The Seldom Seen
AN: Still kinda sick, but I wrote this to give y'all something to read. Once again, blame Lithi. :D
29: I Missed You
Seras Victoria missed her Master. Quite badly, in fact. When everything was said and done and the fires were put out, Seras had pulled her Master's coffin from the wreckage of the plane on the ship and carried it back to Hellsing and into the underground levels. For the first few nights (days) she had slept in her own room after visiting Integra in the hospital to ensure she was still all right (she was).
But then she'd gotten lonely. Oh, it was no fault of Integra's – whom was charged with rebuilding London by the Queen – it was simply the fact that her Master was gone, and Hellsing was empty. She took to spending time in his room, curled up on his throne like chair and dozing fitfully, wrapped in the warmth of her shadows that took the place of her left arm.
As the days passed into weeks, the chair no longer held the scent of her Sire, smothered by her own, and this saddened her greatly. Under Sir Integra's suggestions and mild guidance, Seras had started her meditative self lessons to try and mold the shadows into a convincing arm shape to cover with long sleeves and a glove. It wasn't working out all that well.
Frustrated with herself, and wishing desperately that Alucard would return now rather than later, Seras did the unthinkable and crept into his coffin to sleep that night(morning). She dreamed of him in a sea of blood, killing, killing, killlingkillingkilling… But the dead did not become a part of him, instead, they vanished, as though… he were removing them from himself.
She woke with an oddly calm feeling in her heart and her head, and the swirling mass of blood tainted shadow coalesced into a single mass on the first try, taking a mostly recognizable shape of a human arm.
Months turned into years – three, to be exact – and Hellsing Manor was mostly rebuilt, though it was not yet as grand as it once was the lower levels had remained intact, allowing Seras to stay in the only home she had left during the on and off construction. She had been sent on clean up missions on innumerable occasions to deal with lingering FREAKS or unearthed ghouls. She was, it felt like, Britain's only defense against the undead after the London Blitz.
She was returning from one such mission this night, actually, and she dropped her weapons off in her room to clean later – not her beloved cannons, sadly, but still high caliber assault weapons beyond normal human capacity, so that was something – and took a shower to wash away all the putrefied blood and grime clinging to her skin and hair. She emerged minutes later, rubbing the towel through her messy blonde spikes, and clad in an oversized t-shirt with a depiction of a white kitten that she'd fabric painted black wings and fangs to. Flinging the towel onto her unused bed, she phased through the floor to reach the lowest sub basement level where her Master's chambers still lay. Grinning to herself at the thought of what his reaction would be, the fledgling giggled and gently lifted the lid to crawl into the black coffin she'd snuck a fuzzy blanket into and secreted away the black dog plush she'd modified with extra eyes and named Baskerville.
Cuddling the doll to her chest, she fell into an easy doze that deepened into dream haunted sleep, filled with her Master and the growing ocean of blood and slowly shrinking mass of bodies surrounding him.
When the years became the first decade, Seras had stopped sleeping in her Master's coffin on a regular basis, instead having her own customized one; it was a bit like her Master's with crimson velvet lining the insides, dirt from her birthplace beneath a comfy layer, the outside was pure obsidian. Though it had no phrases like her Master's 'bird of hermes', if you looked closely enough a signature could be found in the corner reading 'For Integra's pet Monster'.
She was Integra's constant companion and bodyguard, and allowed the woman (who was only two years her senior, despite their difference in appearance as she didn't physically age any longer) to vent her frustrations with the new Round Table members not getting along. Time had a way of fixing such things, and if it didn't, Seras Victoria – Hellsing's Trump Card – was there as a back up plan. Nothing a little well placed intimidation couldn't cure…
The blonde grinned savagely to herself, ivory teeth sharp and blood hungry as she recalled how easy it was to cow the upstarts with a simple show of allowing her arm to turn black and leak tendrils around the edges.
Ah, but that was a bad habit, she scolded herself. She was becoming a bit too much like her Master, according to Sir Integra.
"Not that that's necessarily a bad thing…" The Draculina sighed and decided to visit her Sire's chambers. It wasn't long before she was asleep once more in the last connection she had to her Master; his coffin. Again she dreamed of him, and she noted that the number of bodies was diminished by approximately a third of their number from the first night she'd seen him this way.
Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing questioned her surety of Alucard's return. Seras would smile, and simply tell the woman that she knew he'd be back.
Ten years became fifteen, and fifteen became twenty. London was almost fully restored to its former glory, though the peoples were hesitant to return, and Hellsing's work was nearing its end, though they would forever be charged with protecting their great nation from the unholy and unjust.
Though she didn't admit it, Seras knew that Integra had given up hope on Alucard's return. She understood, truly, but that did not hamper the fact that she knew.
