Yohko [Youko] Mano | 真野 妖子 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yohko) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
bakerstreet2013-05-21 12:28 pm
yohko) wrote in bakerstreet2013-05-21 12:28 pm
The End of the Line Meme (TW)
The End of the Line Meme
Humanity spends way more time than is strictly healthy contemplating death. But right now, for our characters, it's really the most pertinent topic on hand. For one reason or another, your character is going to die relatively soon, and they know it. Face to face with their own mortality, characters are liable to do any number of things. So have at it!
How this works:
→ Leave a comment with the usual information in the subject line: character name, fandom. Any preferences, including what you don't want, should be included as well.
→ Tag around.
→ Feel free to roll RNG (1-7) if you cannot come up with scenarios of your own.
→ Have fun, and be excellent to each other!
1: ☠Terminal Illness☠ Cancer, smallpox, TB, plague, cholera, pick your favorite life threatening disease, and lose against it. You character has been wasting away, they're past the point of being helped, and soon they will no longer be with us. Perhaps the other players is a loved one, a friend, a doctor, or maybe a fellow patient, (terminal or not), who's there to see the doomed party to their end.
2: ☠Elaborate Plot☠ The spike walls are slowly closing in, or the pit is filling with water, the air is running out in your sealed box, the counter on that bomb is ticking away, the poison has hit your bloodstream, the sharks are closing in, etc. Somehow you've found yourself trapped or cornered, most likely at the hands of some nefarious foe, but not necessarily. Either way, try as hard as you can to escape, you can't. When do you give up, or do you fight until the end? For this one the characters can either be trapped together, or one could be out of harm's way trying to save the other, or gloating and savoring their imminent demise.
3: ☠So Much Bleeding☠ Wow that hurts. Like, a lot. Or...or maybe not? Y'know it's starting to feel kind of light and floaty, and it'd sure be nice to just close your eyes and drift off... For some reason your character suffered a grievous injury. Maybe it was in an epic battle with their nemesis, maybe they sacrificed themselves for player two, or maybe they're just really really klutzy and were running with a pair of scissors. No matter how it went, the point is that now they're bleeding out and have not long left in this mortal coil.
4: ☠Old as Balls☠ Even your wrinkles have wrinkles. You've been alive for like...ever. But hey, all good things must end, and now you feel that you're reaching the end of your rope. Are you a bitter, angry old geezer, or are you content with your life? Heavy with regret, or proud of your accomplishments? Are you saying a tearful goodbye to your friends and family, or maybe flipping the bird to an old enemy one last time? Maybe you're even reconciling with that enemy. Go nuts.
5: ☠To the Gallows at Dawn☠ Innocent or guilty, you are scheduled to hang/firing squad/lethal injection/be drawn and quartered/be decapitated. It is your last night. Chat with your cell mate? Try to escape? Bribe/seduce the guard? Tell your life story to anyone who passes you in the stocks? This one needs a bit more tweaking to properly be an engaging two person thread, but I have faith in your creativity.
6: ☠Final Curtain Call☠ This time, it's not just about you. The entire effing country/planet/universe/dimension is about to go up in smoke and everyone knows it. Break out the condoms and fried cheese, because this is gonna be one wild night.
7: ☠Overdue☠ Waaaait a second, you're already dead! Who would've guessed that? Well anyway, welcome to the afterlife. Maybe you're in some kind of celestial paradise, a torture dimension, or perhaps you're being a clingy fart and hanging around on your previous plane of residence. Finish up your business, or chill out and creep the bejeezus out of people. Your choice.
Integra Hellsing | Hellsing | OTA
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Could be months, could be days, they said. And through it all, he seethed. Irritation kept carefully away from his Master's mind, lest it upset her. He wouldn't have that. She fought enough as it was. So he remained, watching silently, keeping his ghostly vigil as visitors came and went--sporadically, per doctor's orders--, keeping silent even as Her Majesty herself sat in quiet conversation with her loyal Knight.
Now, in the early hours of morning, as his Master slumbered quietly, he let himself become corporeal, solid enough to take station in a chair near to her bedside, keen ears attuned to every slow, too-deep breath. His eternal vigil he kept, though in silence.
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She'd lost more weight than she'd kept, and she knew she looked terrible. She knew that every moment that Alucard could see her was a moment that he was enraged -- nothing he could do could prevent her from knowing that, not when she knew him as intimately as she knew herself. Not being able to feel it didn't mean that she couldn't see it in the lines of his face, cold and silently hurting in his own way. Walter, dutiful as ever, stood by her through it and cared for the house as he always had.
She'd never thought that she would die before the man who had raised her. That was a chilling thought, but it was no less factual.
