Hellsing Fan Fiction ❯ Incidental Company ❯ Incidental Company ( One-Shot )

Disclaimer: None of this is mine. Based off the anime.

 

Notes: From one of my herbals: "... yellow roses are for perfect achievement, or sometimes jealousy ..." I don't know if it was deliberate or whimsical, but I always wondered why Maxwell gave Integra yellow roses in the anime. I read far too much into things when left unchecked. I rather doubt he would actually know this much about floral symbolism, but the idea would not let go. The company in the title is the flowers. I'd offer to sell my soul for a good title, since I am abominable, but I think I already auctioned that off; will write fics for good titles?

 

He hadn't originally planned to bring flowers along, but when they passed the small shop on the corner just before the Museum, he knew he had to. After all, it would give him the perfect opening to offer insincere condolences that they both would know were nothing more than a thinly veiled criticism of how her pathetic organisation operated. But, as Enrico Maxwell studied the possibilities displayed around the shop, he was not quite sure what. Integra Hellsing might have had all the subtlety of a ton of lead bricks, but he prided himself on actually possessing some cunning. It would not only be flowers, but a message, even if she had not the wit to read it.

 

He frowned slightly, dismissing the Gerbera daisies in all their florid colour - these were nothing like the innocent bloom said to have sprung from Mary's tears, but cheap and tawdry. It would have to be something reasonably sophisticated in terms of appearance; if he was going to make a show of things, there was no sense in doing it by half measures. A pity hellbore was not in season - the plant was as poisonous as the Protestant whore, in contrast to the innocuous white flowers some called 'Christmas rose'.

 

Roses? His eye settled on them at the thought, a wide swath of colours from crimson to gold to lilac and everywhere in-between. Thorns for sin and imperfection, a reminder of the arrogance which had brought the deaths of her men - and he would have them leave the thorns on. And though the flower itself had a myriad meanings, it was the colour which so often mattered, and he had no shortage of choices. Tapping a finger against his chin, he debated. All shades of pink could be discarded without a second thought; he had no wish to give her a bouquet that spoke of happy love. Red was more promising, connoting shame - or even the blood of a sacrifice - but it also was both commonplace and tended to signify desire, neither of which made it suitable. White? Purity suited her even less well.

 

Rather than cudgel his brain for what the dusky lavender blooms on the end could signify, he looked back near the red, past roses in all hues of the sunset, until his attention was caught by pale yellow. At this sight, a thin smile curved his lips. The perfect mockery: the thorns of sin beneath the flower of perfection, its radiance stained by jealousy. Even the achievement spoken of in the colour's more positive meaning would give him another venue for mockery.

 

"A dozen of those," he said, pointing, and rocked back on his heels while the shop girl wrapped them up.

 

Ronaldo was waiting for him when he emerged scant minutes later; the older priest looked at his watch and commented mildly, "We will be late."

 

"Yes," he replied with a smirk, and fought the urge to whistle as they continued the last hundred-odd metres towards the museum. Being late would only put Hellsing off-balance. He could hardly wait to see her face.

 

- finis -