I do not own Darren Shan.
This fanfic was originally due out for Halloween. Oh well. I could've put it out for April Fool's. Oh well. But now that I am putting it out, please note that this story is slightly AU, and if I ever get my butt in gear, will actually be a spin-off of one of my existing Darren Shan fics. Oh well.
On with the story!
Everyone knew that Steve read Vampire stories. Everyone at school knew about his obsession with them. Everyone knew that Steve was also the only one to stand up to the bullies and gangs that ran the streets and get away with it.
Everyone was convinced that Steve himself was a vampire.
Well, they'd only be partly right.
Steve ruled the streets long before the school counselor, and his adopted son Darren, moved into the town a few weeks back.
Mr. Crepsley had asked Steve where his interest in Vampires came from, and Steve, rather than the typical "I just think that they're cool, y'know?" he treated Mr. Crepsley to a much more vivid description.
What? It was his first time meeting the guy, might as well make it interesting.
"I suppose I like Vampires because for all the myth that is composed of them, you can still agree on key points. Like they share drinking blood and a code. There's always a code. It's usually and honorable or mutually understood between each Vampire, a 'code of conduct' if you will. I find it amazing that something humans conceived the idea of is actually better behaved than they are. I mean, talk about the gods of Rome and Greece. Total sluts and bravado, stories to amaze and dazzle. Hardly a moral strung between them unless you know where to look."
Steve had smirked at Mr. Crepsley. "Well? Gonna tell the nurse to renew my meds?"
Funny thing was he hadn't. Just made a note in his binder (that snooping later on for a dare revealed was written in code- Steve remembered thinking (assuming) at the time Jeez, this guy is strict on patient confidentiality.)
Now Steve knows better. He knows that Mr. Crepsley couldn't write in English for the longest time.
He also knows that when he gets into scraps on the street, the eyes watching him aren't just the eyes of his opponents.
Steve is terrified of ever losing a fight. Not because of what will happen to him. But because of who will step into the fight if he decides to.
Steve wakes up one morning, deciding that he enjoys life. He rolls out of bed and shucks the sleeping pants, leaving on his oversized t-shirt as he crosses into the bathroom. He can hear Darren downstairs, already making breakfast.
Steve is a Sophomore in high school. Darren would have been a Senior, but he explained taking a year off for 'issues' and is put in the Junior level instead. Darren clung to Steve like a shadow. He never seemed to be right there to anyone except Steve.
Pinning Darren down for a confession after two weeks was the hardest Steve hard worked in forever outside of school.
Finally, he had tricked Darren into a tutoring session that was nothing more than review on a project that Steve had finished. The report was typed up and the note cards ready. All Steve wanted to know was how to arrange the visual for the best effects.
After he had packed up, he turned around and Darren was right there behind him, leaning in close.
"Ah, my shoelace is untied. Sorry." Darren bent over, kneeling right in front of Steve, who was pinned. The table on his right, the window of the third level of the library behind him closed for Darren's 'allergies'. Suddenly Steve doubts that Darren has allergies. He also doubts he could lose Darren in the stack of books off to his left. He's done that before. Gotten into fights and lost the attackers down alley ways.
Darren glances up into his face from his position. No.
He glances into Steve's eyes.
Steve can't breathe. There's something wrong. He remembers that you never look someone in the eyes unless you want to. He always makes certain to look someone directly in the eyes when he first meets them.
But never long enough. And he realizes that is what Darren is doing. Darren is holding his gaze while he ties his shoelaces. Steve gropes in the back of his mind for something to break the silence. The tick tick tick tick tick of the clock is suddenly too fast.
And then Steve knows.
Darren will always be that half-step behind him.
Steve recalls never having to assume that Darren was somehow just so behind him. He just knew like when storms were coming when Darren was so close. Suddenly, he knew that the street wars he had gotten caught up in really were no longer child's play.
There was an edge to Darren. Something that the easy going and charming son of the counselor that wrote in frickin' code knew. Steve knew about it.
But he never saw that side of Darren.
Just the aftermath.
Steve stands under the shower head, reaching for the dandruff shampoo. He's glad that the stuff comes premixed. He picks up the bottle, turns it over, and shakes the contents down to the top. He squirts out an amount the size of a quarter. Musing about getting a haircut, he lathers and rinses. He scrubs his body with a loafer that he picked up just to clean easier with an actual scrubber that didn't flail him.
Steve makes sure to get behind the ears, back of his legs, armpits. Steve cleans are far as he can reach and safely stretch in a shower.
In eight minutes he is drying off and carrying his shirt back into this room for the laundry hamper. He knows that at exactly ten minutes of hearing the water run and squeak in the pipes Mr. Crepsley will turn the hot water off.
