Disclaimer:I do not own Saga of Darren Shan or Steve Leonard, the character Rory Hollis is my creation though.
Rory had stepped out of the bathroom trailing behind her a stream of fresh steam that escaped into the open hallway. She had the habit of using very hot water which always fogged up the mirrors when she washed up, and she was still childish enough to write words on said mirrors. Even if no one ever saw them but her since the fog on the mirrors would lift after a few minutes. Pausing outside the door she took a moment to rub her hair with a small towel as she had to be speedy when using the bathroom. As she was staying at a pretty cozy countryside bed and breakfast for a few days. The only slight hitch about that was the communal shower and bathroom that all guests had to share with each other. She had just been lucky that lately there weren't many guests staying there so there really wasn't anyone having to wait on her, but she still tried to be as fast as she could just in case.
After getting most of the water out of her hair she draped the towel over her shoulders and began the long walk back to her own room. She had gone only a couple feet when she heard something.
It had sounded like her name and she had frozen in mid-step as soon as she heard it. She glanced around slowly wondering to herself if she had really heard it at all. The hallway was completely void of anyone besides herself. So she shrugged to herself and guessed that she must have imagined hearing her name being called. Her mind was quickly distracted as she started thinking about calling her mentor Luez to see if he was alright and to just check up on him in general. At the moment he was working on doing some research and she knew full well that once he got started on something it was easy for him to completely submerge himself into his work and forget about a lot of things.
"Rory..."
Rory froze and swiftly turned around as she was positive that someone had just said her name, but as she looked behind her she saw that once again the hallway was empty. Having heard her name a second time in the empty hallway was starting to put her on edge. She could feel her imagination coming up with all sorts of explanations for hearing her name being called and all of them caused waves of uneasiness crash over her as she pictured long dead spirits roaming the building, or scary monsters that probably didn't exists lying in wait for her. She shook her head and mentally scolded herself as she knew the ghosts and monsters weren't real and were all in her head and made up by her imagination. For a moment she could almost hear Luez laughing at her for being so silly as he always found it funny that a half-vampire like her was still scared of things like ghosts and scary movie monsters. There was nothing out there trying to get her she told herself again more firmly.
"It's not nice to be ignored..." whispered a voice so close to her ear so suddenly that it took her a second to react. She spun back around and saw that there was someone standing in front of her, which caused her to jump and let out a startled scream while she tried to backpedal away from them. She had been moving so fast that she didn't see where she was going and tripped over herself and caused her to land on her butt. She stared up at the figure expecting to see some sort of macabre specter while her heart felt like it was trying to break its way out of her chest. Instead of seeing some horrible dead person she saw something that still surprised her.
Steve Leonard was standing there over her with a smirk on his face, which only got wider as she saw the terrified expression on her face.
"Don't do that!" Rory yelled at him as soon as she heart managed to stop trying to explode and once she saw that she wasn't in any danger at all a huge sense of relief flooded through her. Before she realized it was happening she felt the corner of her eyes tear up as in that brief moment she really had been pretty terrified. Seeing her eyes start to water up he sheepishly lifted a hand and ran it through his hair.
"I couldn't help it, it was too good of an opportunity to waste." he admitted to her with a laugh. Her only response to that was to glare at him for a moment before brushing past him quickly to get back to her room without a word. He watched her for a moment before taking off after her. "Oh did I upset you?" he asked as he managed to keep pace behind her.
"No." she answered but he could tell from her voice that she was angry with him and he decided it was better to keep quiet that to keep pushing her buttons for the moment. So he followed her further down the hallway until they came to a set of stairs and Rory quickly began to climb them. He kept after her as he didn't want to lose her on the next floor. While climbing up the stairs it was easy to hear that he was still following her which irritated her just a little more that she already was. When the two of them had gotten close to the top of the stair case Rory stopped abruptly and turned around to face Steve.
"What are you even doing here?" she demanded as her mind finally started working again once the fear and anger had receded just a bit.
"I needed a place to rest yesterday and checked in here." he told her.
"You decide to wait until now to try and scare me to death?"
"Actually I didn't even know you were here until I saw you in the hall, and that's when I decided to say hello." he said with a short laugh.
"Why can't you say hi like a normal person?" she asked trying very hard to keep the anger out of her tone, but it wasn't easy.
"It's not as much fun." He told her with a shrug and a big smile.
"You're weird." She told him before turning her back towards him and leaving him there on the steps. She hoped that he had given up following her back to her room, but she didn't have much hope for that as you usually needed extreme force to stop Steve from doing whatever it was he felt like doing. Too bad she didn't take a moment to deck him while he was standing there on the staircase the fall all the way down could have bought her a few minutes to run to her room for safety. She had let him off easy because of that grin she gave her. He tended to do things that she found extremely annoying and yet each time she had a chance to push him off of something or hurt him she couldn't find the strength to do so after her smiled at her. She couldn't put her finger on what was it about his various smiles that seemed to distract her from exacting any sort of revenge. Once again she shook her head as she tried to dislodge the thought from her mind as she really did not want to think about it at that moment, or ever for that matter.
