Fic written for a challenge by MTS.
Hellsing and it's characters are owned by Kohta Hiraino
Walter raised his hand to knock on Seras' (Seras and Pip's?) room, when his fist was stopped by the sounds of shouting coming from the other end. He glanced at the chilled blood pack he had in a bucket and decided to come back at a later time.
He turned around and was about to walk down the hallway when he heard something slam into the door behind him and shatter.
"Do you think I enjoy being in a female body? Do you think I enjoy doing a total gender one-eighty?"
Seras cocked her head to the side and glared at the mirror. "Oh really? I thought you loved my body?"
The reflection of Pip in the mirror scowled. "I did, but I didn't want to be in your body… well… I did, but not like… you know what I mean!"
"So it was all about lust? You just wanted to get in my pants?"
Pip's reflection sputtered. "How can you say that? I died for you!"
"You always bring that up! Every time we disagree, you wave that flag as if it somehow gave you the right to order me around for the rest of our lives! Captain, dying for me does not equal me being your eternal slave! This is my body we're both living in!"
Pip's reflection leaned back and he crossed his arms. "I'm starting to wonder if I liked you better when you were submissive."
Seras' eyes twitched. "How… but… you're the one who taught me to be strong! And now you!" She raised her arm, her hand curled into a fist. As her arm rocketed towards the mirror, she felt a sudden tightness around her bicep. A pull, and she found herself falling out of her chair onto her back. She (And through her, Pip), looked up to see Walter standing in the doorway, monofilament wire stretched out from his hand and wrapped around her arm.
"Far be it for me to interfere in your affairs, Captains Victoria and Bernadette, but I really must insist that you cease from breaking anything else. If you must, think of the job I must do cleaning up afterwards." A flick of Walter's wrist and the wires flew back into his hand. He stepped into the room, placed a bucket of ice with a blood pack in it on the table, bowed slightly, and left the room.
Seras pushed herself up, stared at the bucket of blood, turned around and glared at Pip's reflection in the mirror. She snorted. "I'm going to bed."
"Fine," Pip said.
"You're going to bed too," Seras responded.
"Sure. Shut me away. I could use some peace."
Walter placed the tea service on Integra's side. He poured a cup of tea and prepared it for Integra. Black, two sugars.
"Thank you Walter," Integra said. Walter bowed slightly, then left Integra's immediate viewing field. Integra, however, sensed that Walter was still there. She looked up to see her butler standing calmly in front of the desk, hands clasped behind his back. "Was there something you wanted, Walter?"
Walter looked vaguely uncomfortable. Integra had noted that, after successfully freeing him from Millennium's mind control, Walter had become noticeably more brash. Integra had attributed this to his vampirization and subsequential "youth" effect. Still, despite this, his instincts as British butler remained firmly in place. Certain topics were still… difficult to broach.
"Allow me to take a guess. Is this about Captain Victoria and her rather 'intimate' relationship with Captain Bernadette?"
Walter nodded. "I do not wish to interfere in their personal lives, their relationship with each other is their business. However, I believe it has reached a level were it might have a detrimental effect on their ability to do their jobs."
Integra sipped at her tea. "Was there any specific event that set off this report?"
Walter looked uncomfortable again. "I would not normally wish to speak of another's affairs…"
"Walter."
Walter sighed. "I walked in on them fighting. And more than a heated argument or a shouting match, they were throwing things, an impressive feat when there is only one body between the two of them, I should add. Captain Victoria was on the verge of breaking a mirror before I stopped her."
Integra raised her eyebrows. "A mirror?"
"I believe that Miss Victoria sees Captain Bernadette in mirrors."
"Ahh. Well, this certainly is a problem. Though I suppose we should have seen it coming. I can't think of anyone that I could stand to be with for twenty-hours a day."
"As I understand it, Captain Victoria can 'repress' Captain Bernadette, but only once a day. And she is unable to control how long he stays repressed. Apparently he may just come back into her consciousness at any time."
"I'll take this into consideration. Is there anything else?"
Walter thought for a moment, then retrieved a letter from his vest pocket. "Another message for you. I believe it is from an anonymous Knight of the Round Table, demanding to know why you insist on keeping our prisoner."
