Hey there! If you've found this you're A) a reader of mine already and thought you'd check this out, B) just as appalled as me to not see ANY MurloughxEvra fics on this site, or C) just as kinky as me to lurk in this region of the Cirque du Freak fandom. ;3 No matter what category you fit into (even if it's all of the above) I hope you really enjoy this beginning. And remember, if you want more, all you have to do is select Review, Author Alert, or Story Alert. I even like having people put my stuff in their faves, but how would you be able to track it's progress if you only faved it then forgot? That just wouldn't do, lol.

WARNINGS: Massive AU, probably a good portion of OOCness since Mr. Shan didn't characterize our favourite snake-boy very well, and possible adult situations in much later parts. ^_^ Also, I don't own the Cirque du Freak series. If I did, Mr. Crepsley wouldn't have died, Steve would have been killed much earlier on in the story, and that shower scene in the 4th book totally would have been... much more than it was. (Because we all know Darren wants Crepsley's nuts, and vice versa.)

She was upset at me again for reasons I couldn't pinpoint. Unblinking eyes seemed to hurl curses at me in only the way snakes can, forcing me to avert my gaze and amuse myself without my snake's company. Looking to the tent in my roomie'scdirection, I spotted a deck of cards sitting near Darren's occupied hammock. He looked upset, but I wanted those cards so badly. And someone to keep me company while my snake held such an unfair grudge.

"Hey, Darren," I grinned and pushed some of my hair out of my face with one hand, "Want to play a game of cards? Speed could be fun! Or maybe even Slap Jack."

The half-vampire didn't respond at first. His contemplative gaze was aimed solely at the ceiling; I almost though he hadn't heard me, because the look on his face didn't change. But ever so slowly, he turned to look at me. What he said surprised me though. "Have you ever been in love, Evra?"

What a weird question. Of course I hadn't! At sixteen years old—and having lived my whole life in one circus or another—I hadn't taken the time to meet any girls. And no girls ever seemed to take interest in me, the boy with cold blood and scales. After all, being able to stick your tongue up your nose and charm an overly-largely and overly-moody snake weren't exactly the way to pick up chicks.

"Nope. Why?"

Darren's face seemed to drop from an expression of brooding thoughtfulness to one of something akin to fear and embarrassment. His cheeks colored a dark shade of pink, and I immediately knew that I shouldn't have asked. Instead, I skirted around my own question. "So, do you want to play or not? 'Cause I'm just as cool playing Solitaire if you'd rather sit there and think about your lover-girl."

Judging by the slack jawed expression and even darker blush, I decided to lighten my comment with a wink. Darren smiled sheepishly at me, looking away from my eyes to assess the rest of my face. He did that sometimes. When I had first met him, I thought he did it out of fear of me or out of the usual human awe that caused all Cirque-goers to openly stare. But I learned that it was his way of telling what my emotions and thought were, like he was reading me.

I sat up and stared at him, letting my hair fall into my eyes again to hide me from his probing brown eyes. (Note to self, ask Truska for a haircut. I needed it badly, even if it did come in handy against Darren's stares.) We sat in that silence for a few minutes, and even I began to feel uncomfortable, which didn't happen often.

"Evra?"

"Hmmm?"

"You won't tell anyone will you?"

"Tell anyone what?" He had a tendency to be a little confusing, probably because of all the new things he was learning/not understanding from Mr. Crepsley. I began to feel uneasy about what he wanted me not to say anything about. Was he killing people like that crazy vampaneze a year or two back? Was he still plotting to kill his red clad mentor? Was he planning to leave the Cirque to be with Debbie?

"… Crepsley."

Feeling like a complete idiot, I asked him to repeat himself. But whatever it was, he must have thought that it would be shocking to me, so he repeated without the slightest hints of sarcasm.

"I think I'm in love with Mr. Crepsley."

Now it was my turn to have a slack jawed, blushing virgin expression. Darren looked away from me, favoring my still angry snake for someone to look at. It didn't make sense though. He and Crepsley had been together only three to four years now, and he was still just a… oh. I knew what was happening to him. He was at that stage of his life where his hormones went wild. The only part that made it worse for him was that it was only on the inside. And it would last five times longer than normal people.

"Darren, have you thought that maybe this is just… well, your Mini Me talking?"

He fixed me with another probing stare then, but this one was more stern. "My what?"

I sighed and covered my slowly darkening cheeks. "Your dick, Darren. Are you sure this isn't just puberty talking? That he isn't just a fling because you two are always in such close proximity?"

Laughter burst from the half-vampire like water from a broken dam, and he nearly flipped himself out of his hammock with each guffaw. I glared at him and crossed my arms, not knowing what was so funny about what I had said. Sure, I probably looked like a kid sitting there like that, but I wasn't about to give into the biggest thing Darren made fun of me for: scratching my left jaw when I was frustrated or emotional.

Once his outburst simmered down to a trickle of chuckles, my best friend finally said, "That won't start for a while yet, Mr. Von. You should know that."