He claims it's to cut back on expanses. Steve lets the real reason slide, and had just commented on 'doing their part for conservation'.
Steve dresses in a long sleeve shirt (bruises, some old enough to be yellow, some healed to be yellow) and pulls on a sweater-vest over it. One, because it makes his un-tucked shirt look acceptably cool on his figure. Two, because he once had to hide a shotgun from a police investigation.
He shudders at the memory. A rival gang got out of control, and had brought a shotgun to school grounds. Steve had put a stop to it, but someone had called the police just to create more trouble. The corrupt police man who was finally put away had arrived. Bastard had been the one to start the whole mess.
Steve stops dwelling on the incident and considers the outcome.
The baker's son down the street helps out at the Soup Shop for the Homeless as payment for that stunt. It's a profitable business. Both sides turned out for the better, and most of the kids pinned down during the fight held part time jobs while they stayed at the homeless shelter.
Everyone came out okay. Steve smoothes his ruffled feathers, and heads out.
Well, he wishes he could apply the imagery to himself. If he was truthful, it was more like his fur was raised.
Steve heads out of his room, down the hall, and into the kitchen. After his mother had died, he had inherited the house through some fine wheeling's of his dad, who was glad he hadn't disinherited his son.
Now he could legally keep Steve in a golden cage in case he never got a male heir with his trophy wife.
Darren turns around and beams at Steve. "You ready for school yet? You take so long to wake up."
"Shut up. It's not even half an hour after I got up. And we have an hour until school. I just eat early so that we can all eat together." Steve nearly mumbles into the floor. But he would never look anywhere else except at Darren or Mr. Crepsley when he speaks to them. He addresses Darren with his head raised and eyes mostly on the apron Darren wears.
Steve slides into his seat at the table.
Mr. Crepsley shuffles the newspaper off to the side. His attention falls on Steve.
"You fell asleep on top of the covers again Steve."
"Geez, sorry. There was trouble down at the park," like you weren't there "so I got back late. I aced the exam yesterday. We got the results back before the class was even over. Damn, but those scantrons make everything easier."
"You mean the cheating? I agree." Darren slides the omelets first to Mr. Crepsley, then one to Steve, then takes the bell peppers with hot sauce for himself.
Steve tucks into his food. "You of all people know I don't cheat. After all the hours I put in-"
"More like you can't stop. That edictic memory and your obsessive-compulsive disorder will be the death of you." Darren cuts in.
Steve scowls at him from across the table.
He reflects back to the conditions that landed him with his house guests three months ago. He knows that they are not his guests. They would be here with him one way or raise hell until they were. The events that led to their being here seemed unrelated, but Steve long since learned that coincidence was something only blind people believed in.
Well, the fire that resulted from the meth lab had been horrible. Steve is glad the he alerted the entire frickin' neighborhood just so that they could ignore him. Just so that they could roll over and figure that it wasn't their problem. That it wasn't their sons and daughters trying meth. Trying drugs. That curiosity wasn't strong enough for their little angels to break the rules.
Steve wants to strangle them for their disbelief. But the smoke is already doing that.
Steve had alerted the police, using his alias as a confidential tip that he had seen a _very_ drunk man go into the meth lab that fit the description of the guy who made the meth. He told them that the meth lab had an 84% chance of exploding now.
He had emphasized that that was without the added factor of the guy consciously trying to make more.
The police and fire trucks were there with silent whispers on the asphalt to contain the situation.
Everything blowing to kingdom come had not been on the manual, but at least the burn victims were off to the hospital. Others weren't so…..blessed.
Steve remembers that night. The night he had darted into the fire to save this girl he knew in his class. He had gone in with the firefighters, a civilian fighter that knew well enough to pitch in and help. He knew the general outline of the neighborhood. Short cuts through the buildings. What buildings were made of. Who was in danger of a collapsing building. Whose sprinkler system was actually going off. Steve helped them look. He was looking specifically for this girl because he remembered her freaking out in Chemistry class one day from the fireball the teacher had shown off.
Her name was rather seasonal. Like the Christmas just around the corner that cold night.
Something Hemlock. A classmate.
They found here in the apartment. He got her to go towards the fireman and the hose that led back outside, when she started wheezing something. She pointed at a book shelf.
A cat. A white cat was on the shelf, trying to escape the flames and the smoke. Steve waived her on, and turned back.
The cat had sprung on him once he was close enough. The second fireman got him out. The cat was seen to while Steve was wrapped in a blanket with water and an oxygen mask on hand.
Debbie… that was her name. She thanked him. Her parents moved away with her shortly thereafter, but they emailed now and then.
But what happened after is what still stuck with Steve.
His dad had tried to send men, nannies over to the house to look after him. Steve had a running bet with himself that none of them could last two months with him. None of them made it a week.