Looking straight ahead she saw that her room was getting closer, but she didn't want to give away which room she was staying in. So she stopped in the middle of the hallway and turned around to face him, and as she expected he was standing there a few feet away from where she stood.
"You're not following me to my room." She told him sternly and at those words he pouted just slightly.
"Why not?" he asked her using a mockingly disappointment tone.
"Because...you just aren't allowed!" she told him even though it was a very weak argument.
"That's not a very good reason." He said to her.
"Yes it is, it's my room and I need my privacy." She tried again hoping that her next reason would deter him.
"If you want to make it even you can come and see my room." He offered with a smug smile and a slight raise of one eyebrow. She could easily tell that there was a double meaning to his offer, which she did not want to take him up on.
"No thanks." She told him quickly as the last thing that she wanted was to be in his room alone with him. She tried to make herself not think about that situation, but the more she tried to push it out of her head the more it stayed and with visual images to keep it company. It wasn't long until she felt her face heating up which she knew mean that she was blushing.
"Your face is turning red." Steve pointed out as he watched her face for a moment in curiosity and not too long after that a tiny sinister grin appeared on his face which slowly got wider the longer she looked him in the eyes. "What are you thinking about?" he asked in a casual tone. Rory flinched at his words as she thought for a moment he could hear what she was thinking.
"Nothing!" she told him a little too quickly, which proved even more that she was thinking about something that might have been perverted. It didn't help her case that her face flushed even harder at that moment as well. Steve decided to try and change tactics to distract her before she tried to bolt as Rory had a high tendency to run whenever she was feeling embarrassed.
"I wonder if your room looks the same as mine." He said out loud to no one in particular. He watched in amusement as her face went from embarrassed to a look of disbelief. He could almost hear her ask him if he was being serious about his question.
"Exactly why would you want to know if they are the same or not?" she asked him as she really wanted to hear what sort of excuse he would give her.
"Curiosity," he told her "And for science." He added lamely with a shrug.
"Uh-huh, well sorry to burst your bubble Mr. Science, but you are not stepping one foot into my room."
"Come on just this once?" he begged her "Please?" he added as he attempted to try and pull off the sad puppy dog eyes look. Rory wasn't entirely sure to respond to the look as it seemed really out of place on Steve and to be honest it made her just a tad uncomfortable. The longer he stared at her with that look the more she just wanted him to stop making that face until she finally cracked.
"Ok! You can take a quick look inside…" she said with a grimace "Just stop making that face." Steve just smiled to himself at those words as he had known that he could get her to give in like that. He considered it one of his many talents that he had. "But I have one condition, you can only look. If you touch anything then I'm kicking you right out." She warned him.
"I'll be on my best behavior, promise." He told her as he took a moment to draw an 'x' over his heart as if to show that he was being serious. She let out a deep sign and turned around to start walking towards her room, and without turning around she motioned for Steve to follow her, which he did so without needing to be told twice. Just like before he stayed a few feet behind her to give her some personal space so she wouldn't do anything rash like change her mind and completely ruin his fun.
When Rory stopped in front of her door Steve stepped a bit close to that he was towering over from behind so he could get a decent first look into the room. Rory paused and turned around to say something to Steve, but she only jumped when she saw how close he was standing behind her and she made a startled noise.
"Don't sneak up on me!" she told him. Deciding to get it all over with she slid the old metal key into the lock and turned it. Hearing the lock unlatch she grabbed a hold of the door knob and turned while pushing the door forward at the same time. The door moved forward without a noise as she revealed the inside of her room. Leaning forward over her shoulder just slightly he tried to get a better look of the room.
The walls of the room were painted a very pastel yellow which made it seem very warm and inviting. Without waiting for Rory to move he slid past her and entered the room to continue his little tour. Rory didn't bother to say anything to him since he looked distracted for the moment. The furniture was all made of the same matching dark wood, and had a bit of an antique look to them thought it was obvious that the furniture wasn't actually that old. He noted the dressers in the room was similar to the one in his room, the TV stand was also the same. Even the sitting chair in the corner was the same.
"So is there anything different than what's in your room?" Rory asked as she followed him inside and watched as his head turned every which way to look at everything. While he was looking around Rory took the time to scan the room and make sure that nothing personal of hers way laying around out in the open. The last thing she wanted was for him to see her underwear laying out in the open somewhere and pass some sort of comment. Thankfully she didn't see anything lying around so far, but she still wasn't safe yet as casually as she could she made her way over to her bed and sat down on the edge. She waited until his back was facing towards her before she quickly peeked over the other edge of the bed to make sure she didn't have any laundry scattered around there, but she didn't see anything except her shoes so she relaxed.
Lifting a hand she reached up and touched her hair to check if it had dried up at all since she had left the bathroom. Her hair was still pretty damp so she removed the towel that she still had around her neck and started to rub her hair to try and dry it even more before she dripped water everywhere on the bed. Steve stopped looking around the room and turned his attention back towards Rory, and he saw that she had her guard down. He walked over to the bed and suddenly dropped himself onto the mattress. His sudden weight falling onto the bed had caused Rory who was sitting near the edge to bounce and fall off the bed. She wildly tried to grab onto the side of the bed to keep herself from falling but she was just out of reach and hit the floor with a heavy thud. She let out an irritated groan as she laid there on the floor for a moment. She then got onto her knees and glared at Steve over the edge of the bed.
