Scarlet

Request: Maybe a Hellsing crossover?

Suzaku couldn't forget the glint he had seen in her eyes when he had glanced at her in the darkness of the crisis he had been shoved into in the early hours of that day. His mistress, the one who had given him life when he had been on the brink of death… Usually one so carefully guarded, so apathetic, had looked… Shocked. Afraid. Vulnerable. And something he couldn't quite place his finger on, no matter how much he mulled over the puzzle...

He tried to shake it off - it was probably just his imagination, a trick of the light. There was no way that C.C., a vampire, a monster, who enjoyed killing in cold blood, would feel fear's icy grip around her heart. Hell, she didn't even have a heart for fear to wrap its sinister fingers around. He remembered how, when his mistress's master, Sir Lelouch vi Britannia, had taken the short knife and plunged it into his neck before falling to the ground, she hadn't cried out. She hadn't even look surprised as she walked towards him. She had just stood there, as still as a statue, as crimson blood pooled and wet the toes of her high-heel boots. In fact, the only reaction she had had to watching the life of her master bleed out was the raising of the hem of her scarlet dress. She hadn't helped Jeremiah staunch the bleeding, she hadn't called for the doctor as he had, and she hadn't helped move the dying body to the empty ballroom, where the surgical procedure was to take place. She hadn't even said a word.

If Suzaku didn't know better, he'd have guessed that his mistress wanted Lelouch vi Britannia dead, with the way she had been completely passive to the emergency.

He shook his head as he tried to clear the riddles and questions plaguing his head he knew would never be answered. It was better to be ignorant, at times, especially when it came to issues that didn't involve him. What did it matter what the nature of the relationship between his mistress and the leader of the Hellsing Organization was, as long as it allowed for them to work together and well? It was true that he was curious to know what the backstory was that connected the man and woman together, the reason the vampire had accepted the human and the human had accepted the vampire, but it wasn't any of his business to tamper. He hadn't joined to snoop around - he had joined to make the United Kingdom a safer place, to protect the Crown from… From his kind. From the monsters.

Suzaku walked briskly - it was late, and the mansion, which was usually entrenched in the shadows, had grown darker with the surrender of day to night. All was silent save for his footsteps, and though he was supposedly a "creature of the night," shivers still ran up his spine as he tried not to imagine what demons were hiding in the nooks and crannies that no human, or monster, could see. Arriving at a crossway, he was about to turn left, when he stopped. There, down the hallway to his right, was a sliver of silvery light. Suzaku stared, his curiosity sparked - he knew that he wasn't the only vampire within the premises, but everyone above ground should have been sleeping. What was going on?

Moving without a noise so as not to alert whoever was still awake within the walls of castle, he crept towards the twin doors and positioned himself so that he was cloaked by the shadows but could see through the tiny crack. Peering inside, he realized that he was standing in front of a lavish bedroom. Most likely Lelouch's, from the looks of it.

"Shouldn't you be in bed sleeping right now?"

He started, alarmed that he had already been caught, when he realized that the question had been directed towards the man in the wheelchair. He watched with wide eyes as his mistress came into view, wearing nothing but a rose silk slip and a satin robe that hung loosely on her slender frame. Her hair, which was usually tied up into an impeccable bun, hung loose and free, and the soft moonlight illuminated the emeralds cascading down her back. She looked beautiful, like a temptress or a goddess who would grant wishes to only the worthiest and most honorable of men, and nothing like a cold-hearted killer.

"What of you? What are you doing in your nightgown when it's broad daylight for you?"

"Maybe I like a change of pace every now and then. My wardrobe isn't excluded to only formal dresses. You made sure of that, did you not?"

"Only by your demand, you damn selfish woman."

"Oh? Is that how you see me as? As a woman? Not as as monster or a tool?"

This banter… Was nothing like the terse conversations the two usually held. There was so much mischief in each word and exchange. Even Sir Lelouch, who Suzaku had thought was the most uptight and ill-humored individual he had ever met, had had a light tone as he playfully nipped back at her. What was this? What had he stumbled upon?

"You should rest, Lelouch. You may deal with vampires and immortals, but you are human. You are a mortal. Your mistakes can be paid with your own life. Don't forget that."

"I made a terrible mistake today, didn't I?"

"You nearly died, you fool. Make sure that it doesn't happen again."

"What? Making a mistake?"

"No. Brushing shoulders with Death."

She slunk towards him before stepping onto the balcony and into the light. Raising his chin so that he looked into her blood-red eyes, she whispered, "Don't turn me into a mortal again, Lelouch. I can't afford to feel any emotion. Especially any that can distract me from defeating our adversaries."

"I'm not going to make any promises."

She smiled.

"And there's the Master that I've been looking for."

"Was I not here all this time?"

"No."

"Where did I go?"

"To a place far away," she said softly. "A place I wouldn't be able to save you. You left to go to a place where I am forever barred from."

Suzaku hadn't realized he had been holding his breath, but as he waited for his reply, he noticed how tight his chest felt. Releasing his breath, he inhaled deeply, and nearly missed his answer.

"I came back though, didn't I?"

"You did."

"I'm not finished with the Hellsing Organization, C.C., or the creatures known as vampires. And I've not forgotten our promise."

"Our contract," she said sharply. "We are in a contractual relationship. Nothing more, and nothing less."

"Then why were you so worried?"

So that was it. That was what he had seen in her eyes when they had been watching the doctors cut open and stitch up his mistress's master. He wondered if that were even possible, if maybe he was just putting puzzle pieces together that didn't really match and if he was assuming incorrectly. But then he remembered La Morte Amoureuse, the musty book he had found in the mansion's library, which he often liked to slip into and read on the evenings - or perhaps the more correct term was days - he couldn't sleep, haunted by his vampiric lust for blood. The story had been one of a priest, who had fallen in love with a woman named Clarimonde. The priest loved Clarimonde, in spite of his vows to the church, and it was all a very nice love story, albeit a strange one, until the reader had their suspicions confirmed at the end of the tale and was told that Clarimonde was in fact a vampire.

He was just assuming, from what he little he had seen. He could be extremely wrong and could be jumping to conclusions. He would have thought that he was jumping to conclusions, if not for one thing - the way they looked at one another. The hard edges in their eyes had softened, and though they didn't exactly smile, they weren't frowning either. It was very strange and confusing, and Suzaku was made to realize once again that, for all of the connections and time he had spent with his mistress, even with the telepathy and the way her blood revived him and stole him away from Death's clutches, he would never be able to understand his mistress as Lelouch vi Britannia did.

Request Complete