Imperfection
folder
Hellsing › General
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
10
Views:
5,713
Reviews:
10
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Hellsing › General
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
10
Views:
5,713
Reviews:
10
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Hellsing, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
The past is dream country...(14yrs)
Try as she might, she cannot picture Walter young.
She’s in the library late at night, and the air is warm and close and smells of graves and old paper A massive hellhound lies drowsing in front of the fire, coat gleaming blue-black and sleek, well-fed. As she watches, it curls its tail more firmly around itself. On each paw, six claws the size of her little finger, all of them elegantly retractable.
She tucks her feet under her body and squirms a little in her armchair. In her lap is an ancient, crumbing photo album, filled with sepia portraits of people now old, and in many cases, dead. Beside each photograph the date and location is noted in an elegant copperplate hand, and the names also. Here: Arthur, no last name, 1938, Birmingham Castle, smirking smugly with his arm wrapped firmly around a pouting sliver-screen starlet. Sir Islands, impossibly young and absurd in cricket whites at Carlisle Green and then this one: a pretty boy in a straight stock and tie, grinning slyly at some joke only he knows. Walter C. Dornez, Poland, 1944. Christmas. She pauses, touches the grainy surface thoughtfully.
Just after we wiped out the Deutsch vampire battalion. The words appear in her head without bothering her ears. She looks up; the hellhound blinks sleepily at her with six red eyes. He insisted it be taken as soon at the bruises on his face faded. He even took his arm out of the sling.
“Why?”
Vanity, says the hellhound. It yawns, gullet glinting wetly in the firelight. He is a very vain man.
“Don’t you mean ‘was’?”
No.
She turns the page. Another photograph. Walter dancing, hand outstretched, a ring on each finger.
You cannot fault him for being a little vain. He is quite the looker, and she hears a wet, tearing, organic sort of sound. There is a man lying in front of the fire, bare-chested and handsome. He smiles at her, but his pale grey eyes are chillingly cold. He tugs winsomely at his long black hair. Attractive, don’t you think? He has improved so much with age.
“Stop that,” she says, turning her face away. When she looks back the man is a hellhound again and it leers. You would think it impossible for a canine to leer, but this one does, it leers, and sniggers a little too.
I guess you’ll improve also, it tells her. You just need to grow up a little.
“I am grown-up,” she snaps, incensed.
The hellhound tilts its head to the side, considering. It stretches, claws flexing and becoming fingers, joints separating and resettling themselves while the creature’s muzzle pushes back into the skull to become a face. Bare skin chases fur away and the cold-eyed man is back, a much younger Walter.
Hellhound-Walter grins toothily and crawls towards her on hands and knees. His shiny black hair lies startling and violent across his naked shoulders and she has to stiffen to keep herself from flinching back as he comes closer and closer. Finally he stops, just short of her armchair. He smiles sweetly at her and opens his mouth to unroll a six-inch tongue. It flicks against her wrist and she shudders. She shivers.
“Stop it!”
My master wills, says hellhound-Walter smugly. His point has been proven. Without bothering to change back he crawls to his old place by the fire and curls up into a succinct and comfortable ball.
After a while, Integra stops grinding her teeth. “I am grown-up,” she says again. Her companion doesn’t bother replying. She turns the page of her photograph album. The past is another country and impossible to visit if you don’t remember it, but she tries anyway.
She’s in the library late at night, and the air is warm and close and smells of graves and old paper A massive hellhound lies drowsing in front of the fire, coat gleaming blue-black and sleek, well-fed. As she watches, it curls its tail more firmly around itself. On each paw, six claws the size of her little finger, all of them elegantly retractable.
She tucks her feet under her body and squirms a little in her armchair. In her lap is an ancient, crumbing photo album, filled with sepia portraits of people now old, and in many cases, dead. Beside each photograph the date and location is noted in an elegant copperplate hand, and the names also. Here: Arthur, no last name, 1938, Birmingham Castle, smirking smugly with his arm wrapped firmly around a pouting sliver-screen starlet. Sir Islands, impossibly young and absurd in cricket whites at Carlisle Green and then this one: a pretty boy in a straight stock and tie, grinning slyly at some joke only he knows. Walter C. Dornez, Poland, 1944. Christmas. She pauses, touches the grainy surface thoughtfully.
Just after we wiped out the Deutsch vampire battalion. The words appear in her head without bothering her ears. She looks up; the hellhound blinks sleepily at her with six red eyes. He insisted it be taken as soon at the bruises on his face faded. He even took his arm out of the sling.
“Why?”
Vanity, says the hellhound. It yawns, gullet glinting wetly in the firelight. He is a very vain man.
“Don’t you mean ‘was’?”
No.
She turns the page. Another photograph. Walter dancing, hand outstretched, a ring on each finger.
You cannot fault him for being a little vain. He is quite the looker, and she hears a wet, tearing, organic sort of sound. There is a man lying in front of the fire, bare-chested and handsome. He smiles at her, but his pale grey eyes are chillingly cold. He tugs winsomely at his long black hair. Attractive, don’t you think? He has improved so much with age.
“Stop that,” she says, turning her face away. When she looks back the man is a hellhound again and it leers. You would think it impossible for a canine to leer, but this one does, it leers, and sniggers a little too.
I guess you’ll improve also, it tells her. You just need to grow up a little.
“I am grown-up,” she snaps, incensed.
The hellhound tilts its head to the side, considering. It stretches, claws flexing and becoming fingers, joints separating and resettling themselves while the creature’s muzzle pushes back into the skull to become a face. Bare skin chases fur away and the cold-eyed man is back, a much younger Walter.
Hellhound-Walter grins toothily and crawls towards her on hands and knees. His shiny black hair lies startling and violent across his naked shoulders and she has to stiffen to keep herself from flinching back as he comes closer and closer. Finally he stops, just short of her armchair. He smiles sweetly at her and opens his mouth to unroll a six-inch tongue. It flicks against her wrist and she shudders. She shivers.
“Stop it!”
My master wills, says hellhound-Walter smugly. His point has been proven. Without bothering to change back he crawls to his old place by the fire and curls up into a succinct and comfortable ball.
After a while, Integra stops grinding her teeth. “I am grown-up,” she says again. Her companion doesn’t bother replying. She turns the page of her photograph album. The past is another country and impossible to visit if you don’t remember it, but she tries anyway.