Not that either party was to blame. Steve just could make people think that they were unwelcomed….what had the fortune teller say….'your talent lies in empathy' and then her crystal ball had cracked.
Oh, she had laughed forever before telling him that was a clear indication that he was a strong one all right. She reassured him that she would be fine, and sent him on his way.
But with no men at home representing his father, Steve was living on his own. He had no way to get home, except to walk back. With his lungs full of smoke and his face burnt from soot and heat.
Steve was leaning against the fire truck when Mr. Crepsley pulled up. Well, the Principal of the school was driving, Mr. Crepsley tagged along because he was the school counselor, and a lot of kids lived on this street.
Mr. Crepsley offered to take Steve home. Walk him home, check for aftershocks, and make sure he got there okay. The fireman thanked him. There were so many people, and the ambulance was still transporting people. Hell, there were three ambulances now. Besides, Mr. Crepsley was well known by them. And Steve just needed monitoring, something that all School faculty could do, or had been trained in.
They were walking along, Steve being quiet, just ready to collapse. He wanted to be home, in his house, curled up under the sheets and maybe go to school late.
He was not expecting to be dangled over a rooftop clear out of nowhere.
"Do you realize just how stupid you were tonight?"
Steve comes back to the present, splitting open his omelet and eating the insides. He is quite thankful for the warm meal.
He can cook, but no where near as well as Darren. Mr. Crepsley talks about the day, glad to beat the sun to work where he will be in a windowless office that was rather cramped until he 'discovered' that the southern was unnecessarily thick.
After all of the hubbub about there being a skeleton in the wall, Mr. Crepsley had expanded the room by another three feet. Long enough for him to fit the desk better and claustrophobic students began to drop by. Soon, Mr. Crepsley had a steady stream of visitors.
Steve passed it off to the gangs as Mr. Crepsley 'being handsome, in that 'ye old gentleman' way'. The gangs had relaxed and no one except the most thorough had looked into Mr. Crepsley and confirmed for themselves that Mr. Crepsley was as Steve said.
Harmless.
Oh, Steve could laugh at that now.
They finish breakfast and Steve heads back upstairs. He comes down and sets the backpack by the front door. Then he hugs Mr. Crepsley and heads to the kitchen to dry and put away the dishes Darren washes.
Then Darren showers and dresses for the day. He always makes sure to be fast, because even if Mr. Crepsley isn't here to turn off the hot water after ten minutes, Steve knows enough minor curses to give Darren one ugly zit right on his lip.
Steve had been practicing his magic again, after all. Well, after finding out he wasn't a freak or alone.
Darren smiles and heads downstairs. He activates the wards, and begins the half hour lesson on magic so that Steve can better control the magic.
He doesn't have blinding visions that take him out for a few, vulnerable agonizing seconds that leaves him reeling.
He can actually levitate dice, stacking them numerically.
One day last week, Mr. Crepsley came home with a bag of dice. One set was all kinds of multiple sided dice. The other all had the same number printed on each side.
Mr. Crepsley had set out the first set, and then expectantly sat back.
Steve took two hours getting the dice to form a bigger die in formation. Mr. Crepsley shot forward, knocking his arm into the display.
If the dice had been stacked, Mr. Crepsley would have easily knocked a portion away. Forget that thought was faster than action, Mr. Crepsley had surprised Steve. The entire structure moved as a whole and rolled onto the floor.
Steve had formed the die into one bigger dice. The collection rolled onto the floor and turned up a seven.
Mr. Crepsley smiled.
He laid out the second collection. Steve mentally picked up the dice all at once, and one thudded back onto the table. Each die was a different weight. A different amount of control to levitate each one was required to life them all up. Steve fought to focus individually on each one, to split his attention ten different ways and hold them up in a line. He managed to hang them vertically in different orders, but after switching them around, he went back to doing it horizontally.
The line the dice confirmed to had to come from his orders.
It was like when you snap your fingers to a tune you've just heard, and you can't get the beat, because you're always echoing the tune, but you keep trying because it's catchy. He wanted to get the beat right. But the more he focused, the more out of sync he became.
He stopped trying.
Not the levitating. The part where he controlled the dice. The dice snapped into a line. Then the line started to spin, rotate on its axis.
Steve had panted, exhausted. But he was glowing, triumphant in his accomplishment.
Mr. Crepsley carried him to bed, and hand fed him some soup that Darren had made during the trial.
Being told that a handful of dice just determined that he had graduated from magus to wizard status was a great thing to know before he fell asleep.
Steve focuses on the lesson at hand. Darren talks about all kinds of magic, with Steve filling in the blanks of what he has already learned, on the lookout for what is next. After the lesson, they head on to school.