Cracking one eye open, she made an effort to smile, but it felt more like a grimace, so she let it fall. "Alucard," she rasped, shifting to sit up. It was incredibly painful, but she kept her face blank; her jaw didn't twitch, nor did her eyebrow, and she knew that her expression was impassive as it ever had been.
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"I am here, Master," he repeated in the same soft tone, barely audible over the sounds of the machines situated on the other side of her bed. How he hated their damned noise! Despite the fact that they played a large part in keeping the woman attached to them alive, they also ticked away the seconds of her life. He felt like ripping them all to shreds.
But he refrained, swallowing his rage and simply lowered his head near her hand, nostrils flared so that cold breath wafted over her fingers, testament to his presence close and near, always near. Even to the last.
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But that was a long time down the road, and this was now. Now, there was breath as cold as the dead themselves against her hand, and final orders to give. Now, there was a grieving vampire waiting to know what she required of him while her life was leeched away by an unseen force. They couldn't win this time.
"Alucard," she started again, "my dear, dark servant. You've been with me for most of my life, and I don't know how to express my appreciation for that. Sometimes you fought me, but almost every step down this road for the last ten years, you obeyed when I needed something from you -- sometimes, perhaps, far too well." It was such a short span of space, but it felt like it was eternity before her fingers curved around his cheek, contouring to his face as easily as if it were made to be there.
"I have one final order, and one request. First, you are to raise Walter Vladimir Hellsing as diligently as you and Walter raised me. You will ensure that he grows to be the man that he needs to be in order to run Hellsing." To be the Hellsing man that Alucard would willingly bend his knee to, as she was the first. "He's a good boy. I think you know that by now. He's going to need the influence of one who understands the potential for power and can help him control it without destroying himself or his people."
The second part, however, she hesitated to ask. Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing, always so certain, so unyielding, hesitated now, not out of reluctance or fear, but out of concern for how the vampire kneeling beside her would feel in response to her question. Finally, she shook her head and looked down at him, tired blue meeting that startling crimson. She refused to shy away. "Show me the Count, Alucard. Please, for the last time, I would like to see the man who was so strong in the face of hardship, even if that strength was poorly manifested." It was poorly phrased, but the searing pain shooting through her body at all times had a tendency to make her words inelegant when she tried to speak. At least she was justified.
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He did well to keep his countenance passive until she'd finished speaking, although what she'd said burned through him with crimson fire and the vampire sighed, slowly drawing away to stand tall and dark at the foot of her bed, though his damned soul still craved her touch. But what she'd asked...
"...Integra Hellsing..." he said finally, gazing down at her with eyes obscured by obsidian. "...since first you spoke my name I have been yours. Body. And soul. In peace. In war. In life." Then did the darkness vanish and the full force of the vampire's gaze came to bear. "...and in death."
The shadows thickened within her chambers, swirling with a blood-hued aura here and there, but finally parted, revealing her monster in all of his former glory. Although shackled still, the manifestation of his "true" self was one he knew well, so very well, and even though the memories assailed him with their swift hellish cries, Alucard stifled them. For the moment. Yet so real was the image that the buckles adorning the armor jingled with each minute movement and the Sword of Dracul clanked against a tasset when once more the vampire moved 'round to his Master's bedside. He appeared the same as he had during that last fateful battle, at the end of which he'd finally been defeated--or so they'd thought. The only testament to that ancient folly was the absence of bright, shockingly bright blue eyes 'neath disheveled locks; now those eyes burned with crimson fire.
Although his hands were encased in heavy leather, the touch of metal atop it was still cool but Alucard reached for his Master's pale hand, reverently bringing it to his lips as he lowered his head. Pressing the back of her hand to his forehead, he spoke quietly, but with steel.
"...forgive me, my Master...but your Order--I must refuse..."
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Now she lifted her other hand, the one where so many machines connected to her body, and combed stick-like fingers through his hair, only to grip the strands more tightly than she realized she still could at his refusal.
"Who do you think you are that you dare to deny my command?" she growled. His duty to her and her bloodline was to abide and obey. True, they had come so much further than she had ever anticipated, and true, she knew that he stood as her equal, submitting because he desired the security that her steadfast command gave him, but he was still hers. She still held his leash as tightly as she ever had, and he refused to bow to her will.
She didn't even have the strength to make him regret that decision.
So instead, she released his hair, pulled away the hand that he was holding, and slowly trailed her fingertips down his cheek from his hair to lift his chin. "Why do you refuse to give my son the instruction that he'll need just as much as I did so many years ago?"
Walter would be gone soon. The boy would be left to Sir Irons, Sir Penwood, and Seras. She had faith in them, of course, but it wouldn't be the security and training to handle stressful situations that came with Alucard.
