written 01-Jun-2003
archived 24-Sept-2004
Title: The Integrity of White
Author: datenshiblue, a.k.a. bonne
Fandom: Hellsing (anime)
Pairing: Serras Victoria/Integral Wingates Hellsing
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Integral, Victoria and Alucard are not mine.
Notes: For the contrelamontre White challenge. 38 minutes.
Dedicated to kashuarashi.
The Integrity of White
In the darkness of her ancestral home, she glows.
Perhaps it's my eyes. They see different things now than they did before my Death, for all that I don't want it to be true. All my senses have changed, and I'm starting to have a hard time remembering how much.
The glow she has is not that of a bright white light. It's more the pale white of a ghost. As if she haunts this place... that thought should make me laugh, for she is the rare, real, living thing in it. But living things don't look and feel as they did when I was one.
I'm going to get into trouble when she figures out I've started following and watching her.
At first it was because, I guess, because I was angry. I don't get angry very easily and it's taken a while to admit it, but angry is easier than continuing to be hurt.
Or, no, that's not honest. I first started watching her because I was trying to see what He sees. Why He treats her the way He does.
Why she is my Master's Master.
Now I don't know why I do it any more. But I can't stop. Even though I know she'll catch me one night.
Even though I'll die when He does. Or better say, when He says something about it. I'm sure He knows. I don't understand why He hasn't said anything so far, except that bitter thought that I'm simply not important enough for Him to care.
But I can't stop anyway.
She draws me through the mansion. Faded into the shadows - I learned how to do that just for watching her - I look and look until her image is there even when I close my eyes.
She tries to dim her glow. She dresses in mannish suits and ugly shoes. The only thing she doesn't do to disguise her sex is cut her hair, but it wouldn't make any difference. I'm everything she isn't, my body still ripe even in this new state, but lately I can see hers as well, under the heavy tweed. Or under the thick flannel she wears to bed, closed up around her neck and wrists.
In this place where everything is darkness, and electric lights nibble at the shadows like indifferent guests, she is white. Not the bruised white of the dead, but the fragile white of the living, sustained more by her indomitable will than by the blood that pulses under her skin.
"What do you want?" Her voice is sharp when it finally comes, and it freezes me in the shadows for a moment.
Swallowing, I force myself to materialize, and in spite of herself she steps back a tiny step. Me she was expecting, but not so close.
Eyebrows drawing together, she stares me down, but I can't see my crimson irises reflected in her blue ones. Nothing reflects them, I don't even know if I believe what they've told me, except that I have seen His.
It's time to blush, and stammer, and be the fool I always am and always have been.
But, watching her press her lips together, I feel a hunger that quietly bursts through my carefully trained and fanatically held restraints. Reaching up, I lift the glasses off her face, seeing sky-blue eyes widen in surprise at my temerity. But my temerity is not quite done.
Instinctively, I know it must be done quickly, so quickly that her human reflexes can't stop me, and later I will wonder why His more than human reflexes didn't. But now I'm doing it. And her half-begun flinch doesn't work because she's protecting her throat, and I'm leaning in to kiss her lips.
For seconds, I feel it through every cell in my body: warmth, softness, life, and that sweetness she totally denies - it's there and I want to...
Before her hand can thump into my chest to push me away, I'm darting back, out of reach.
We stare at each other and I finally have my answer. I know why she is my Master's Master. For that single instant, I was surrounded by light.
Watching her emotions struggle, I can see outrage, anger, the temper that is legendary and has bent better men and women than I like trees in a gale. And one thing more.
Doubt.
Before she can gather her wind, I fade into the shadows and am gone. It's the act of a coward, but I've never claimed to be brave.
So why am I smiling?
And the last thing I expect to hear... is His silent chuckle brushing my inner ear like a caress.
~ owari ~