Satis Chapter 9: cycle, a hellsing fanfic

08.

cycle

...take this...as a...meager...substitute...

Rarely did the mind of the No-Life King come to a standstill. In sleep, his dreams were vivid, cruel montages to his defeats. And this, this must be a dream, for how cruel it was—this position, this pressure, this temperature he was locked in, of his master and her lips which had branded him anew. Take this as a meager substitute, she said. Meager? He laughed. Integra, from you, nothing is meager.

The arms of the chair splintered under his fingers.

Kissing for the sake of kissing had become lost to him as a vampire. His mouth was no longer a conveyor of affection but a weapon, and to be near its false breath, to feel its cold lips, meant death. His lust for blood overrode that for whatever pitiful pleasure a kiss could evoke. What use did he have for tenderness, how could he, when he was the very definition of atrocity? By the time he had met Integra, touch without bloodshed had become such a foreign concept that he had ceased to recognize it.

"How red they are," she had said to him, three years ago.

She had given him her first order, clumsily worded though it had been. "Unc—Richard's men. They're still in the house. Find them and—" She quietened.

"And kill them?" he had prompted. She had nodded, and that had been enough. He had obeyed with glee, having tasted her potential, the magnificence she would blossom into. It was too easy tracking down those who bore Richard's stench and draining them of their screams. The fresh spill replenished him, and yet, it was her essence that clung like a drug upon his tongue.

He returned to her, finding her perched on the foot of her bed. She had washed and changed. She had even dressed her wound. He would have been impressed, had she not looked so faint. Only a child, he thought, not without pity. Unbidden, the image of another child from another life—a black-haired boy with hatred in his eyes ah, don't go down that path, now—flickered in his mind.

He knelt before her, and she froze for a split second.

"The traitors have been disposed of, my Master."

"Oh." She breathed deeply. "Good. Thank you...Alucard."

The way she said his name was novel indeed. Each instance her predecessors had uttered it had rubbed salt into the wound of captivity, but here there was no sting to be felt. Why was that?

He simpered. "You don't have to thank me. I am yours to command."

She pursed her lips at the reminder. Nonetheless, she studied him with careful eyes. A familiar shade of blue, yet again different. Clearer, perhaps. That was when she made that remark.

How red they are.

"Red?"

"Your eyes."

He laughed outright. "Of course. I am a vampire."

To his great amusement and hunger, she herself colored red in embarrassment. "A very impudent vampire."

He bowed his head. "Forgive me."

"Look at me," she bid, in a stronger voice. The small bit of indignation he had incited seemed to have emboldened her. Her gaze had increased in its intensity when he met it. He was beginning to understand that her eyes appeared different because they were absent of the clinical appraisal he had been subject to as needles and tubes and poisons assailed him. She was regarding him as a person, and he did not know what to think of that. My, my. Arthur, what have you been not teaching this girl?

"Alucard," she said. "Dracula."

It was his turn to freeze.

"That is who you are, isn't it?"

"I have been stripped of that moniker a long time ago," he stated.

"Still." She leaned closer. "I suppose I should be afraid of you, but I'm not. Not really. Even after what I have read and heard and seen of you, you aren't that frightening to me."

"Even after you have read of my atrocities, heard of my infamies, seen me rip the limbs off your dead uncle? Halve the heads of his cronies and drink their blood?" He made a point of baring his teeth, tapering and deadly and inhuman, at her. "Is that wise, I wonder?"

"It's not a matter of wisdom," she said seriously. "It's a matter of knowing you are mine."

Mine.

Something molten flowed inside him at the stark declaration.

She sighed. "As long as you won't kill me in my sleep, I don't care." Then she raised a hand, and despite himself, he tensed. It merely hovered above his face, however. "May I touch you?"

"I am yours," he said simply, yet the connotations of those three words were anything but simple, too intricate for her to have been aware and for him to contemplate.

Dainty, dark fingers, warm and soft, landed on his sunken cheeks. They moved as whispers. "You're like snow. Cold and white." They traced the outline of his orbits. He did not blink. "And your eyes, they're like miniature suns."