Darren walks that half-step behind Steve. The entire school thinks that it was nice of Steve to offer his home to Mr. Crepsley after the fire; they think it beneficial to Mr. Crepsley to be near a student so terribly fucked up and set a good example.
Steve thinks that it's wonderful Mr. Crepsley doesn't resort to dangling him off of rooftops to get what he wants from Steve.
The day passes normally. The sun is shining, Steve pays attention, and he listens to the hum of electricity and eavesdrops on what the crackles and snaps forms as words. He could even turn on his own cell phone and send messages to people and hear what they have to say outside of school, except that Mr. Crepsley sends random messages that tell Steve to turn his cell phone off.
That was a hilarious day in English. Having his phone confiscated only to be returned to him, considering who the message was from.
He forgets sometimes that Mr. Crepsley and Darren can 'listen' too.
The day ends. Steve reviews what homework he has to do by morning and hits the streets.
He doesn't wait for Darren or Mr. Crepsley.
He never had to.
There are four fights tonight. These are domestic fights, not gang fights, where Steve finally sics the police on three of them. The fourth one was just too many drinks. The wife is mortified when she sobers up, and is in AA support group by next Wednesday. Her son was at a sleep over. Her husband wasn't.
Steve counts the woman off as a 'happily ever after' and prowls down to where the rest of the agenda are.
The gangs.
"Hey Steve, how's it going pretty kitty?"
There are cat calls. One even barks. Steve ignores them, sashaying over to the boss. The girls in his way are buxom and well developed. They leer at Steve. Steve strokes their necks and they let him through.
One collapses on the ground in a fit. Her chest heaving as she fights the onslaught.
Her boss leaves her there as Steve produces the money. She slides the pouch across to Steve.
The trade over, Steve sits at the card table.
"How's life?"
"The water is running again. Marcy got the scholarship, she's staying at college. Once she's at any paying job, she's finding a house she can open to us. Thirty percent of us are holding our jobs. Jacque quite his. His boss actually threw the stool at him. He filed the forms like you said to, and he's looking into the dog walking business that you recommended. They are thinking of giving him the groomer position."
She gives Steve the update without a fight. She knows that the streets are no place for her gang. Some of them wouldn't be here if they weren't fed up and needed to do something. Some of them would be dead by now without her. Or Steve. Or they would be worse than dead.
The body guard is trembling, biting her lip, clenching her fists.
Her friends don't look at her.
Steve nods. He raises his hands, and dismisses the gang. He gets up and kisses the back of the leader's hand. His favor signals immunity from the other gangs.
Then he turns to leave. He smirks at the girl on the floor.
"Four more minutes, then take her to the back room." The rest of the Asian minority nods to him.
The cocaine works its way out of her system. She wants to be clean, but the damn stuff was tricked into her system as a new type of candy. She couldn't be more than fourteen years old herself. She would kill the man responsible if Steve hadn't intervened. If he hadn't claimed that there were other victims.
The hospital had treated the younger children once they knew what the cutting substance was that the dealer had used.
She refused the medical treatment, because that was unwanted attention from the authorities. She was a runaway with no place to go. Steve agreed to help her.
She uttered a prayer and shivered.
Steve wraps up the walk and heads home. Two shadows follow him. One underground and one above ground, high away up on the rooftops. Darren fixes dinner once they are home. Steve works on homework. Mr. Crepsley mutters loud enough for them to hear about secretaries and their damn cleavage and didn't they know what a long distance relationship is?
Steve agrees, and then sets back to studying.
Darren wonders why Mr. Crepsley just doesn't marry Arra. Out loud.
Mr. Crepsley 'humphs' and works on his paperwork.
The evening passes by quietly. After a dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, Steve pulls out a non-dice game of cards and they settle in. Mr. Crepsley perks up as the night drags on.
Steve leaves after the fifth hand to get ready for bed. He also takes longer in the bathroom than necessary, but then he's out again.
He sits in for a few more hands, and then he heads to bed.
Darren and Mr. Crepsley wish him a good night. Steve has no doubt that anything outside of other gangs tries to mess with those on the streets will be meeting up with two pissed off vampires.
Everyone at school knows that Steve is crazy about Vampires. Everyone knows that he reads about them.
No one has the heart the next day to tell Darren or Mr. Crepsley that their skin is sparkling while Steve laughs about 'pulling off the greatest prank ever' to his classmates.
No one knows why Steve decided that a Twilight make over is okay for his two house guests adopted family.
Fin
A/N: Okay, originally this was supposed to be a cute little one-shot where Steve put glitter (somehow) on Mr. Crepsley and Darren, and no one else could figure out why it was so funny.
Because for some reason, Steve would have been the only person in town who knew about the 'Twilight' series. Then this wrote itself. Oh well.
Review?