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Seras’ head hits the cafe table with a clatter. “Two more years of this!” She wails, muffled against the fake aluminum.
“That’s not so bad.” Integra pats Seras’ hair, surprised at how soft the short strands are. Maybe that pixie cut was a good idea. “I have two years left, too.”
Seras pops back up so fast Integra nearly smacks her as her hand falls away. “Out of eight! And then you have to be a resident forever!” She slumps back onto the table. “How haven’t you gone nuts yet?”
Integra shifts in her chair, trying to find a position that appeases her aching abdomen. Pegging right before your period seems like a good idea at the time, but sore abs and cramps are not a good combination. “I probably have and no one’s noticed.”
Seras chuckles and sits back up. “So, we gonna talk about this english essay, or what?”
You’re the one who got sidetracked, Integra thinks, but she just smiles as Seras gets her notebook out. She loves her cousin, even when her invitations to coffee are transparent pleas for homework help. Anyway, it’s not like Integra hasn’t been helping Seras with her homework since forever. There is something comforting to the ritual. Seras’ confusion, dogged determination, continued confusion, and then,
“I could link this back to that Sapphos poem we were talking about! That could be my third source.”
“There you go.” Integra says as Seras scribbles madly. Mandatory english classes have been Seras’ bane for most of her life. Not that she can’t analyze a text, but her mind set of, ‘Integra, why the fuck do you think her mother was abusive? That doesn’t even make sense. And what difference it make?’, generally holds her back.
Seras sets the notebook aside and takes a long sip of her chocolate milk (they had to order something, and Seras doesn’t believe in caffeine). She releases the glass with a contented sigh and impressive milk mustache.
“You sure you don’t want anything?” She asks, wiping it off.
Integra starts. She has a feeling that she was just staring at Seras with a goony smile on her face. It’s hard not to. Seras reminds her of the first time she ever held a heart. Eighteen years old, bio lab 101. She had no idea what she was doing. She was at college because that was what a Hellsing did after high school. Get a job at the corner store? Roam the world? Try to find yourself? Jesus Christ, Integra. You were valedictorian. Stop being ridiculous.
So there she was, the only person in her group willing to so much as touch the pig heart before them. It was the second time she was that person, but this was different. When she turned the sheep lungs over she had seen marbled fat red, blue, and white, and she had thought it looked like the tiles a dark queen would lay in her throne room. She could hear the click of heels on the floor, and the scuffle of some poor, malaligned peasant as they approached her highness slowly, full of awe.
The heart was not beautiful, but it was small, and fragile, and she could not believe something so delicate could possibly be supporting every person in the room. Wether she believed it or not, they pumped on. It seemed like it could use some help.
That night she did some research. To be honest she had been relieved that becoming a heart surgeon would keep her in school for a while. She wouldn’t have to face that yawning chasm of ‘what am i doing’ that she had spent her entire senior year staring down.
At least not for a little longer.
A shadow falls across Seras’ copy of Purgatorio and a coffee appears on their table in a to-go cup. Integra refuses to acknowledge him, but she watches Seras eyes track the man as he walks away.
Integra takes a sip of her coffee, ignoring Seras’ ‘You-tell-me-what-that-was-right-now -young-lady!’ stare.
Did he order it with some sort of hazelnut something? Or was it that good a roast? Well, it was good enough that Integra managed to stretch her little sip out until Seras couldn’t take the silence any more.
“And that was….?”
“A man who owes me a coffee.” Ideally she had wanted to wait until she was in the mood for something sweet and make him buy her a concoction from starbucks, so as to offend his delicate hipster sensibilities, but this was good too.
“Ooo, you tell him why his ‘Vampires as the Amalgamation of Human Fear’ theory is bogus?”
Integra swallows hard, trying to appear nonchalant and not choke. “You know him?”
“We have intro to psyc together. He’s really into fear, or how we deal with fear, or something.” Seras crosses her arms over her chest. “He’s kind of a dick.”
Integra almost tells her how easy it was to make him whimper, but like the amount of alcohol she drank while underage, or any other misdemeanors, she has a feeling it’s something Seras is better off never knowing.