Several months ago I got on the struggle bus. I haven't reached my stop yet.
I do not own Hellsing.
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It was almost familiar, familial, the way they sat on the floor, side by side, close like parent and child. Her hand was still in his, although it must have been over a minute since he initiated contact. She had yet to pull away from him and he seemed tolerant of the extended touch. All of it was inherently wrong.
"It always hurts." Even she didn't know if she was asking a question or parroting his words. Their joined hands rose and she lifted her eyes, following the movement as the Captain brought them first to his shoulder and then down to hover at his side. Where I stabbed him, she realized, and slipped her hand out of his, nauseous at the violent memory.
"I would not inflict that pain on anyone else. Especially when I know how it feels." She heard him pick up his pencil and start writing, the sound making her jaw clench. Sign language, charades, stares that she could not understand: any option was preferable to these stretches of writing. She grew impatient and frustrated, and reading his responses always left her feeling detached, as if there wasn't emotion or anything living behind the words. Perhaps it was not his intention, but like this, she imagined she was having a conversation with a machine.
'When I am in pain, it is the closest I feel to living and dying. Sometimes it is easy to forget that pain does not mean the same thing for others.'
"You could always—" She stopped short. Hurt yourself. Kill yourself. The sentence needn't have been finished. He shifted, moving so that he was facing her. She grimaced and did not look at him.
'You may live for a very long time. You are the first and maybe the last of your kind. Your death may be natural or unnatural. Some of us find a reason or a purpose to live for many years, while others live a short life and fade into existence. You are young, but you must make this decision now. If you do not, it will be made for you.'
"I don't understand." She wasn't as speechless as she believed she would be. "Should I…? Are you saying I should want to die? With all of you?" She pushed the notebook away. "Was life short for you? Is that why you need pain? Think it's acceptable to, to… Is that why you plan to die?" She covered her face with her hands. Will I become like him if I live long enough? Suicidal… You don't have to be inhuman to be suicidal. She felt a weight settle in her lap and looked down to see the notebook and a new, shorter message.
'Decide what you're going to tell the Doctor.'
Without looking up, "You already told him. I don't have anything more to say."
The book was pulled from her lap. Then it was pushed back. 'Are you going to say anything about him?'
Amelia sat up straight. What began as a confused pause turned into a tense silence. "You didn't tell him everything. You didn't tell him about…" It brought on a strange emotion that she should hesitate to say his name, felt suddenly ashamed to speak it.
The Captain leaned forward, reading upside down until he found what he was looking for and pointed at one of his previous notes. 'You are young, but you must make this decision now.'
She stared at the sentence, and after several seconds, it disappeared. He started writing again, and the posture and energy about him suggested that he was growing impatient, or at the very least, disgruntled. His agitation bothered her; she suddenly found it difficult to sit still in front of him. She needed to stand up. She needed to get up and pace, or walk, or think, alone, and take—
The notebook came back to her.
'Do you want to live after Millennium is gone? The Doctor won't be satisfied with dying. He has you now.' Amelia twitched and shut the notebook, disgusted by the implications. She jabbed her finger at him.
"You kidnapped me—," she began, but did not finish. The Captain held the offending forearm in a bruising grip that did not loosen despite the wince that flashed across her face. The severity in his gaze pained her too much to keep eye contact.
"It's not fair that you ask me questions—that you talk as if I have a choice! For a second, I feel hopeful… I would do anything to go back home and live my normal, boring, sad life. It's not perfect, and I'm not all that happy with it, but it's what I want. And I can't have that anymore. I want it, but it won't be that way. I don't want to be a science experiment. I don't want to die like this. I want to live, and saying that now, knowing what that means, it fucking hurts. I guess you're right: it's always going to hurt. And you're to blame for that." Her accusation was just as much a confession. Things were never going back to the way they were before. She wanted to stare him dead in the eyes as she ranted, make him see that she was strong in her own way, without resorting to violence or intimidation. But reality was just as unfair to her as he was. Covering her face, she hid her tears.
At some point her arm was released, and she tucked it close to her body. Her eyes still burned when a light touch brushed the top of her head, once, twice, then a third time. After the third, she sniffed loudly and lifted her head.
The Captain swept aside a lock of hair that curled towards her eye, making her flinch. But he kept his hand close to her face, his thumb traveling across her cheek to smudge the tear tracks. She was still blinking through tears when he touched her opposite cheek, and she finally pulled away. "Don't touch me." He dropped his hand and retrieved the notebook.
She ran her hands across her face, dragged her fingers through her hair, holding in a scream. She couldn't do this for much longer. By the time he had finished his next message, she all but snatched the booklet out of his hands.
'If you want to survive, you must be strong. Don't tell Doc about Alucard.' The anger in her chest cooled. She returned the notebook with a frown, moving slowly as her thoughts churned.
"Why are you telling me these things? What happens to me won't affect you. You don't stand to gain—or lose—anything."
For a long time he stared down at a blank page in his lap, his expression somewhat lost. When he began writing, his movements lacked the energy from before, the process littered with pauses.
'I have decided to tell you. I am responsible for you. I made you into this, for our sake. I won't save you, but I will help you, if that is what you want.' She scarcely believed what she was reading. There was no altruism, only whimsy.
"I don't trust you. I hate you. I think you're sick. Why would I believe you'll help me when I know you're doing everything in your power to help yourself?"
'Because I threw everything away and found myself standing in the same spot as you.' Setting the notebook aside, he untucked his right pant leg from his boot, pulling the material up to his knee. Multiple scars dotted his skin, spaced close and wrapping around his upper calf in near symmetry. The skin around the healed punctures dipped and raised without pattern, forming and ugly, oblong ring. It took her a moment to identify the old wound she was looking at.
"Th-that's—," she stuttered into silence. Impossible, she wanted to conclude, if she hadn't already been made to understand that things like vampires existed. Guilt, not pity, moved her to apologize for that which she was not responsible.
"I didn't know. I just thought that… I don't know. I thought something different." A single finger slid the book towards her.
'Most of us are not born. We are made.' While he finished adjusting his uniform, she got to her knees and brushed the notebook away.
"You are not a good person, but that does not mean you are incapable of doing good." Her voice was low, and he stilled at the sound. She waited for their eyes to meet before continuing.
"If you know how this feels, then help me stop it. I don't want to be a specimen for the rest of my life." There was a noise from within the lab, a brief interruption, and her eyes widened but remained on him as she scooted closer, speaking faster and managing to just control her volume. "You don't have to save me. You don't even have to set me free. But I will not walk down the road you've chosen for yourself. I can't do—won't do that. As long as you keep me here, as long as you use me, you're going to help me." She expected someone to walk into the room at any minute, see her rambling, panicked, in a hushed voice and leaning in like she wanted a kiss. It wouldn't end well.
"Swear. Swear that you'll help me get through this. Alive. And if you break your promise," she surprised them both when she grabbed him by the collar and tugged, bringing them nose-to-nose, "death won't be enough to save you from me." Her hands shook as she held him in her cold, damp grip. Face awash in desperation, she searched his eyes for an inkling of empathy, everything hinging on his concession.
He extricated her fingers from his coat with ease as her lower jaw hung slack. One of her hands he clasped in a handshake, and he pulled her closer by the shoulder, their foreheads touching for a moment.
She expected more: a rush of emotion, a written statement, hell, even a sound to leave his mouth. Yet none of these things transpired. It was only him and her, sitting in the quiet with an unspoken agreement.