against the side of the coffin and looking around her arm to see what she read.
Taking a deep breath, Seras gave in and let him worm an arm around her, laying her head on his shoulder and lifting the book up so that he could see as well. He was apparently planning on staying around for a while judging by the lack of outerwear and even his vest, leaving him only in his undershirt and pants, sans boots. For Alucard, that meant two things: 1-he couldn't sleep because of any number of factors ranging from a nightmare that he'd never admit to having to thoughts that wouldn't settle; or 2- he was bored and not ready for bed yet, so he decided to get some entertainment from her. By his lack of clothing and shoes, she opted for number one.
"Are there really mermaids out there?" she asked him. If anyone had seen a mermaid, it would have been him. He probably was the first one to kill a mermaid, too. He gave a snort at her thoughts and pulled her closer unconsciously in his effort to see the page.
"I haven't, actually. But I know that they're out there, because others I've spoken to have. In fact, a Nereid told me that she'd met quite a few. They are some of the better creatures in the world. They keep to themselves and hardly come out of the ocean." Alucard yawned, covering it with his arm.
"That's what it says here, too," Seras said as she scanned the highlighted portion. "What's a Nereid?"
"Have you ever heard any of the Greek's tales? Calypso is a Nereid," he answered softly. "They are the opposite of Sirens, beautiful and wise. They help those they deem worthy of assistance. I've met three in my existence." Seras turned to him in interest.
"What were their names? Did you meet Calypso?" she asked. She'd heard the story of Odysseus in her schoolchild days, and had always felt terrible for Calypso's fated relationship with the hero of the story. Of course Odysseus must find a way back to his beloved Penelope eventually-he'd never be allowed to stay on an island with a beautiful goddess, unable to leave.
"No, my inquisitive little one. Their names were Dione, Thaleia, and Maera. Each helped me in a different way. Maera even kept me from being shipwrecked."
"Wow." Seras smiled as she imagined what beautiful creatures they must have been, if they were opposites of hideous Sirens. "We could use the help now, huh?" She turned the page away from the mermaids to glance at the woman depicted in a beautiful Oriental gown. "Yuki-onna…" she murmured. Alucard took one look at the picture and let out a barking laugh.
"She looks nothing like that. She's a vampire, but she takes the form of a small child. Her name is Yuki, though. They have that right." He closed his eyes and Seras let out a yawn of her own. It was getting rather late in the morning.
"Master? Aren't you going back to your room? I think I want to go to bed now." She placed the book on her nightstand and grabbed the remote that worked the lid to her bed. Alucard made no move to get up, instead curling his legs slightly and getting more comfortable.
"Hmm? You should read if that's what you want. I was only teasing about the beauty sleep. You don't need it," he dismissed with another yawn. Seras frowned and nudged his feet out of the way before lying back down and hitting the remote's button. She didn't mind it if he stayed and he knew it, so why did he have to beat around the bush?
If he wanted to sleep with her today, he could just say it. It's not like they hadn't done so before a thousand times when Seras had been having horrible nightmares about Incognito and the fall of the Tower of London. She had ran down to her Master's coffin and he'd (albeit hesitantly and with lots of arguing and pleading) allowed her to curl up and gain some small margin of comfort from his stiff form in her rest. She was pretty sure he came to lay with her for a while whenever he had nightmares as well, but he never stayed until morning and she never woke up fully enough to figure out if it was real or a dream.
He said nothing to answer her unspoken questions as she snuggled into the crook of his arm, her mind already becoming more sluggish in the dim light and shared warmth. She agreed with her previous thoughts that humans could never understand the nature of what she shared with the man beside her-if any of the soldiers knew that she shared her coffin she'd be the talk of the town. As it was, only Walter knew and he was always the perfect picture of confidentiality.
"Master?" she asked sleepily. When he grunted she continued. "Did you have a bad dream today?" He humphed and shifted around against the wall of the coffin, his back in the corner where the wall met the mattress.
"I don't have bad dreams, Seras. I am not a child." She opened one eye, thankful for her enhanced vision. His face was tense and he had his eyes screwed shut. Bull shit.
"And here I thought you valued honesty," she jibbed, wrapping both her arms around one of his to let him know she was only teasing. He sniffed haughtily.
"I abhor liars, but I'm not lying. I don't have any bad dreams." He paused for a moment. "I have bad memories."
"Are you sure this is going to work?" Integra looked around at the room, making sure for the millionth time that they hadn't forgotten anything in their hurried packing. She was dressed in her last clean outfit, her knapsack slug on her back. Anderson frowned and rolled his eyes, motioning her over to the center of the room.
"It worked in London; it will work here." He noticed her examination of the room and growled under his breath. "We've already checked everywhere. It's all in your bag, and if it's not it's a simple matter of coming back for it." Integra arched a brow, but joined him under the cheap lighting.
"So says the man who'd leave behind his own head if it wasn't screwed onto his shoulders," she noted she looked him over before hopping up onto his back, looping her arms over his shoulders. "Come on, let's get this over with so we can make that reservation in Liverpool," she muttered in his ear. She wasn't being truthful-she was actually just excited to get to travel by- page? -without being loopy and missing the experience. Anderson nodded his assent and reached deep into his jacket, pulling out a worn bible. Before she could rein it in, she let out a small sound of awe. Can he really just hide anything in there? Or is it some sort of… holy magic-mumbo-jumbo? She had the sudden urge to crawl in there and see if she fell down a rabbit-hole or a wardrobe or something.
"Hold on tight now. I don't want to have to go looking for your body parts if you happen to slip." She had all of a millisecond to wonder if he was joking before the bible flipped open of its own accord and the fluttering of pages filled her ears. It sounded like thousands upon thousands of flapping wings accosting her eardrums and she tightened her hold on the man who was now her only anchor to reality. It all became too much and she closed her eyes to clear the dizziness from her mind before gravity righted itself and the fluttering subsided , only to be replaced by bustling city noises. She opened her eyes cautiously to see that they had landed in an alleyway outside of the hotel they'd made reservations at. She looked up at the towering building before sighing, slumping against his shoulder. That wasn't as fun as she imagined it was. He shook his shoulders slightly, trying to get her to let go of her death-grip on his shoulders. "Come on; we're here now. Let's check in, right?"
"Right." Integra slid off his back and stumbled slightly, still shaken from the ride. Anderson looked back and shook his head before grabbing her arm and leading her out to the front doors.
Afterword: Another short chapter. Boo, Juju! The people want to see more! *sobs and continues to work on homework* Trust me, I'd rather be writing for you guys than determining the shift in a supply curve as related to free tickets to see The Tonight Show.