The irony.

The clear blue pools in which those suns were reflected rippled sleepily, and she released him all too soon.

She yawned behind her hand, hiding the little blush that persisted. "I would like to get better acquainted with you. But right now..."

"Rest, my Master Integral," he said.

Her brows furrowed. "Call me Integra. Everyone does...well, Father—and Walter and Miriam and a few others, but...they're all...gone..." Her shoulders drooped. "It's just you and me now, Alucard."

He had no answer. She swayed, and he caught her in his arms and carried her to the pillows, where she snuggled under the quilt he drew up to her chin.

"It's the strangest fairy tale..." she mumbled, and then she was asleep.

A secret was locked away in the family basement. An ancient vampire was her inheritance. In place of a knight in shining armor there was a monster, and a girl with a gun and blood down her sleeve. And now that monster was tucking her in. A fairy tale. For all fairy tales are morbid at heart, truths of death and retribution disguised as lies. From the moment she had entered his cell, his story had commenced once more. Alucard, the servant of Integra Hellsing, that was what he was.

Alucard melted into the shadows, and many miniature suns kept guard over the little sleeping beauty with thorns.

Two glorious days passed as she said. It was just the two of them in the manor, getting acquainted with each other. He told her of the past, she told him of the present, he was hers entirely. Not Hellsing's, the organization's. Hers. Integra's. And she was his, even if it was only in the way that she was his master. She was only his master.

On the third day, Walter arrived.

The chair collapsed.

Alucard straightened. He stuck his tongue out and traced the corner she had kissed, desperate for a lingering taste. Ah, Integra, must you make me a more depraved creature than I already am? He shuddered and laughed again, humorlessly, his features flickering along with the lights in the office.

Behind the desk, Michael Carter grunted.

"That's right. I almost forgot you were there, you pungent waste of space," Alucard murmured. "Well, she said not to eat you, but she never said not to kill you." He needed to crush something and the skull of a brainless buffoon would do nicely.

As his nails seized the head and compressed, a thought occurred to him.

Would the real fifteen-year-old Integra have kissed him?

The real fifteen-year-old Integra...?

What a preposterous notion. What was this nonsense? Of course she was real. Nothing about her could be fabricated against him.

But.

Would she, the Integra he thought he knew, have kissed him? The answer, he loathed to admit, was no. At least, he would not have expected it of her. Not in such a manner. Not as "a meager substitute." Not without the slightest blush. Truly, it was as if she had aged a decade's worth of brass in—

Alucard dropped the human with a thud.

Aged.

Preposterous.

Is it?

He had been fixated on the dream as the catalyst, on its contents, its war that he had neglected—

"You've made me—"

"You never change."

"That precious connection of yours certainly didn't help when—"

When what?

When?

Seras was outside, a rucksack slung over her shoulder, gazing up at the sky that was uncovering to be the same shade as her eyes. When she saw Integra she braced herself for the worst.

Yet Integra's expression was serene. She held out her hand. "Ready?"

Seras let herself be led out of the gates, away from everything she hated. Sunlight glinted off the older girl, her hair brighter and longer than hers had ever been. Seras was having a hard time believing this was happening, even as she followed this girl who had swooped down like the angel she said she was not.

Last night, she had had her nightmare again. She had crawled out of bed, sat outside under the colorless sky and maybe, somewhere between crying and singing the song she used to hear on the radio, she had made a wish. Maybe. She was not sure. She just knew that somewhere between waiting for the rain and the rain falling, Integra had appeared.

She was the prettiest person she had ever seen.

Why would someone like her want to have anything to do with unlucky Seras Victoria? She had been the one who insisted, after all. Her self-doubt doubled when they came up to an obviously expensive-looking car. Seras stopped. The adrenaline rush that had made her beg Integra to take her with her had died down and she faltered. She did not want to be a burden, if she was Integra would not want her anymore, she'll return me here and I'll be alone again—

Integra took both her hands and squeezed them.