Integra chuckled as she lit a cigar. "You think I should kill him, don't you?"
"My feelings are irrelevant, but yes. I think you should kill. Quite frankly, I think I should have killed him when I had the chance."
"There is still much he can tell us. I rather think it would be a grave mistake to kill off such a great potential source of knowledge."
"… As you wish, Sir Integra. Do try to get to bed soon." Walter bowed and left.
Integra returned to her paperwork. "I suppose you find the situation with Seras amusing?" She finally said.
Alucard emerged from the darkness, smirking. "Her first victim, and she shares her body with him? Eventually culminating in a fight between the two souls? How could one not be amused?"
"You feel no sympathy for your young fledgling at all?"
"She drank of my blood. She's no longer my concern. Besides, she brought it upon herself. She should have enslaved the Captain, forced him to give her his strength."
"Not everyone is a monster like you, Alucard."
Alucard chuckled lightly. "Good. I prefer it that way."
Integra puffed on her cigar. "Is there any way that Seras could release the Captain? Let him pass on to the next world?"
"Not that I am aware of. When she took his soul into him, it was permanent. The soul cannot be released into the nothingness. Besides," he said, grinning, "Even if she could, would she?"
"You do find this amusing," Integra said.
Alucard laughed as he melted into the blackness.
Seras stared up in the darkness of her coffin. Despite her attempts to fall asleep before Pip resurfaced, she was still very much awake when she felt his presence return. Unusually, he was quiet as he came back into Seras' mind. They could feel each other, but neither was speaking.
Unfortunately, at this point the mere presence of the other was enough to get their nerves.
I've been thinking. Pip said finally.
Yes? Seras responded.
This has got to stop.
Agreed.
It's hurting both of us.
And it's hurting our ability to command. The men don't trust us anymore. Someone could get killed.
Which is why it has to stop.
How, then?
... I was kind of hoping you knew how.
Seras rolled her eyes. No. I'm afraid I don't. But I think I know who does.
The Prisoner didn't really mind most of his captivity. He didn't mind the fact that he was unable to move. Before being captured, he generally hadn't left his room unless his Füher ordered it. He was fed well enough, he was treated fairly courteously (though he suspected it was because the guards were mildly afraid of him), and the accommodations were not overly unpleasant.
If there was one thing the Prisoner despised about his captivity, it was the boredom. The endless, tedious boredom. Not that there wasn't anything to do. Far from it. He was being held in a mansion with one of the finest private libraries in all of Europe, and they allowed him any book he could ask for.
The problem was, he had finished the entire library about a month and a half ago.
There he was, with all of his knowledge, his ideas, and his creativity, and he was locked in a cell and unable to do anything with it.
It was the boredom and the inability to act on his genius that the Prisoner despised the most.
Now he sat in the darkness of his cell, his back against the wall, his knees against his chest, as he watched the shadowy form of the child coming towards him.
"Now, my kinder, to what do I owe this visit?" he said suddenly.
The shadowy figure paused in front of the cell. "We need your help," it said.
The Prisoner smiled. "I thought you would be coming down here about that sooner or later. Asking for my help. What makes you think I can help you?"
"Because of this," the shadowy figure answered in a deeper voice. It tossed a book through the bars, which landed at the Prisoners' feet. The Prisoner looked at the book. It was the one book he hadn't read in the library. The one book he refused to read. For the exact same reason that Sir Integra refused to read Dracula. Hers was not the only real family immortalized in literature.
The Prisoner laughed. "And what, exactly, do I get in return for helping you? How do you even know that your Master will allow it?"
"We will act as an intermediary on your behalf. We could argue for privileges for you. As for permission, we believe that Sir Hellsing will be willing to allow it to remedy this situation."
The Prisoner smirked in the darkness, the faint light from the over head lamp reflecting off of his multi-lensed glasses. "I suppose a request for a laboratory, or even a child's chemistry set is out of the question. I would settle for access to whatever remains of the London Public Library, or even membership in a book-of-the-month club."
"We will plead our case, then," the shadow figure said as they walked away from the cell down the corridor.
In the darkness outside of the cell, Walter watched as Seras and Pip walk away. He turned towards the cell, and watched as the Prisoner picked up the book, the book he refused to read, and opened it to the first page.
Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus.