Un, Deux, Trois

Seras sat up and put her finger to her lips to warn Pip to stay quiet. How long should we leave him in shock?

Pip’s eye sparkled with merriment when he answered her, Let’s give him a minute more, then let him off the hook.

Walter had managed to pull himself together and was just debating the best method to unobtrusively leave the garden when he heard Seras’ voice once more and froze.

“Walter, could you come over here? I have a question for you.”

He stood and walked around to the other side of the hedge and looked at Pip and Seras’ very amused faces. “How long have you known I was here?”

“We watched you walk down here earlier.” Seras put her hand over her mouth and stifled another laugh.

Walter nodded. Ah, this made more sense. The two had been having a joke at his expense. Well done. They had indeed gotten the better of him. But when he said as much, Seras shook her head.

“No, we really meant it, Walter. We just couldn’t think of a good way to ask you, so we decided to have a little fun with it.”

“Miss Victoria, I think you have had enough fun at my expense already tonight. Captain Bernadette, I think you have been a bad influence.” He smiled slightly to take the sting from his words. After the war, it was good to see people happy and these two had definitely earned some happiness.

Seras scooted over on the bench to make room between her and Pip and patted the space. “Just come sit down with us and talk about it.” She looked up at him under her bangs with sudden nervousness. “Unless you don’t even want to think about it before you say no?”

Walter regarded the two vampires in front of him appraisingly. “I admit to having several questions that would plague me if I do not ask them.”

Seras and Pip glanced at each other and nodded slightly. Pip leaned back and looked close to casual, but very attentive. Seras looked more nervous than Pip, but not as nervous as Walter would have expected from her.

Pip asked this time, “Just have a seat and ask your questions. We’ll answer them.” He looked at Seras, who looked at Walter and nodded.

This was too novel to walk away from. Walter wasn’t going to spend centuries kicking himself for not at least indulging his curiosity, even if he decided not to indulge anything else. He honestly didn’t know how he was going to answer, which was interestingly thrilling – even he was in suspense.

With a smile he couldn’t keep off his face, Walter sat down between the pair and folded his hands across one cocked knee. “I suppose that the first place to start would be with you, Miss– ah, Seras. I will be frank that I assumed that your only recent admission to the world of… personal diversions would be enough to keep your interest for quite some time. The request you two have made is something I’d expect of someone more jaded, more experienced.” He eyed Pip, but the other vampire refused to squirm under his raptor’s gaze.

“I would like you to tell me honestly whether this is your idea or his.” Walter had not looked away from Pip while making his request and was finally getting a small amount of squirming from the target of his stare.

Seras looked down at her hands, which were knotted in her lap and said, “It was my idea. Really it was.” She caught Walter’s chin and turned him away from putting Pip on the spot. “Look at me?” After he nodded and gave her his full attention, she continued. “Pip and I were talking about people before him. Obviously there wasn’t anyone before him.” At least she hoped it was obvious.

“He knows that of all the people I’ve known in my life, you are the only other person I’ve even thought about being with.” She looked back down at her hands, which now seemed to be engaged in some sort of Greco-Roman wrestling match with each other. “I thought you were handsome, even before. And you always seem like you can do anything. I always wondered…”

Walter waited, but she seemed stuck. “You always wondered…?” he prompted.

Her next words came out in a rush, “I always wondered if you were a good kisser.” Before Walter could do more than raise an eyebrow, Seras convinced her hands to save their single combat for another time, and put them on his cheeks, drawing his face down to hers for a soft kiss.

Pip watched Walter’s back stiffen momentarily then relax, and smiled to himself. What male, living or undead, could resist something like that? Pip definitely would not have been able to.

Seras let Walter’s face go and leaned back, smiling up at him. “I thought so.”

Walter stole a glance over his shoulder at Pip, who smiled lazily and waved a hand at Walter. “It’s her program, mon ami. Your questions were for her, yes?”

Well, yes, it did seem that way, didn’t it?

“Aren’t the two of you worried about the implications of inviting another person into your,” bed, coffin, sex lives, “relationship, however briefly?”

Seras reached behind Walter and caught one of Pip’s hands in hers and squeezed. There was no doubt in her expression. “No matter what Pip and I may do with you or with anyone else, we don’t need to worry. We have something… special.”

Their relationship was unique. Alucard had explained for Walter. Pip had not turned immediately after his death because his soul had been unavailable to bring the will needed to complete the change. He had given himself to Seras so completely and unreservedly that the two had shared her body briefly. Pip had only let go after he was certain that Seras would be okay; only then was he able to reanimate his body, which had been left in a sort of limbo between ghoul and vampire.

“And all of your arguments about sex?”

“Play.” Seras grinned up at him through her bangs. “It reminds us of before. The Eskimo song doesn’t bother me the way it used to. You could say he rubbed off a little on me.”

“I could say I did a little more than that, chère.”

“Oh, hush.” She released her hold on Pip’s hand and swatted it instead. “You know what happened with Pip and me during the war?”

“Alucard explained.”

Seras made a dismissive noise. “He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know how to share anything, let alone a body.”

Walter watched Seras look over his shoulder, but only saw her half of the glance she exchanged with Pip, something tender and just a little wistful. “It’s not like sharing a flat with a friend. There aren’t any secrets. But like sharing a flat with a friend, we would have driven each other crazy if we’d had to do it for too long.”

“Her point is that we shared more than just memories.” Pip laid a hand on Walter’s shoulder and waited for him to turn around. “I’m a little shyer about sex.” Seras snorted behind Walter. “She’s a lot less shy about it.”

“Tell him what else.”

For the first time in Walter’s memory, Pip Bernadette looked something close to embarrassed. “We really did rub off on each other. Seras has caught herself checking out the Boss, and I…”

“And he’s caught himself checking out your butt when you were working down in the firing range,” Seras interjected with a laugh.

Now Pip looked far more than just close to embarrassed, he looked like he’d be actually blushing if he weren’t a vampire. “Well, your trousers are a little tight in the back.”

Walter blinked at Pip. He was feeling more than nonplussed; he was beginning to believe that he was asleep in his coffin having what might just end up being the mother of all erotic dreams. When the man leaned forward and kissed him just as gently as Seras had minutes before, he was sure that he couldn’t possibly be awake.

“Did you two stop to think that I might say no?”

Seras stood up and Pip followed suit. She held her hand out to Walter and said, “We considered it.”

Walter looked at her hand and back up at her face. “And…?”

Pip answered for the pair, “We thought you’d be crazy to say no.” He mirrored Seras’ gesture and held a hand out to Walter.

“I’m crazy for saying yes,” Walter muttered as he reached out and took their hands.