The little Draculina had done a lot of growing up in the years since her Sire's disappearance, and she considered it a good thing. She had a good grasp on her powers, and had long since been drinking the medical blood regularly. In fact, the blonde often enjoyed taking a 'midnight stroll' in the form of a small swarm of bats, and Integra understood.
"Such a beautiful moon tonight…" She mused, staring up at the ripe sphere glowing in the night sky.
"You're sounding more and more like him as the years pass, Seras. It's almost eerie." Integra remarked, a gentle smirk twisting her pale lips as she puffed absently on her ever present cigar, her remaining blue eye focused on the eternal child – Tiger Lilly – leaning against the glass of her study window.
The girl laughed and gave her human Master a fond smile.
Then one night, as Seras patrolled the halls of the manor while Integra – now in her fifties – slept, she heard the familiar bang of her Master's gun going off. She was there in an instant, kicking open the door with a cry, "Master? What happened!"
In the dim light of the room she saw a figure slumped against the wall and something surged in her, and (her concentration wavered a bit on her left arm, though it still held her gun, tendrils oozed up around the edge of her sleeve) she flicked on the light to gasp as the familiar red coat came into view and confirmed her suspicions.
Laughter pooled around the body as the blood reabsorbed and his gravelly voice rumbled in her ears like silk, "And you're noisy as always. What a violent welcome."
"Master!" Seras cried, shocked and elated. She wanted to run to him and tackle him back to the floor in a hug, but restrained herself (for now).
"Late home coming, eh, Alucard?" Integra asked dryly, perched on her bed casually, "What were you doing?"
"I kept killing. My own lives… inside of me. Three million, four hundred and twenty four thousand, eight hundred and sixty seven. Kept killing until there weren't any left. All except one. Now I'm here. I'm everywhere, and nowhere. That's why I'm here."
"Too late, you're too late Alucard." Integra scolded, smirking. Seras could tell there was more behind her words than that.
"I'm sorry." Her Master responded with his own grin.
"You must feel like drinking blood, don't you? From me." Integra continued, leaning forward and widening her smirk as she spoke with her long missing Servant.
"Ah, yeah." Alucard grinned, eyes widening as he took on a more manic eagerness, "Thirty years without eating anything, I'm hungry."
Seras felt a little out of place, a third wheel as she watched the scene unfold, but she did not begrudge them this.
"I am…" Integra stated with a carefully bland tone to hide her feelings, "already an old grandma."
"That's fine with me." Alucard retorted, slit pupils focused solely upon his human Master.
Integra smiled, her graying hair fanning out dramatically as she lifted her right hand and bit her index finger with a grunt. She stood and strode over to the seated figure against the wall, raising her hand in the air over his head to allow the blood to drip down to him, "Welcome home, Count." She greeted, the smirk softening to a smile.
"I'm home, Countess." He replied, extending his tongue in a grinningly open mouth to catch the falling crimson.
Seras felt the childish urge to run away, but she repressed it savagely and stood silent as the Hellsing Leader fed a few drops of virgin blood to the vampire Alucard before turning away and returning to her bed, "Now get out. This old woman needs her sleep."
Seras grinned, and walked over to her Sire to offer him a hand up, "Welcome home, Master." She murmured, and he gave her a smile, one reserved just for her, as he accepted her hand and they phased from the room as a pair.
They appeared in her Master's chambers and his grin widened to a smirk as he sniffed the air rather blatantly. "Well, what a lovely home coming, hm, Police Girl?" He teased, releasing her to drop indolently into his throne and cross his legs at the knee.
"I missed you." Seras admitted and was unsurprised when he grabbed her around the waist and hauled her into his lap. He growled something unintelligible into her hair and nosed the collar of her shirt aside to sink his teeth into her throat with a groan.
She shivered and melted into his hold, head lolling to the side to offer further access to her pale throat. Mmmm… He was renewing her original marks, as he did every time he partook of her blood.
The wet heat of his tongue running along her skin, lapping up the spilled remains of her blood made her tremble. "Did you think I would not notice your lingering scent in my coffin?" He breathed into her ear and tightened his grip on her waist.
"I missed you." She repeated as answer, feeling a bit dreamy headed and warm.
She could feel his grin against her skin as he pressed his face into her back. "I missed you as well, little fledgling, your voice is like fragments of a shattered melody. You, the only one who did not give up on my return."
Seras' lips quirked in an answering smile as she drifted into a half doze. "I knew you'd come back."
AN: Lithi told me to tease yooou~
We're writing an epic story together. It will be epic, and probably not posted for forever. XD It won't see the light of the internet until it's completed.
We'll add horribad tease-y snippets soon. ;)