"It's okay if you're having second thoughts. I know this is very sudden for you. You barely know me and—" An emotion flitted across Integra's face, gone before Seras could name it. "I can't guarantee my world will be a happy one. But I promise, Seras, you can stay as long as you want. I will never make you leave, and I will never leave you."

Somehow, Seras got the feeling that Integra had missed a word at the end. That could hardly be right, though, could it?

"What about your parents?" Seras asked.

"They're dead," she said.

Oh. Integra was an orphan like her. Maybe that explained the sadness in her eyes. It had been the first thing Seras had noticed about her. Sad yet smiling. Only sad people could smile in the rain, so Seras had not been afraid. She was not afraid now, following her to a whole new world where she could learn to be as brave and strong. Integra was her savior.

Footsteps came from behind. Seras stiffened, ready to spring, but Integra rubbed her palms reassuringly as she said, "We're heading back, Dylan."

"Yes, Miss Hellsing. Er..."

"This is Seras Victoria. Seras, this is Dylan Basbanes. He works for me as well."

Seras turned to the man who had startled her and back to Integra with round eyes. Just how many people did Integra have working for her?

"Are you very important, Integra?" she whispered.

Integra grimaced.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Victoria," Dylan said. "Please forgive me for frightening you earlier. Are you coming with us?"

Seras merely nodded, wary still.

"Well, the manor's certainly got more rooms than it knows what to do with," Dylan started cheerfully, then at the look Integra shot him shut up at once. He saluted and hurried to the driver's seat.

"Manor?" Seras squeaked.

She clutched Integra's coat sleeve. "Are there a lot of people living with you in the—the manor?"

"No, actually," Integra soothed. "It's quite empty. It'll be alright, Seras. You'll only ever see the same few people."

"What about the scary mister? The one who gave you this coat? Does he live there, too? Is he coming with us?"

A breeze picked up in that moment, cooler than was normal for summer, causing Integra to instinctively grasp the lapels of the coat. His coat. He had altered it, yet it was so candidly his, the same garish red and heavy weight, somehow dwarfing her despite the adjustments. It also felt like him, how the fabric caressed her skin, in an almost ticklish way; though he had sworn it was not sentient or otherwise connected to him. Worse, it smelled like him. Perhaps she would have been less aggrieved by this had it been a marginally offensive odor, such as mothballs or dirt—or blood—but no. It had to smell pleasant. Something Alucard that she could have singled out in a room full of vampires each with their coppery undertones. Scent triggered vexingly realistic memories, she knew. And from now on she would remember a kiss.

The kiss, the meager kiss.

She parted her burning lips to call him, then closed them. If he wanted to be here, he would be here, long before she had to call him forth. Yet there was only the breeze and the sun that he hated.

"He came here on his own, he'll go back on his own. And should he choose to tarry, he will behave if he knows what's good for him," Integra said loudly.

There was no answer. Only the breeze and the sun and the red fabric that smelled like him.

Like that day, that morning when he disappeared.

But then Seras tugged her hand, and her touch was warm, and when she looked down it was a small child with blue eyes who smiled bravely at her.

So he will return to me.

She smiled back. "Shall we?"

Walter had seen so much shite, done so much shite both natural and supernatural that in the latter half of his allotted century he would have offered everyone tea first before letting anything ruffle his feathers. Unfortunately, it was becoming painfully evident that not even life's harshest trials had prepared him for the conundrum that was his teenage lady and her whims. He watched rather helplessly as Integra slid out of the car (was that Alucard's coat she was wearing?) and feared he would lose his eyebrows when a child stumbled after her.

"Why, who could that be?" Miriam voiced.

He saw the child grab Integra's arm at the sight of the welcoming party. He also saw Integra bend down and coax her with a patience he had never witnessed her exercise around other children. She was important to her, he realized. How or why, he did not know. But the observation forced Walter to check himself.

"My lady," he greeted.

"Walter."

He bowed to their guest's eye level. "And may I ask your name, miss?"

She seemed to be a skittish thing, yet she answered steadily, "Seras Victoria."