He was lying across her bed and trying to hide his laughter from watching her fall off the bed, but he wasn't doing a very good job at it. Watching as he laughed at her made her glare at him even more as if she was hoping that her gaze might cause him to burst into flames or something close to it.
"You call that behaving?"
"It was too tempting to resist." He admitted to her with a laugh as he couldn't hold them in any longer, but he saw that her expression hadn't changed and for a moment he wondered if he was going to be in deep trouble. "I'll make it up to you." He said to her.
"How exactly are you going to do that?" she asked him sounding quite suspicious of him, as she didn't think that he would let her push him off anything to make it even.
"Come here and I'll tell you." He said motioning with his hand for her to come over to him. Rory still wasn't too sure about it but she was curious about how he was going to make it up to her. So against her better judgment she got back onto the bed and slowly crawled over to where he was. She sat still and waited for Steve to tell her what his plan was going to be, but he didn't tell her what he was going to do. He lifted himself up onto his elbows and then moved closer to her. Rory blinked in surprise as she had no idea what he was up to and unfortunately for her she wouldn't have guessed what had happened next. Steve leaned in close and before Rory could make any movements he pressed his mouth against hers. They stayed like that with their lips touching for almost a full minute before Steve pulled back. Rory seemed to be sitting there frozen is a surprised pose as it seemed as if her brain had stopped working completely. Seeing her like that made him laugh again which seemed to break her out of her trance.
"So how was that?" he asked her as she took a moment to recover, since it looked like her brain and turned back on. She opened her mouth to say something but then closed it again and tried for a second attempt to speak.
"What?" she asked as she sounded like she was still a bit out of it.
"I said 'how was that?'." He said repeating his question to her again.
"It was…really…" she tried to say but trailed off.
"I'm going to assume that you enjoyed that." He said with another laugh.
"What was that for?" she asked as she was still bewildered by his action.
"That was my way of making it up to you," he explained to her "But if you really want it, I can give you another." He offered as he leaned closer to her again, she stared at him as she tried to make sense of what he just said. It really didn't help her that he was so close to her and she felt her face start to heat up again and she knew that she was probably blushing again.
"So how about it? Do you want another one?" he asked trying to prompt her as she seemed to be taking a while to answer him. Rory really did try to give him some sort of answer, but she was only capable of making noises at that moment.
"Here let me help you decide." Steve said to her and kissed her again. Rory was a little prepared for the kiss this time, but it still managed to have the same effect as before. He rubbed his lips against hers a little and then pressed a tad more firmly against her mouth. She couldn't help but open her lips a little to him, and he left her lips move. He was incredibly tempted to slip a bit of tongue into the kiss, but he didn't want to spook her and have her try and run away so he had to restrain himself. If he could hold back on the urges he was feeling he could get her to slowly warm up to him, and hopefully prove as well that he wasn't trying to chase after for her body. A moment later he could feel Rory start to tremble a bit as their mouths were still pressed against each other. He guessed that she was starting to run out of air since she wasn't use to kissing for long periods of time like they were doing. Finally she pulled away from just enough so that she could get some air, and took a few deep gasps as she tried to refill her lungs with air.
After making sure she wasn't going to pass out from lack of air she risk a glance at him and saw that she was staring him straight in the eyes. He looked completely at ease and more calm than he usually did which was a little weird for her as she had never really seen his face so relaxed. There was just something about that, that seemed to draw her in towards him, and before she knew what she was doing she moved in closer to him. She had been only a few inches away from his face when he spoke.
"Now you owe me." He said to her.
"What?" she asked confused.
"I gave you two kisses so now you owe me." He told her smiling and leaned back from her so that he was laying on his back on the mattress.
"Exactly what is it that I owe you?"
"Hm…that's a good question." He murmured aloud and closed his eyes as he thought about what he might want from her. After a few minutes his face turned calm again and it almost looked like he had fallen asleep on the bed. Rory looked at him and couldn't help but look at his lips, as she did so she slowly rubbed a finger across her own as if she could still feel his there. She carefully scooted over to him and leaned down and pressed her lips against his to feel them again. Steve was surprised enough at the sensation to open his eyes and see her kissing him; willingly. She leaned closer down over him and like he had done before she carefully rubbed her lips against his, trying to get the same feeling like earlier. He lifted a hand and gently threaded it through her long dark hair and pulled her a little closer. She leaned even closer until she was nearly lying on top of him. Her soft chest was pressing into his and he resisted the strong impulse to feel her up; though he really wanted to. Rory timidly bit his lower lip, which surprised him, as he hadn't shown her that before so it was completely all of her doing. She pulled back and panted a little against his lips, as he still had his fingers in her hair and with his other hand he slowly traced the shape of her lips with his thumb.
"Steve…" she said to him nearly breathless.
"You still owe me one more." He replied to her before kissing her again.