Title: Challenge: I'm Thinking She Needs Me
Type: Hellsing One-shot, A challenge from Repentless Wind, Gift for Valentine's Day
Genre: Romance/Tragedy
Pairing: Pip X Seras, Seras X Alucard
Characters: Pip, Seras, Alucard
Story Placement: Just before…*gasp* SPOILER ALERT! Pip's death and just a little after his death, an Artist interpretation
Background: Well, Pip is a hired mercenary for Hellsing. Seras was changed into a vampire by Alucard and now works as a sniper of sorts for Hellsing; she has yet to drink blood to become a full vampire. Alucard is some creature of the night who is crazy but loyal to Integra Hellsing
Plot: Much of love is confusing, no matter how many years you've lived.
Disclaimer: I don't own Hellsing because I'd be freakin' rich and done with college if I was!
Warnings: Well…graphic death scenes and gorging on blood…haven't decided if I should put some blood play in there too. Depends on my mood…ahh, and really, really, REALLY sad, depressing emotions
Author's Note: Well, this is the second challenge fic from Repentless Wind. She was kind to me because I couldn't get anything happy out of my head. I used up the last in my other challenge fic (Saiyuki one) and that one wasn't so happy. I'm excited to write this one, especially after I listened to "Tranquilize" by The Killers. Ahhh, rock is really coming back!!

So, Happy Single's Awareness Day. I feel your pain and I express it through this very Anti-Valentine's Day piece, because life isn't really large heart-shaped things, rainbows, and a happy "sunset" ending. So, rejoice in your single-hood, everyone ends up single; you're just ahead of the curve.

I'm Thinking She Needs Me
By Heaven is Drunk

Always here, always on time
Close call, was it love or was it just easy
Money talks when people need shoes and socks,
Steady boys, I'm thinking she needs me

Her love wasn't spectacular. Not at all the fascinating show he'd expected and usually got from the "interesting police girl". In fact, her romance was almost laughably boring in his eyes, but he couldn't stop watching.

It began in all those simple romantic movie ways, the two met and immediately something sparked between them. He was a French hot head and she was a British hot head, about the only thing they had in common, so something was bound to form between them. He was a very good shoulder with a rather big mouth and both of them had learned in that moment that teasing Seras was a bad idea for a mortal.

"She's a vampire? What the hell?!" He laughed boisterously, the thick golden locks haphazardly braided fell from its place around his neck. His visibly blue eye was sparkling with disbelief and…most likely lust of some sort…because Seras was a "healthy" (fully developed) young woman. The French mercenary had laughed at her face, the worn cowboy hat bouncing back and forth on his head. The room had followed in their captain's taunting laughter and, from his dark corner; he could tell Seras was hurt. Though she proudly took the challenge and forcefully, with the flick of her finger, had taught the mercenary a lesson.

Of course that wouldn't have hurt him but the mercenary wailed in pain and astonishment. Seras had proven her point and they could continue on to a more interesting topic.

Challenge was the next step. Because the Frenchman had decided to begin their connection by laughing at her, she did everything in her power to not be laughed at by him or his crew again. It was predictable human behavior and he laughed at her pathetic acting. The more she tried to be normal and yet better than him, a trained soldier and a very capable one despite his attitude, the more she proved she was a vampire; a freak in his words.

He'd adapted to that word, centuries of having no name but that had made freak a word that just suited him. But Seras resisted that word and the more Pip used it on her, the angrier she was. Like mostly everything about her, he couldn't understand her rage towards that word; a normal person could eat food without throwing up and die when poked several times by very sharp blades. Seras was a freak but Alucard liked her like that.

He still thought long and hard about the times they'd spent in private. She was obviously bothered by him, openly annoyed and antagonized by every word that left his mouth but she still spent her time with the Frenchman more than she did with her Master. Alucard wasn't jealous by that. A true, glorious vampire didn't get jealous.

But she was spending all waking moments around him. They'd even gone to some restaurant together and she hadn't killed him. He was partially disappointed when they both showed up at his door…happy being near each other. It was a far stretch from their first meetings. His master had alluded to them getting along and it was then that he began to was Seras, really look at the girl and memorize her.

The way she resisted being what she was and being around the mercenary made her feel normal. He could tell in the way she forgot that a petite woman of her size couldn't possibly lift and aim the canon that she carried so easily. She denied the necessity to kill humans that were attacking her and while he yelled and called her stupid, the French mercenary chuckled, called her "mignonette" and told her to continue shooting to complete the mission. She responded better to the human than to the master who created her!

Perhaps, as they say in the love novels, her romance came at the right time. She'd become so much stronger in battle with the mercenary guiding her, giving her positive strength and then teasing her in a way that he could recognize as flirting. She responded to this teasing in an open smile and subtle feminine movements that made it obvious she liked the attention from him. And Alucard was left to watch and digest and wonder why she seemed so set on this human.

It wasn't love; it was because he made her feel human again.

He couldn't be sure though, if the Captain loved her. He certainly wanted her in the way human males lust after women. And wasn't Seras a pretty, innocent, delicious young woman that men like him would attack. Even he could see the appeal in her. She was well-developed but lacked any understanding of her own body. Those big, naïve blue eyes looked at any man with unbidden trust and awakened a carnal feeling deep inside. The mercenary felt it and clearly showed it in his support of her and the kiss he'd stolen from her. Alucard denied any feelings her loyal smile may have ignited inside of him…the part deep down inside that could confuse blood lust for the same human lust of flesh.

That same feeling burned in his gut when the mercenary had kissed her. And then it flooded him again when he felt her deepest despair. She grieved in the darkest of ways, her heart nearly disappearing from his senses. He thrived in the feeling of her biting him, becoming something more of a blood-drinker, but those words he'd uttered, the reasons she lost all of her control; they made him angry.

Angry in the way the murder couldn't change. His body was not pleased by the slaughter, no. He couldn't find a way to cure this feeling. Proud as he was that Seras had become stronger, happy as he was that the last connection she had to humanity had died for her, he couldn't stop from hating his comrade. The human had given Seras strength to kill, to be the self she'd been denying. He was permanently one with her and Alucard could never be there for her in that way.

He'd give up his immortal life to be that important to her.

Author's Note: It's not the best but I hope that Repentless Wind and you, my lovely reader, enjoy it. So happy Valentine's Day...I guess...but whether you have a valentine or not, appreciate yourself and everything you have because it could all be gone sooner than you think.

BaiBai~