"Welcome to Hellsing Manor, Miss Victoria. My name is Walter C. Dornez. I'm Miss Hellsing's butler."

"Hello," Seras mumbled. Miriam came forward next and proceeded to fuss over her, leaving Walter and Integra to face each other.

"Will Miss Victoria be staying with us, my lady?"

"Yes."

"For how long?"

"For as long as she wants," Integra affirmed. "Make the necessary arrangements, Walter."

Why? he wanted to ask. Why did you go alone? Where did you go? Why there? Why this girl? Where is Alucard? Is that his coat? His litany of questions was contained in a single, "Understood," in that he did not understand a thing.

Integra only gave him a small smile. "I won't be running off in the morning again, I promise."

He tried to return it.

"My goodness, have you dears been out in the rain?" Miriam exclaimed. "You're all cold and wet! A warm bath is in order, I should think, and a hearty breakfast. Let's get you inside."

Integra waved Seras away gently when she gravitated toward her. "Go with Miriam, Seras. I'll join you for breakfast." She added, "You're safe here, I promise."

Seras looked back as Miriam ushered her in, hesitant at first, then mustered up her courage. She squared her shoulders and disappeared through the doorway.

Walter saw how, with the absence of the girl, Integra's face went blank. Her eyes trailed over the bricks of the manor, frigid and appraising, and he had to clear his throat; he felt uncomfortable even if the gaze was not directed at him. "My lady, I had thought—it did not settle well with me, you must be aware, to see you estranged from your peers at a young age. But this..." He chose his words carefully. "For a child to be brought up in this environment—"

"Like I was?" Integra said.

It could not have been worse if she had said it with bitterness. It was spoken as a matter of fact, disconnected from all personal regard. Integra had never visibly resented the position she was raised—and to put it in crude terms, bred—into, yet he wondered now if the rebellious phase she was apparently going through was grating on it. "You were, and are, an exceptional child, Integra. But ordinary children, such as Miss Victoria—"

"Oh, does she seem ordinary to you? But I suppose I thought that too, once upon a time." Integra started for the doors.

"Are you expecting her to be privy to our business?" Walter persisted.

"I'm not my father, Walter, to bring an orphan into this house for the purpose of making her into a human weapon."

He stopped cold.

"To answer your question," she continued, cruel in her utter dispassion, "it's her choice whether she wants to know. I won't lie to her. Regardless." She stepped into the shade of the entrance hall and turned to him. A slant of sunlight fell across the marble floor and divided her figure.

"Seras will have a happy life here, Walter," Integra said, the stare of the illuminated half, her left, unyielding. "I will make sure she has a happy, normal life here, as normal as we can possibly pretend it is. I will do everything in my power to make it so." She said it slowly, clearly, as though she was not talking to him but to the world and the weavers of fate, daring them to go against her.

And so softly he thought he must have imagined it, "The cycle ends here."

The spell was broken then. Integra blinked; only her left eye, and not as deliberately as to be a wink. "Treat Seras with the same respect as you would give me."

It signaled the end of the conversation and again he had to hold his tongue, which had gone very dry.

"Your…coat, my lady."

"No need," she said, and the red coat fluttered in the draft.

Mocking.

It was twelve-year-old Integra who answered the door. "Walter, you're back!" She threw herself into the man's arms.

"My lady, my lady," he repeated. "My lady Integra, I had no idea..."

"It's alright. I'm alive, at least," she said. She urged him to his feet. "But I'm so glad you're back! I have someone to show you."

They entered the sitting room, and Walter saw. The gaunt face, the wild hair, the vulgar red coat. It was—

"Alucard! Wake up, you silly vampire."

The vampire was roused from his lethargy on the couch. Without opening his eyes he said, "Oh, look who it is."

"You didn't even look," she pointed out. With a fondness that should not be there. To Walter she said, "Alucard told me you two used to be partners on the battlefield. Aren't you glad to see him again?"

NOTES

This chapter was published on November 19, 2016.
It has been updated for formatting on January 29, 2021.

The original end note for this chapter can be found in the link in my profile.