"Why not?" I decided not to get angry at his snotty last statement. The urge to scratch my jaw was almost overwhelming.

"Puberty starts when the body matures to that point," he gestured to his still childlike form, "And I still haven't changed in that respect. It'll be a good ten years before that happens, thank God."

With an evil grin I added, "And then it'll last five times longer than any other boy's."

"What could be so bad about it? Mr. Crepsley said that—"

"That old bat hasn't been through puberty in over a century, Darren, so he can't tell you anything. I however have already gone through the worst of it, and I can tell you… it's not fun. Remember how my voice was cracking for weeks? And the growth spurts and the… oh, never mind. I'll let you experience the dreams later. They'll last you a good looooooong time."

The fear in Darren's eyes made me roll my eyes. "They aren't bad dreams unless you end up adverse to wanking."

"What's—"

"Just ask good ol' Crepsley. I'm sure, being the man that you love, he'll be more than happy to explain such things to you. Surprised he hasn't already. Among other things with the way you hang on him…" At that, Darren's face went pink again and I laughed.

"So how about those cards?" I asked to lighten the mood and get us back on more comfortable terms. He probably wasn't ready to talk about his relationship with Scarface and I didn't want to be bullied into telling him about the joyous miracle of puberty.

For a second, Darren just stared at me, and I thought he was going to ask me what wanking was again. But he just smiled and nodded, grabbing the worn little box off the ground and tossing it to me. Of course, being the jerk of a best friend he was, he had purposely thrown it too lightly, causing them to thump onto the ground about halfway to my hammock. When I snorted and gave him a very pointed look, he adopted an innocent smile and shrugged lightly.

Hopping down to the ground, I tied my hair back with a long thread I had pulled from my hammock, ready to give Darren the biggest whipping of his life via a game of Extreme Slap Jack. Just let Crepsley try to fix a broken finger or two with his magic vamp saliva! But as I walked to the cards and bent to pick the pack up, Darren made a sort of squeak.

"What is it? Awed by my amazing knot-tying skills?" I laughed, assuming he was surprised at my hair being pulled back 'like a girl's'. But he wasn't staring at my hair. He was staring at my face. "Darren? What's wrong? Am I shedding?"

"You're… jaw. And cheek. Evra… did you scratch yourself in your sleep?"

I touched my face gingerly, hoping not to find anything unusual. Nothing caused me any pain, and I felt no big irregularities in my scales other than what I had found a couple months earlier. "No, why?"

"Oh, God. No. Not you!"

With a scowl, I reached up to take my hair back down to hide my face. "If you don't like how I look…"

"We need to talk to Mr. Tall. And Mr. Creplsey."

Panic began to eat away at my stomach, making me feel the same way I did whenever my snake decided to dry-bite me. But Darren didn't need to see that I was freaked out by whatever he was being such a child about. "Yeah, let's talk to them about how you don't like irregularities in my scales. How sensitive of you, Darren. As if it wasn't bad enough that I look the part of the freak, you have to treat me like I—"

"Shut up, Evra. This is serious."

"What is it then?"

My best friend jumped from his hammock and rummaged in his bag leaning against the tent wall closest to him. With speed quicker than I thought possible for the half-vampire, he was next to me with a little handheld mirror in his palm. "Just look at yourself."

"Darren…?"

"Yes?"

"Why do you have a woman's compact in your purse?"

He slapped me over the back of the head and laughed humorlessly. "Just look at yourself would you?"

"Okay, okay."

I angled the tiny double mirror to where I could see the left side of my face and slightly under my jawline. A trio of small, nearly unnoticeable scratches were at the corner of my jaw leading up ever so slightly onto my cheek, but that was about it. What was Darren so freaked out for? It wasn't as if I was bleeding to death or disfigured. He was just overreacting as he tended to do… kind of like how he thought he was in love with Mr. Crepsley.

"Not seeing anything, Darren."

"Those scratches. Don't you see them?"

"Well, sure, but I don't see what the big deal is with a few—"

"Evra, don't you see? You've been marked!" He was wide-eyed and looked thoroughly ruffled, but I still didn't understand why. Was he just unable to handle his best friend looking less than flawless for the Cirque shows? Because, so help me God, if he had been going over the profits from the last shows with Mr. Tall…

"Marked by what exactly?" I asked with a barely restrained roll of my eyes and a tone slightly more annoyed than I meant it to sound.

He gripped my shoulders, staring at me with hard eyes. Whatever it was, he was getting angry about it. I flinched as Darren's grip tightened and his long, hard nails began to cut through my scales to my skin. With a growl, he then pulled me into the fiercest hug I had ever experienced in my half-reptilian life. As he embraced me he whispered two words that made my stomach drop like a rock into a lake.

"A vampaneze."

OHMYUSERNOES. A plot twist you had probably already thought would happen! *gasp* R&R, pretty please! (And critisism is much encouraged; I like to get better, not just stay how I am now.)