She could only hope that his reason was good enough to justify depriving the next in the Hellsing line of his lessons.
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And alas, but her son he feared would never have his matron's cold, iron-hard grip.
"Your son," he finally said, never moving from beneath her touch, "holds no shadow." No darkness within, no taint upon innocent purity. The boy wasn't a child of violence; he held none of the fascination for the old monster as did his beautiful mother. "He is the beginning of the new era, my Countess, when men will rise to destroy that which they fear."
And there was yet another reason for his refusal--one far more profound than just her child.
Alucard lifted his head then, sanguine staring at her from beneath its disheveled curtain of black. "More importantly, my Master...I would not have you travel that final road alone..."
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Hellsing Organization would be given to the round table, led by the men she trusted because they'd earned her trust. The boy would be raised by those men and shown how to be the strong, dignified force that all would have to reckon with, and he would be respected if he followed his elders' instruction. Alucard was forcing her to acknowledge it, and she didn't have the energy to resist. So she nodded, just once, while her hand curved around his cheek. "He won't be like me or those who came before." He'd be his own man, and she'd never see him become who he was meant to be.
His next words, though, caused her heart to miss a beat, for her fingernails to bite into his skin for a moment. He'd surprised her. "My monster, my pet, I can't release you, not yet." Not with her body so weak, and fear lingering in the back of her mind. He was so certain of what awaited her, while she stood in doubt. He was so sure she'd be fine, but she wasn't ready to face eternity without him by her side. After a deep breath, she met his crimson eyes with her own pale blue ones, and she sat back against her pillows.
"How long have you waited to be freed from this world, and to wander no longer?" She could give him this. Truly, she could, but she was afraid. Could he wait for her to join him? Was he even capable?
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Alucard had no illusions about Heaven or Hell--he'd witnessed both in his long existence. And cared not for the destination at the end of his bloody journey--he simply wanted to stop. And without his Master, his beautiful Countess, to drive him on, he honestly didn't believe he could muster the madness to continue on without her.
Besides, he couldn't let her go on alone. He was her rakish gentleman, after all.
The vampire felt the sickness within her, could almost taste its damning poison. The human doctors were optimistic, he knew, but he knew the truth. It wouldn't be long now. Alucard lowered his head to her hand once more, surrendering for what might be the last time.
"...when you are ready, Countess," he murmured.
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No more would she take warm comfort in a cold embrace, nor would she gauge her own wakefulness against the hot insanity of the monster of her own making. No more would she feel her temper burn because of his taunting.
"Join me, Alucard." Her words began to flow, as smooth and as natural as if they'd waited years to fall from her lips, regardless of how far from typical for her they were. "Take me in your arms, Count, and let me have my final moments with you. Hold my life in your hands, and crush it out, and when I no longer remain among the living, join me in death. For good, this time."
It hurt to say, it scared her to think it, but this was necessary. This was what their lives were meant to culminate in, what they had been bound toward for her entire life.
It was time.
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Even here at the end, he still had trepidation about what she'd asked him to do. Van Helsing's conditioning had been learned so well. Thus it was he bared his teeth slowly, just teasing her weak pulse with the tip of his fangs.
When no pain flared along the Seals, Alucard hesitated no longer; he struck, swift and true. The shocking gush of her blood spilled over his tongue and he swooned, a low, primal growl echoing deep in his chest, predator personified. Scarlet eyes slammed closed and he pulled her tighter, drinking deep, tasting her heart in his mouth.
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When he struck, when his teeth sank into her flesh and opened her vein, her fingers once more buried themselves in his hair. Her body found the strength to bow against him, and a quiet, throaty noise broke free of her lips. For a moment that seemed to last forever, Integra was suspended in the grips of ecstasy that walked the delicate line that
separated pleasure from pain.
But her body was already so very weak, and the moment faded quickly. Her final conscious thought was directed toward him: Just as you've always been mine, Alucard, I have always been yours. I will be waiting for you, my beautiful Count.
And with that, she let go.
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He heard her final message, delivered with her body's last fading breath--then all was still. It stopped. Her heart ceased to beat, her breath ceased to flow.
All was still.
Blood still staining his mouth, Alucard licked clean his lips, tenderly holding the body of his deceased Master close. With what might have been a final prayer to a God in whom he'd so long disbelieved, the No Life King delved deep within his damned soul and brought to the fore the last remnant of Nazi science gone so horribly wrong.
His corporeal body began to fade, dissipating into nothing more than mist as it swirled about the bed, eventually vanishing altogether, leaving nothing more than a murmur of a familiar baritone, thrumming now only in memory:
"Integra Hellsing...my Countess..."
When it faded, then all was silent.